Amazon has launched a new service titled AutoRip, which provides online shoppers with free downloadable MP3 versions of the CDs they’ve bought from the website.

Pic.: Amazon AutoRip, www.amazon.com

Once a shopper has purchased an album with the AutoRip label, the tracks from it are automatically added to his or her Cloud Player account, which has 5GB free space (with this, the online retailer is taking on Apple and Google online storage services). After that, the digital tracks can be played in Cloud Player or downloaded on PC/Mac, Kindle Fire, Android phone, iPhone & iPod Touch, and iPad, so you can enjoy the music anytime and anywhere (even before the new physical CD arrives). More information about the service is here.

There are over 50,000 albums with the AutoRip label on every major record label, and the online retailer promises to add more soon. In fact, the new service is available for old purchases, too—if you bought an album as far back as 1998, you also can reclaim MP3 versions if the album or the single has the AutoRip label now.

So far, the service is available only to US consumers, but Amazon says it is going to launch it in any other markets by the end of 2013.