Music Ripper Services Flourish

Sales of Apple's iPods are soaring. Hoping to cash in on the trend is a growing side industry of companies that convert people's CD collections into digital music libraries.

Depending on how many CDs you need "ripped," or converted into digital files, Alameda-based startup Dmp3 Music does it for you, at a cost of $1 to $1.25 per CD.

Digital files are delivered back on a DVD or external hard drive within a week's time, for use in various portable digital music players.

For extra fees, Dmp3 will pick up and return your CDs and digital files rather than mail them (if you live in the Bay Area or Kansas City), load your iPod, and instruct you how to navigate Apple's iTunes music service.

"We're kind of a one-stop shop. We get you over the hump and set you up so that you can go off and live your digital music lifestyle on your own afterwards and add new music to it so that you don't need to keep coming back to us," said Daniel Robins, 40, vice president and co-owner of Dmp3, who runs the business from his Alameda house.

His partner, co-owner Dan McMinn, 40, founded the firm in San Francisco in January 2004. The idea stemmed from a conversation with his wife's friend who said she was willing to pay someone to load the several the severalhundred CDs she owned into her iPod.

McMinn was in between jobs at the time, so he figured the idea could be a viable business model. He posted ads on Craigslist.com and eventually got some media exposure from Wired Magazine and Tech TV.

"We started off with a desktop computer and a couple of CD drives, and we since developed new hardware and purchased equipment to automate things," said McMinn, who now runs a Midwest office in Lawrence, Kan.

Dmp3 now boasts of having served about 100 customers to date, with around 30,000 CDs having been converted.

Many of the firm's clients fall into two categories: technophobes or people who are just too busy to load their digital music players.

Recent customer Andrew Moran, 44, of Orinda, fits the latter. The co-owner of Moran Supply, an Oakland wholesale plumbing supply store, said he would never have even purchased his iPod if it weren't for Dmp3's service.

He read an article about the company, bought an iPod, then paid about $800 to have Dmp3 rip 357 of his CDs, which were then loaded by the company into an external hard drive and directly into Moran's iPod. Dmp3 also gave him a tutorial on how to navigate iTunes.

"I'm fairly computer literate, but I own my own business. I have three little kids and my wife," Moran said. "It was a pretty big project, a pretty expensive project. But now I can manage the whole thing."

While Dmp3's service is enticing, it's not entirely original. RipDigital, based in New York City and founded in 2002, provides CD-conversion services at about $1 per CD. The catch: the whole process must take place through the mail.

LoadPod, a Florida company launched in May 2004, is Dmp3's biggest competitor. It provides nationwide door-to-door pickup of your CDs and iPod. The company charges $1.29 to $1.49 per CD to rip and load the music into your iPod. However, it does not offer the option of providing the digital files on DVD or external hard drive, like Dmp3 and RipDigital do.