General Audible Question

[Apotheos]

I cam here with it as users of Apple technology are usually much more courteous and quick to reply. Since I own an iPod, I hope I will not be whipped severely. I paid my dues.

What I've not been able to figure out is if you can only play the Audible content you purchase while you are still a subscriber to the Audible service. That is, if I subscribe, get two books, decide I no longer want to be a part of the Audible service, can I still play those two books forever and ever?

There seems to be some DRM at work here - I was reading FAQ's about authorizing computers and devices and such - but I don't know exactly how that works.

Any advice?

[studogvetmed]

Once you buy it it is yours for life.

You are talking about getting books directly from audible website right?
As far as I can tell from this you can decline further membership, but keep your account and still be able to access your files. You paid for them. They are yours.

As far as authorizing computers goes and the iTMS and the DRM you do not have to remain a member of anything to keep a password that authorizes and deauthorizes computers.

Hope this was helpful.
Stuart

[SouthsideIrish]

Technically, I don't even think you need membership in Audible. You could go out and buy one year of All Things Considered, get it delivered daily, and never pay a thing to Audible again. Course you might have to pay more for it, but still your not paying a monthly fee.

Bill McNair

[dlabrosse]

Originally posted by SouthsideIrish
Technically, I don't even think you need membership in Audible. You could go out and buy one year of All Things Considered, get it delivered daily, and never pay a thing to Audible again. Course you might have to pay more for it, but still your not paying a monthly fee.

Bill McNair

This is correct. I bought one episode of "Car Talk" from Audible. No membership needed. Total expense: about $4.

[raiste]

A little late, but this issue just came up with me since I just purchased a new Mac.

Last summer, I bought an iPod and subscribed to Audible and got some books. These books were on my computer and synched to my iPod.

A few months later I dropped my subscription to Audible. No problems.

Last month I purchased a new Mac and transferred all my music and audio books (including those from Audible) to my new Mac.

I went to listen to one of my Audible purchased books, and I received a message asking me to input my username and password for Audible! Well it had been months since I had dropped my subscription, and I looked and looked and finally found my Audible password.

I entered my old user name and password, and voila, the audio book worked again.


I wrote all this to say two things:

1) I am glad that Audible is fairly stable and that they kept my old account so I could gain access to my books again.

2) Is there anyway to remove the password restriction on these books so that if Audible ever does go under, I don't lose my investment in these books?

[Podunk]

Like you said, Audible is stable. They have been around for seven years. They are not going anywhere. But supposing something were to happen, there will be a way to convert your files. I wouldn't worry about that.

[david1951]

I may be wrong, but I assume that dlabrosse's computer didn't need to contact the Audible site over the Internet. The user name and password would have been tested locally, so long as the computer was still "activated".

However, parannoya, I wonder if you are paranoid enough? One of the things I hate about Digital Rights Management is that it appears to remove from me the control of works which I have already paid for. If I were to accidentally deauthorise my computer (say by needing to reformat the disk) and Audible were to have gone out of business, I would have lost any access to the large number of books I have bought from them. It's all very well saying that Audible have been in business for 7 years, but how much would you bet on Audible (or even Apple) still being in existence in 20 years? Yet I am certain that I still will want to listen to the books I own then - my eyesight will probably have gone completely by then, and I will need to! :D

Which raises the question of how one should securely back up Audible files.

I do back up the .aa files (to DVD Rom), but this isn't much comfort because of the reasons given above.

I would have thought that the most convenient way would be to create MP3 versions of the Audible files and burn them to CD. This would have the advantage of letting you play the books on a standard MP3 CD player.

However, I imagine that this would be a breach of the Audible agreement. I think this a pity, and indeed consider it highly unfair and very dubious legally. The law recognises that I have the right to a secure backup of what I have purchased, and the .aa files aren't secure because they depend on the authorisation of my computer and thus Audible's continued existence.

If it's not OK to make MP3 CDs, then I would have to put up with the bulk and inconvenience of backing up by creating standard audio CDs (which are perfectly OK legally since Audible will let me burn them).

There's no way I am going to rely just on the .aa files.

[Podunk]

David,
Yes, you are more paranoid than me. If I ever see any reason to worry, then I'll take action.

Like I said, there are things that can be done if push ever comes to shove. I have no doubt about being able to access my files.

:)