Amazon has been in the music business since 1998, which is a long time to keep track of customer purchase histories.  However, if you’ve bought your music collection from Amazon, you’ll be glad they’ve kept up with your purchases, because it’s going to benefit you in the end.  Amazon has announced the awesome AutoRip program, which rewards the purchase of any physical CD with a free downloadable MP3 version of the very same album.  Two albums for the price of one on all eligible CDs sold by Amazon, which covers 50,000 albums from every major label.  That’s a whole lot of music.

The amazing thing about AutoRip is just how far back it goes.  Any eligible CDs bought for the last decade from Amazon are now available via AutoRip in your MP3 files.  If you’re bought a lot of music from them, and I have, that’s a great deal.  If you’re a buyer of lower-priced physical media rather than the same price electronic files (and I am), that’s even better.

Now here’s the rub:  will this program expand?  Will we see free Kindle copies of paper books?  Download or streaming versions of the movies we’ve bought?  Given Amazon Prime’s impressive collection and the massive popularity of the Kindle, it seems like a great idea to expand the program.  The rights might be more difficult with book companies, but there’s no better time to use your political capital and ensure you can bridge the gap between physical sales and electronic sales with maximum efficiency (while encouraging even more Kindle sales).

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