We’re talking about Amazon “AutoRip,” a new service that gives customers MP3 versions of any CDs they purchase on Amazon. When a customer purchased a CD that’s AutoRip eligible, Amazon throws the corresponding MP3s onto their Cloud Player library. It all takes place automatically and for free.

And Amazon says that AutoRip is retroactive. If you’re purchased an AutoRip CD any time between now and 1998, you can expect MP3 version of those CDs to be waiting for you in your Cloud Player library.

“What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs… and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Well, starting today, it’s available to all of our customers – past, present, and future – at no cost. We love these opportunities to do something unexpected for our customers.”

Every AutoRip MP3 is stored in your Cloud Player library but doesn’t count against the storage limits. The AutoRip MP3s will be rendered in 256 Kbps.

“AutoRip is available for industry-wide top-sellers like ’21′ by Adele; new and recent releases like ‘¡Uno!’, ‘¡Dos!’ and ‘¡Tre!’ by Green Day, ‘Overexposed’ by Maroon 5, and ‘The Truth About Love’ by P!nk; classics like ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd and ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson; and Amazon customer favorites like ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ by Susan Boyle, which was the most pre-ordered album of all time on Amazon,” they say.

AutoRip is currently available on 50,000+ albums. If you want to know if a CD is AutoRip compatible before you buy, just look for the AutoRip logo on the page.

Sure, it’s not a huge breakthrough – and CD sales will continue to decline even if digital copies are part of the deal. But by putting users’ MP3s in Amazon’s Cloud Player automatically, the company is increasing the chances that users will stick to Amazon for their streaming desires (and forgo iTunes or Google Play).

The petition, created by 21-year-old Philip Matesanz, asks Google to “break their silence and participate in an open and fair discussion” regarding the practice of translating YouTube videos into MP3 files.

Matesanz is the creator of one of the most popular third-party recording sites, YouTube-MP3.org. Last month, Google targeted the site by threatening Matesanz with a lawsuit unless he voluntarily took down his conversion site.

To be perfectly clear what we’re talking about here, this is exactly what YouTube-MP3.org does:

YouTube-mp3.org is the easiest online service for converting videos to mp3. You do not need an account, the only thing you need is a YouTube URL. We will start to convert the audiotrack of your videofile to mp3 as soon as you have submitted it and you will be able to download it.

A couple of weeks after the threat, Matesanz created the petition on Change.org. Within three days, it already has over 180,000 signatures. Here’s some of it:

For decades people were allowed to take a private copy of a public broadcast. You could record the radio program with a cassette recorder or make a copy of your favorite movie by using a video recorder. All these techniques have been opposed heavily in its early years by the big media companies who didn’t want the public to have such technology. They did describe such technology as criminal and as a threat to their business e.g. the 1980s campaign Home Taping Is Killing Music.

Several years later history is about to repeat: Google has teamed up with the RIAA to make the same claims against all sorts of online recording tools for their 21th century broadcasting service: YouTube (“Broadcast yourself”). Google is taking action against nearly every service that enables its users to create a private copy of a public YouTube broadcast while the RIAA is threatening news media like CNet for promoting such a software.

Now, after only existing for a few weeks, the petition has over 1.1 million signatures, with only about 400,000 needed to reach the next petition level.

“In the past, people have been able to record TV shows and CDs using home recording equipment,” Matesanz said. “Now, YouTube wants to block users doing the same from its site. I launched this petition to make the point that changing technology should not affect peoples’ rights as consumers.”

“I have been amazed at the response to my petition but surprised that the company has not responded. I would very much like to sit down with them and discuss this issue.”

As of right now, Matesanz’s site is up and running smoothly.

The petition comes on the heels of the announcement that Google is going after the video-to-mp3 conversion site with the obvious title, YouTube-MP3.com, something that’s reflected in the petition’s introduction:

For decades people were allowed to take a private copy of a public broadcast. You could record the radio program with a cassette recorder or make a copy of your favorite movie by using a video recorder. All these techniques have been opposed heavily in its early years by the big media companies who didn’t want the public to have such technology. They did describe such technology as criminal and as a threat to their business.

Several years later history is about to repeat: Google has teamed up with the RIAA to make the same claims against all sorts of online recording tools for their 21th century broadcasting service: YouTube (“Broadcast yourself”). Google is taking action against nearly every service that enables its users to create a private copy of a public YouTube broadcast while the RIAA is threatening news media like CNet for promoting such a software.

