You think you’re pretty special, don’t you? Look at you, hearing a song you like and immediately searching it out on iTunes and paying for it with your own, hard-earned money. Getting your music the legal way, are we? Good for you. Well, we’re here to tell you that you’re being taken for a ride.

That’s right, cheapskates of the world rejoice, because there’s a new, little-known way to be a complete skinflint and it’s not what you’d expect. In fact, this news even better for Aussies, whose coin is being wasted by the dreaded “Australia tax”, which adds exorbitant extra costs to content that can be purchased cheaply anywhere else.

Just ask Gizmodo‘s Brian Barrett, who just bought his first CD in eight years and is highly recommending you try this strange, alien practice yourself. Why? Well, after searching out Taylor Swift’s new album, 1989, on Amazon, he discovered the online retail giant’s AutoRip feature.

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What this means is that when a shopper purchases the 1989, Amazon chucks in the MP3 album for free and you can download it immediately. Best of all, the MP3 album by itself is actually 25 percent more expensive than the CD.

The latter may come as a surprise to some — after all, there’s no printing or pressing that needs to go into making an MP3, right? — though it shouldn’t, Kindle ebooks are regularly pricier than their paperback counterparts.

The reason for this is that digital prices are negotiated separately. In fact, there’s a set price for them. However, Amazon can work around that set price if it knows you own a physical copy of the music you’re attempting to purchase.

In this case, Amazon can essentially gift you the MP3 version without paying the artist and label extra money, since you already own it, hence AutoRip. As Barrett writes, “It’s a loophole, a way to offer competitive pricing that its digital contracts don’t allow. Or seems to be, anyway. It’s hard to think of another explanation that makes any sense.”

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Of course, there’s a downside to this. Buying a CD to save a couple dollars on the download price is a little wasteful, but likely having not bought a CD in ages, you’re forgetting the countless applications that CDs offer.

While services like Spotify have admittedly incredible catalogs, there are still artists that simply choose to eschew the whole streaming thing, while continuing to release all of their content in the “archaic” medium of CDs.

Besides bearing higher fidelity than downloads, they also have resale value (not much, but more than trying to flog MP3s at your next garage sale), and can be used as a cheap substitute for a frisbee, coasters, or even a shaving mirror.

So the next time you’re looking to contribute a few bucks to your favourite artist’s dwindling royalty payouts, save yourself a few coins too, jump on Amazon, and get the CD – it’s worth it.

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