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

from the why-not? dept

Thu, Jan 10th 2013 2:31pm — Mike Masnick

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

34 Comments

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

In a word...
No!
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:40pm

You lost a closing ) at the end of the 2nd paragraph.
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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.
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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.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:51pm

Why buy the plastic disc?
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2013 @ 2:54pm

Re: Re: It takes work to create an e-book
Their native format if you like.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Atkray (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:04pm

Re:
1: Buy disc on Amazon
2: Get MP3 for free
3: Return unopened CD to retail store
4:????
5: Profit!!!!
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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.
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Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:13pm

Re:
Well, mine are nicely stored on my offline external hard drive.
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Zakida Paul (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 3:13pm

Re: Re:
Same with my e-books.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?!
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G Thompson (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 4:03pm

Re: Re:
This is why we can't have nice things!!!

;)
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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.
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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!
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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.
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techflaws (profile), 10 Jan 2013 @ 10:40pm

Re:
Lossless backup.
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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.
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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.
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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 :)
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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.
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nasch (profile), 15 Jan 2013 @ 12:28pm

Re: Re:
3: Return unopened CD to retail store

What store takes returns with no proof of purchase?
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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.
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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?
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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
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