Now That Amazon Is Offering Auto-Rip Of CDs You Bought, Will It Do The Same For Books?

from the why-not? dept

Times change. Amazon is making some news by launching an auto-rip service that puts MP3 copies of songs into your Amazon cloud storage when you buy CDs. Some have been comparing this to the old MP3.com "Beam It!" service that got MP3.com sued out of existence a while back, but this is quite different on one key dimension: Amazon has licensing deals with the major labels which specifically allow this (which also means it doesn't work on all CDs).

Still, this move does raise some interesting question. For example: why not do this for books too? Why not have it so that when you buy a physical book, a digital copy automatically shows up on your Kindle? Of course, the real answer isn't difficult to glean: because the publishers have no interest at all in doing this (yet). I expect they'll do it eventually, but the publishers are still going through the same denial phase that many in the recording business went through earlier, and so it's probably still going to be at least a year before some publisher comes around to such a deal (and then it will be announced as "big news" when it happens).

Another interesting question is whether or not the "AutoRip" service leads to more resells of CDs soon after people buy them. As Sherwin Siy notes, it may not actually be different than buying a CD and ripping it yourself, but the automated nature of it may make it easier to simply pass on the CD. Of course, does that mean you're legally supposed to delete the MP3s too? I'm sure the industry would argue that's the case, but it might not be that clear cut.

In the end, this really is the kind of thing that the recording industry should have embraced a decade ago, so welcome to the party (a bit late).
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Filed Under: autorip, books, digital copies, licenses, music
Companies: amazon


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  • icon
    Jeff (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:33pm

    In a word...

    No!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:40pm

    You lost a closing ) at the end of the 2nd paragraph.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:48pm

    It takes work to create an e-book

    Unlike the conversion from analog to digital for audio, an e-book is more than just a straight scan of text - its often reformatted, reorganized, and hopefully actual text (instead of an image of text).

    When you buy an e-book, part of what you're buying is the service to conform the information in the book into a different form factor.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:52pm

      Re: It takes work to create an e-book

      Actually that's what you're buying when you buy a paperback book, or a hardback book, a pocket sized edition or a coffee table edition, they're all formats and the vast majority if not all of them nowadays exist firstly in a digital format.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:54pm

        Re: Re: It takes work to create an e-book

        Their native format if you like.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Rikuo (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:09pm

      Re: It takes work to create an e-book

      More and more often, people are doing that in their own time and for free. As I write, there are a couple torrents on the Piratebay of the newly released fantasy book "A Memory of Light", the final book in the "Wheel of Time" series. There's already talk in the comments of people using open-source programs to correct formatting and other errors of the scan. So I, as a consumer, will coldly look here and see that I can get the same service as the professionals, but for the cost of $0.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Zos (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:27pm

        Re: Re: It takes work to create an e-book

        it's funny you should mention "a memory of light". Like most Jordan fans i'd been looking forward to the final book for ages. i was all set to order a physical copy so i'd have the full set on my shelf....but i don't read dead tree anymore, i read on my kindle.

        So i was a little irked to say the least when i found out that the digital edition was pushed back to april.

        OFC 12 hours later we had an epub scan available all over the place, so i said screw it and cancelled my dead tree, i'll buy that shit at a second hand store somewhere down the road.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Tim Griffiths (profile), 11 Jan 2013 @ 4:35am

        Re: Re: It takes work to create an e-book

        HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET THAT BOOK WAS COMING OUT! Thanks for reminding me :)

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:54pm

      Re: It takes work to create an e-book

      Why can't they make the e-books form the same word prossing file they make the printed books from?!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2013 @ 1:20am

        Re: Re: It takes work to create an e-book

        Then all the book scammers will be out of work. I mean book scanners.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      jm, 19 Aug 2013 @ 7:18pm

      Re: It takes work to create an e-book

      But books start as digital copies so really it takes no more effort

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:51pm

    In one way it is what many people do, on another way it is promoting Amazon cloud services. At least you get to listen to the copy while waiting for delivery; which might reduce use of pirate sites.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    jupiterkansas (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:51pm

    Why buy the plastic disc?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:55pm

    Offering free digital versions of CDs bought from Amazon that, chances are, you have already ripped to mp3. I know I have.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 9:22pm

      Re:

      Yeah, but for newly purchased CDs if they offer the downloads immediately after you click "buy", you get both the immediacy/convenience of digital downloads *and* the quality/collectability/permanence of CDs.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:58pm

    As for books, there should be a service where you enter the ISBN and you get a digital copy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    usul_of_arakis (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:00pm