I hereby ask Google to break their silence and participate in an open and fair discussion with the intention to find a solution that suits the needs of the users.

It should be noted that while consumers could tape music from the radio or make duplicates of other tapes with a dual-cassette setup, it wasn’t necessarily smiled upon by the powers that were. In fact, the MPAA went all out against the technology that was videocassette recorders (VCRs). The difference being, media consumption in the 80s was very much a one-way process, with the consumer having little recourse regarding feedback. Sure, an occasional letter might have made capitalism work in your favor, but there certainly weren’t multiple avenues of communication like those offered by Facebook and Twitter.

With that in mind, should users be able to make copies of YouTube content, be it in the form of third part video recording software or through sites that rip the video’s soundtrack out, converting it to an MP3? While the comparison between DVRs and Internet broadcasts are based in logic, it’s impossible to see the current powers that be siding with the user here, especially when you consider the massive fuss these content providers have made about YouTube in the past. Perhaps a balance could be struck allowing users who upload their own self-created content to give their viewers the option of downloading the file.

Other than that, it’s hard to see a day that the RIAA says “sure, you can download any of the music you like from YouTube’s VEVO service, unless the song was purchased by the viewer first. As pointed out by GigaOm, the petition has over 180,000 signatures since it was put up three days prior. While the support is admirable, it’s hard to see this working out in their favor.

At the Dive Into Media conference today, Neil Young spoke on music piracy and music quality. He detailed his solution to audio quality and his relationship with Steve Jobs.

Speaking first on the MP3 format, Young said that digital formats are convenient, but they sound lousy. He said that his goal is to “rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for the past 50 years.” He blames the digital age for the degradation of music quality.

Modern digital formats sound great on my phone and I have no problem with it. Young, however, rightly points out that the digital encoding only captures a small percent of the musical data in a master recording.

Young doesn’t hate digital formats, far from it. He just feels that the “digital age” has caused people to choose between quality and convenience. “They shouldn’t have to make that choice,” Young said.

The solution is hardware that can play audio files that preserve more of the data present in the original recordings according to Young. He isn’t making that solution though. He’s leaving the heavy lifting to “some rich guy” like Steve Jobs.

Speaking of Jobs, Young says that he was a “pioneer of digital music, and his legacy is tremendous.” He says that Jobs listened to vinyl at home after a day’s work. If Jobs were to live long enough as Young has, he’s sure that Jobs would have found a solution.

He then moved onto record companies and whether or not they’re obsolete:

“What I like about record companies is that they present and nurture artists. That doesn’t exist on iTunes, it doesn’t exist on Amazon. That’s what a record company does, and that’s why I like my record company. People look at record companies like they’re obsolete, but there’s a lot of soul in there — a lot of people who care about music, and that’s very important.”

He then said that artists that complain about record companies should go it alone and become indie artists.

At the end of the talk, he tackled the sensitive issue of piracy:

“Piracy is new radio. That’s how music gets around.”

Starting yesterday, Napster officially began merging with Rhapsody, the largest on-demand music service in the United States. Back in October, Best Buy, the parent company of Napster, agreed to sale to Rhapsody for an undisclosed amount of money.

“This deal will further extend Rhapsody’s lead over our competitors in the growing on-demand music market,” said Jon Irwin, president, Rhapsody. “There’s substantial value in bringing Napster’s subscribers and robust IP portfolio to Rhapsody as we execute on our strategy to expand our business via direct acquisition of members and distribution deals.”

Combining the subscriber bases of the two largest on-demand music services will allow Rhapsody to further enhance it’s offerings, and try their damnedest to stay ahead of Spotify (where Napster co-founder, Sean Parker, is a major investor). According to Adam Parness, the senior director of music licensing for Rhapsody, they’ve seen an increase in subscriptions for the service since Spotify came state side. “We have seen tremendous growth since spotify came onto U.S. soil,” he said. “It validates our model.”

It’s unclear how many subscribers Rhapsody gained, seeing how the merger is now complete.

What are some of your memories of Napster? Will it be remembered fondly? Let us know your thoughts in the comment area below.

That’s right, Gaga’ new release is once again available on Amazon for 99 cents. Granted, the format is digital, but in this day and age of mobile device dominance, does that even matter? The promotion is humorously called “This Time We’re Ready,” although, the proof of that will obviously be in the way Amazon performs.

