Lazy new iPod owners rescued by ripping idea

For those with a huge music collection, a lazy temperament and a newly acquired iPod, one company thinks it has the answer.

US-based LoadPod is offering music fans with more CDs than time a way to get all their favourite tunes onto their iPod without having hours of ripping ahead of them. LoadPod will come to the door, pick up the CDS, rip all the tunes to an iPod and return them within five days.

The service costs $1.50 (it's only available in some states of the US and Canada at the moment) per CD and a $20 pick up fee, which is waived for those who want more than 100 CDs ripped. The CDs have to shop-bought rather than home-made, so the company can avoid any tricky legal wrangling over piracy.

The start-up company is getting into a very healthy market, according figures from to analyst house JupiterResearch. According to their statistics, the digital music market will be worth $270m in 2004, growing to $1.7bn in 2009.

MP3 players will also follow the same upward tangent, with shipments rising by 50 per cent in 2004 to more than five million units shipped, says Jupiter.