    And when Amazon lose the licensing deals and have to switch off the service.. where do your MP3s go?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:13pm

      Re:

      Well, mine are nicely stored on my offline external hard drive.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:13pm

        Re: Re:

        Same with my e-books.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        usul_of_arakis (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:16pm

        Re: Re:

        Mine too. I would never recommend using an online service as a backup. Always keep an offline copy.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:38pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          The only online services I have accounts for are Amazon, Google Play, and 7 Digital. That's only because my music automatically goes into their clouds automatically. Cloud storage is all well and good but keeping offline copies is just good sense.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chris Brand (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:02pm

    Deleting the MP3s

    That is interesting, not least because (a) it's not the purchaser doing the ripping, and (b) there is apparently some sort of license between Amazon and the record companies.

    In Canada, C-11 made it so that your "private copies" were only legal if you continued to own the originals, but these don't sound like "private copies", they sound like freebies given to you by Amazon, in accordance with their license with the record companies.

    I guess it would come down to what conditions they impose on you when they give you (access to) the MP3s.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:25pm

    Sure, it something you're buying in those cases too, with the addition of the physical object.

    But I don't see any conflict between what you said and what I put forth - there is creative labor that needs to be expended to create an e-book, which is not the case for converting the CD's audio file into an MP3. The latter is a process which is completely without creativity, and can be completely automated (moreover, even automation probably isn't necessary, as Amazon likely has a digital copy already).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:31pm

    This is true, but you'll note that just because its being done for 'free' doesn't mean effort and labor aren't expended. While Amazon can provide an MP3 from a disk for extremely 'cheap' (at most, they have to automatically rip the MP3 from the disk, in reality they probably already have it because they sell MP3s), they do not have a similar means in place for converting the paper book they sell into an e-book.

    While there are e-books on Amazon for a good number of the books, unlike the MP3 conversion process this is something that was created a) by a person, and more importantly b) by an entity _other than Amazon_ meaning they cannot simply give it away. Or at the very least, they would be 'buying' that e-book then 'giving' the e-book to the user who bought the book.

    That there are additional contracts with (arguably illegal, I believe?) price floors Amazon must abide by for these e-books (meaning they cannot sell it for $0, and give the e-book rightsholder $n percent of $0 for the 'sale') reinforces this idea.

    I do think it would be an interesting legal case if I, owner of $book, went to the Pirate Bay and found a free (libre) e-book version of $book, and was then tried for infringement, etc. In a sane world, I obviously would have some sort of license to the work (because it would / should not be illegal for me to take $book and type it up myself), and if I only downloaded it, I'm not contributing to other 'infringement') but readers of this site are fully aware that copyright law is, if not often, at least occasionally insane.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Michael, 11 Jan 2013 @ 4:56am

      Re:

      they do not have a similar means in place for converting the paper book they sell into an e-book

      Perhaps you missed it, but Amazon sells eBooks. The sell this device they call a Kindle. It displays electronic copies of books so you can carry around lots of books on a single light weight device. They also have apps for Apple and Android devices (I'm not going to explain what those are).

      If you buy a physical copy of a paperback from Amazon, giving you the same eBook has a marginal cost so low that zero is the best way to describe it.

      As far as someone else owning the rights to the eBook - that would be the publisher - you know, they same company that is letting Amazon sell THE BOOK. The article noted that the problem is probably not Amazon, it is the idiot publishers that didn't look at the music industry and haven't figured out the economics of marginal costs and the benefits of providing customers what they want. The same guy that tells Amazon to sell the paperback can tell them to give away the eBook with it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 6:14pm

    I would simply like a guarantee that the publisher looked over the ebook once before publishing it. I'm so tired of paying $10 for something that is barely legible.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    artp (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 7:26pm

    Question?

    So, does the artist get paid for both the paper copy AND the digital copy?


    Inquiring minds want to know!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    techflaws (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 10:43pm

    Another interesting question is why they would even need a license. After all, the buyer paid once for the music and can make mp3s of it as he wishes. Of course I know the industry would love to get paid again for format shifting (and even per playback) but that's just crazy talk.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Daniel, 20 Feb 2013 @ 6:59am

    Were doing this

    Hey the team at http://lightlibrary.net/ is already working on this. We just set up a beta testing program, so come sign up at our website and get discounted e versions of your hard copy books.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    virtualprincipal (profile), 22 Apr 2013 @ 9:43am

    What Happens?

    So let's say one of the new licensing deals is cut. Do I lose my mp3's?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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