Of course, most Gaga fanatics already have the “Born This Way,” so the rush shouldn’t be as taxing as it was on May 23rd. Craig Pape, director of music for Amazon, had this to say about the re-release, er, release at the special price deal:

“Clearly customers are really excited for Lady Gaga’s new album – we saw extraordinary response to Monday’s promotion – far above what we expected – she definitely melted some servers. So we’re doing it again, and this time we’re ready. We’re pleased to offer ‘Born This Way’ – the whole album – for $0.99 today only. Along with this purchase, customers get 20 GB of free Amazon Cloud Drive storage so they can store and play their music anywhere. If you missed it the first time, don’t miss it today.”

Upon its release, “Born This Way” went directly to the top of Amazon’s top-selling MP3s list, and it hasn’t changed since. Undoubtedly, the “This Time We’re Ready” promotion will solidify Gaga’s standing as ruler of Amazon’s MP3 department. What are your thoughts on the Gaga’s newest release? Love it? Hate it? Let us know what you think.

The Commission pointed to a study that found listening to personal music players at a high volume over a long period can lead to permanent hearing damage and 5 to 10 percent of listeners risk permanent hearing loss. It’s estimated that up to 10 million people in the EU may be at risk.

Meglena Kuneva,
EU Commissioner

"It’s easy to push up the sound levels on your MP3 player to damagingly loud levels, especially on busy streets or public transport. And the evidence is that particularly young people – who are listening to music at high volumes sometimes for hours each week- have no idea they can be putting their hearing at risk. It can take years for the hearing damage to show, and then it is simply too late," said Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner.

"These standards make small technical changes to players so that by default, normal use is safe. If consumers chose to override the default settings they can, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risks they are taking."

The EU plans to implement the new MP3 volume standards after a 24-month process involving scientists, industry and consumer groups as well as other stakeholders.
 

Recent by comments by Microsoft executives have led to speculation that Microsoft may abandon the Zune.

Microsoft CEO Ballmer declared at CES that consumers increasingly were moving away from one task devices like the Zune towards smart phones while at the same time stating flatly that no Zune phone was in the works.

Microsoft president of the Entertainment and Devices Division Robbie Bach told the press, "We have already started to see some flattening and even declining in the stand-alone MP3 player market. I think you’ll see that continue. As phones get more capable, as battery life gets better, people’s desire to have their music with them along with their phone is certainly going to go up."

A Look Inside A Very Controversial Startup

You paid for that mp3 and you don’t want it anymore. Why not sell it? Despite a a legal quagmire that suggests that you shouldn’t, startup bopaboo.com says you can and they’ll help you. 

Still in private beta, bopaboo provides a simple marketplace to buy and sell mp3′s and potentially other digital content. In a test, I was able to upload a random mp3 and have it on sale for 45 cents (a typical price) in seconds. Using a bopaboo provided $1 credit, I bought another mp3 and downloaded it easily.  Seconds later, since it was still in my online locker (bopabox) as well as on my computer, I had the same track back up for sale.

Therein lies the legal rub for the music industry and for bopaboo, the ease with which digital music can be copied.  Music attorney John Strohm looked at the issue…

and concluded that the most obvious illegal act happened when the track was copied and bopaboo did not do the copying. But "is there a way to confirm that the files being sold are obtained legally and that the seller is not retaining copies?," he wrote on Idolator. "If not, is a company truly able to insulate itself from liability through its terms of use, and are consumers willing to take the risk?"

In other words, just like a pawn shop can be prosecuted for selling goods it could reasonably have suspected were stolen, bopaboo might be proven to be facilitate and even encourage the sale of illegally copied tracks and the buyer to have purchased stolen or copied goods.

Bopaboo is not unaware of the legal challenges it is certain to face. "When we began Bopaboo, we set for ourselves not a modest challenge: can we provide consumers a legal method and marketplace to buy and sell digital music?," executive Alex Meshkin wrote on the company’s official blog. The next chapter’s should be interesting.

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A new study by JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, predicts that digital music will grow from the current 18% to 41% of total sales in 5 years. Researchers credited stores like Amazon and the transition to mp3′s which make downloads portable for some of the increase.

The "U.S. Music Forecast 2008 to 2013" predicts that growth in digital music sales will not compensate for declining CD sales, with the U.S. music market shrinking over the next five years from $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion.

64% of subscribers to digital music services and 57% of those who download music also bought a CD in a store within the last year. Regular digital music consumers have shifted 60% of their music spending to digital. The study predicts that music on cell phones will only contribute 3% to overall sales or $300 million by 2013.

ANALYSIS: While the CD will continue to hang on, most..