When Michael Robertson heard news of AutoRip, the new Amazon service that automatically adds high-quality MP3s to Cloud Player when you buy a CD, he must have had a sense of deja vu. After all, the entrepreneur introduced a similar service way back in 1999. Unfortunately, it wasn't licensed by the recording industry, and they sued it out of existence. He tried again with a licensed service in 2007, but only one label would cut a deal and the company failed to gain traction.

In a Friday interview with Ars Technica, Robertson told us that the major labels' decision to license AutoRip represents a sea change in their attitudes toward cloud music services. Until the last couple of years, the labels were relentlessly hostile to the idea that consumers should have the freedom to store DRM-free music online. But a series of business failures and legal defeats forced the labels to face reality. And so fourteen years after Robertson first floated the concept, consumers finally have the freedom to instantly get an MP3 when they buy a CD online.

Robertson's first company, MP3.com was one of the hottest startups of the dot-com boom when it launched what we would now call a cloud music service, My.MP3.com, in 1999. The service included a feature called "Beam-It" that allowed users to instantly stock their online lockers with music from their personal CD collections.

And MP3.com also signed deals with several online CD vendors. If a user bought a CD from one of those vendors, MP3s of the songs on the CD would immediately become available for streaming from the user's MP3.com music locker.

Licensed services like iTunes were still years in the future, largely because labels were skittish about selling music online. But Robertson believed he didn't need a license because the service was permitted by copyright's fair use doctrine. If a user can rip his legally purchased CD to his computer, why can't he also store a copy of it online? Robertson didn't see himself as facilitating copyright infringement. He just wanted to give users a more convenient way to get music they had already paid for.

But the courts disagreed, ruling that MP3.com needed licenses from copyright holders to operate the service. And the labels simply weren't interested in Robertson's vision of convenient and flexible music lockers. So MP3.com was driven into bankruptcy, and the "buy a CD, get an MP3" concept fell by the wayside.

Try, try again

Robertson tried again a few years later. In 2005 he founded another locker service called MP3tunes. And in 2007, he started AnywhereCD, an online CD store that would automatically stock a user's MP3tunes locker with music from purchased CDs. This time, Robertson did seek licenses from copyright holders for the CD-to-MP3 functionality.

Unfortunately, the labels were still wary of the cloud music concept. Only one of the major labels, Warner Music, licensed their music to AnywhereCD. Meanwhile, MP3tunes itself was hit with a lawsuit from the major labels, who claimed that storing music on behalf of users was copyright infringement.

With only one major label on board, AnywhereCD failed to gain traction and soon closed up shop. When a ruling was finally issued on the MP3tunes lawsuit, it was a mixed verdict. The courts didn't completely exonerate MP3tunes, but it upheld the basic concept of cloud music and provided a clear blueprint for future cloud music services that wanted to stay within the boundaries of the law. And while it largely prevailed in the courtroom, the costs of the litigation forced the company into bankruptcy last year.

"More of a novelty"

In 2011, a few months before the MP3tunes ruling, Apple, Amazon, and Google all entered the cloud music business. Apple's service was licensed by the labels, but Google's and Amazon's were not. And while some of the labels rattled their sabers in the direction of Google and Amazon, none of them actually sued to shut those services down.

The announcement of Amazon's AutoRip is a signal that the labels have made peace with the cloud music concept. Thanks in part to Robertson's efforts, the courts have clearly affirmed the legality of cloud music services. And with that sticking point gone, consumers can finally get free MP3s when they buy a CD.

"Somebody has to go first and take the arrows," Robertson told us. "I went first and took the arrows. People look at me as the bad boy of music. I find that comical because these are good ideas that if implemented would have a positive impact on the music industry."

But he argued that the labels accepted AutoRip too late for it to do much good for the bottom line. Robertson says that his retail partners in 1999 saw their sales increase by 20 to 40 percent when they signed up for MP3.com's side-loading service. Robertson believes that if the labels had embraced his user-friendly approach in 1999, it could have slowed the decline of the CD.

"This was a phenomenal idea that could have had an amazing impact in 1999," Robertson told us. "I would contend today that this more of a novelty. The CD has declined so greatly that it's left the consciousness of young people."

Correction: An earlier version of this story suggested MP3.com was based in Silicon Valley. It was actually based in San Diego.