Back in January Amazon announced their new AutoRip service, which gives customers free digital copies of any and all physical music they buy on Amazon (at launch, that simply meant MP3s for CD purchases).

Today, they’ve announced that AutoRip is extending its reach to vinyl.

“Starting today, when customers purchase an AutoRip vinyl record, a digital copy of that music will be automatically added to their Cloud Player libraries where it will be available, free of charge, for immediate playback or download. Customers no longer need to go through the hassle of making a digital copy of a vinyl record,” says Amazon.

One of the cool things about AutoRip is that it’s retroactive. Meaning, any CD or vinyl record that you’ve purchased since 1998 (as long as its AutoRip compatible) is instantly added to your Cloud Player.

It’s currently available for over 50,000 albums.

“AutoRip has been wildly popular with customers since it launched earlier this year,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon. “It’s a fun experience to suddenly find CDs you purchased just today – or 15 years ago -added automatically and free of charge to your digital library. We’re thrilled to extend this experience to vinyl records. Many of our music customers are vinyl fans and it’s traditionally been very difficult to make digital versions of vinyl records – now customers can enjoy the albums they buy wherever they are, not just when they have access to a record player.”

Clearly, Amazon’s goal in providing this service is to incentivize physical music sales, while also promoting use of their Cloud Player. Having digital copies of the music may not be a must for all vinyl collectors, but I don’t think anyone is going to scoff at the idea of free, retroactive MP3 copies of everything they buy.

[Image via Nina, Flickr]