I happily pay for Audible. It is probably the one Amazon service I truly appreciate. That said I think I should have the right to archive the library DRM free given that I have already paid for it. I don't think this should be considered piracy at all.
If you want to pay for audiobooks, Libro.FM is a DRM free alternative that allows you to easily download your books without any issues that Libation solves for. It also supports local bookstores in your community while not giving more to Amazon. Only a handful of books aren’t available on Libro but it’s been a seamless transition for us. It’s only going to be difficult if you’re one of those folks who returns/refunds audible credits regularly as it’s not easy to do with Libro.
I run audiobookshelf with drm free audiobooks, but the nicest thing about kindle/audible is the syncing that happens between them - read on an e-reader, and your progress in the audiobook gets updated.
Anyone know of a solution that provides similar capabilities?
I've definitely spent way too much and own way too many books, but I'd be nervous that they're going to ban me if I tried to archive my however many hundred books on there.
They should absolutely be required to outright allow it though.
My library is just over 400 audio books, and I was able to download all of them without issue this last Nov. It does make it look like it's being downloaded to a legitimate device. Nothing too suspicious. I actually bought an old phone and did this manually and then kept the device off the internet for my original backup. This would look just like that.
I doubt they really care, there's still a way (to my knowledge) to download audiobooks from audible to mp3. You have to dig a bit to find the option from what i remember. This just makes it easier and in chapterized .m4b goodness.
If anyone is into selfhosting things I recommend audiobookshelf if you want to self host and stream audiobooks. Such a cool project!
+1 to audiobookshelf, it's an amazing project! My wife loves it too, she can browse through the collection and listen to whatever without having to look through a bunch of folders and whatnot. I recently added my brother and mother to the server and they have appreciated it too!
Removing DRM and archiving is perfectly legal here in Estonia, only thing that counts as piracy here is distributing copyrighted materials without a license. I'm pretty sure it's not in the US but check your local laws.
Removing DRM and archiving are also legal in the US but it doesn't stop the megacorps from getting your internet cut off and suing you into poverty if they find out.
Did you know that authors only get 25% cut from their book? Amazon is pocketing the rest.
Sanderson said couple of days ago, that he made them change it and it should come to effect sometimes in 2024. We don't know what the new terms are, but I doubt it is even remotely close to already pretty low industry standard of 70%. I would guess it will be somewhere around 40 at best.
I don't know how people manage to use Libby. Always takes months to get the book I'm wanting to read, which is fine if it's a one-off, but I really like reading long series
I was slightly okay with Audible's DRM when the credits you got each month stacked with the older ones, so you could have 4 over the months as you still listened to the books you already had, and then exchange them for newer books of the series and what not.
And then my brother and I stopped paying, and the credits were there for a month. Check back later, 0 credits. The books are still there, but the credits we paid money for are gone. So that sucks. Fuck em.
They make it pretty clear that you lose credits when you cancel. I don't love that, but when you consider how much of a discount credits can be from the cheapest other way to buy some books, I don't think it's really unreasonable, either.
As for you seemingly repeatedly exchanging books for new ones, that's definitely not the intent of them allowing you to return books you're not happy with.
I meant exchanging the credits for the books, not books for books. Apologies if that came off as unclear.
And a lot of the online ads on podcasts and shows constantly state "it's all yours to keep as long as you want" so my brother and I, both thought it was to all, not just the books. It's why we were okay with paying for another month to allow more credits to stack up, as not every book was 1 credit.
It used to be 12 months, and I was so mad at that that I stopped subscribing, used all my credits, and basically never went back. I won't even consider subscribing again so long as things I pay for don't continue to be mine. I paid for the those credits, and they should be there forever until I use them. If they don't like that, they should give my money back instead.
Wait, really? This is the first I've heard of that. That's ridiculous. If you don't use your credit each month, then you're just paying for nothing that month, essentially? Feels like that should be illegal.
Just to commenting to keep the knowledge: There are other projects that can de-drm audible. Amazon probably knows this and tolerates it. In fact, a long time ago all downloads on Linux did not have DRM. Those days are gone, but this https://github.com/mkb79/audible-cli should work.
As soon as you have 'activation bytes' many tools can play and convert the downloads.
The dangly-but-not-dangling bits of the bracelet bangles appear to be attempting to tunnel into his tattoos. Gravity and anatomy: shit AI doesn't understand.
So if I get the audible subscription will I be able to download any audiobook or will it only work on books I've purchased and/or montly adds onto the higher tier sub?
You can download the books you buy with credits, and also anything currently in the Plus catalogue. I've found this very helpful as they remove things from the Plus catalog with very short notice periods, so you may not get to finish books you start. (And I remember stuff like how Salman Rushdie books were removed when he was in the news from the assassination attempt. Maybe that was publishers seeing dollar signs not Amazon, idk, but it was gross. Same when Sean Lock died.)
Fantastic piece of software! It's important to make backups if you use Audible as they can and will remove your paid books at will/randomly.
Always keep a local copy - and consider checking your local library, they might have your next audiobook for free!
Unrelated, but I would have preferred a stolen, watermarked Getty Images photo rather an an AI-generated one. Fits the pirate vibe better to have blatantly and unabashedly stolen something than to indirectly do so with plausible deniability.
I understand AI well enough. The argument that companies training models on data with copyright were actually doing piracy holds true to me. Being in favor or against, since these are big corps using artists work without paying royalties is an open discussion maybe, but nonetheless.. I felt that a clarification was due. Sorry (or not) to open the offtopic hatch...
I'm pretty sure it's not possible to download lossless files from Spotify
Any files in lossless formats from Spotify will not actually become magically lossless by converting them to a lossless format, though they will have a bigger size than the lossy mp3/aac/etc... file they were made from.
Some "Spotify downloaders" actually find the tracks on other sources and download them from there, but I've heard that Deemix (or Murglar for Android) with a Deezer ARL is a much better solution.
i use booklibconnect if I want it to automatically do my entire library, and then inAudible for individual books after the fact. does this have a better interface or something? there's also aaxconverter