Author Topic: Disappointment with Audible as advertised by Steve  (Read 5926 times)

Yargling

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on: April 18, 2009, 01:37:45 AM
I hate to create a thread purely to moan, but...

I tried Audible.com today, as Steve had be talking about them for quite awhile, I figured there was something good there.

So, my complaints are:

1) Steve doesn't tell you that the Audible.com offer of a free book isn't valid outside of the US - the UK site doesn't reckonize it. Escape Pod seems to have a large following around the world, and I'm surprised Steve would act like the rest of us outside of the US don't exist. Maybe I'm wrong and their are very few of us, but still.

2) Its not stated in the advert that Audible.com uses DRM to copy-protect its files. Whilst I don't like DRM, I'm don't normally make a fuss over it. However, the Audible.com DRM prevents the files from being used on alot of media players, including mine. I purchased a book partly with intent to play it on my Samsung player, but Audible only supports 1 Samsung player, much to my annoyance.

Anyway, if anyone is thinking of going to Audible, check your device before you buy - see the link on the bottom left corner labelled "Device center". I won't be buying from them again until they either scrap the DRM or make my player compatible with it. Its probable I should have checked first, but I figured there was no danger and that Escape Pod would want listeners if there was an risk. Warned, I have been, heh.



goatkeeper

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Reply #1 on: April 18, 2009, 06:15:24 AM
Both points very moan-worthy.  Have written them about the DRM issue, I think others should too.



Yargling

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Reply #2 on: April 18, 2009, 10:07:37 AM
Well, it wasn't so much Audible itself. It was more than Steve gave his approval without any warnings. Because I've grown to trust Steve's word, I was shaken to see this happen. Whilst I'm enjoying Dune (the audio-book I got), I have to do so whilst at the PC, and on top of that, there is no offer of a free book because I'm a 'damned foreigner' ;).



Anarkey

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Reply #3 on: April 18, 2009, 02:55:42 PM

1) Steve doesn't tell you that the Audible.com offer of a free book isn't valid outside of the US - the UK site doesn't reckonize it. Escape Pod seems to have a large following around the world, and I'm surprised Steve would act like the rest of us outside of the US don't exist. Maybe I'm wrong and their are very few of us, but still.


FTR, I think the audible offer may be valid in areas outside the U.S. that are not the U.K.   The reason I suspect this may be the case is that I listen to a British podcast that audible advertises with and their disclaimer says the offer is valid for anyone who doesn't have a .co.uk address.  Presumably that's most everyone, not just self-centered Americans.  Though I could be wrong and the U.K. podcast also assumes you're either in the U.K. or in the U.S.A. and to hell with the rest of the world.

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Ben Phillips

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Reply #4 on: April 21, 2009, 09:56:58 AM
Thanks for saying something.  I for one was not even aware these things were true.  We are still trying to get Audible to give us so much as a reviewer account so we can comment on audio quality as opposed to just the fiction itself with which we're already familiar, and they haven't been very forthcoming.  At the moment we still have to take what we can get in the way of sponsorships, although that will change.

If you're stuck with a DRM-encoded Audible book, I wonder if a Google search would turn up ways to remove that if you were so inclined.  I speculate purely hypothetically, of course, since legal restrictions may apply.



Boggled Coriander

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Reply #5 on: April 21, 2009, 10:33:04 AM
I tried downloading a free audiobook (not the promised "free audiobook", but a book offered free to everyone as a special promotion) from Audible.  I use a Transcend T.sonic mp3 player that I bought here in Taiwan and for the life of me I can't figure out how to get it to play anything in Audible's format.

So yeah, I empathize with Yargling.  At least I haven't spent any actual money yet.

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caid

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Reply #6 on: April 22, 2009, 04:36:53 AM
I can verify that the book-for-free thing at least works for me in Sweden. I do however use the US audible store. My main peeve would be that it filters a lot of content for me as a non-US resident. Still, the library is big enough for me to find stuff to listen too.

Re the DRM-scheme, it can be "circumvented" by converting the audio to mp3 (or other DRM-less format), something which is easily done by e.g. iTunes. You loose a bit of audio quality, but for spoken audio this is almost unnoticeable.



Russell Nash

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Reply #7 on: April 23, 2009, 06:57:07 AM
It worked for me here in Germany.  I used iTunes to convert my free book to MP3.  All in all I was happy with the experience.  I didn't keep the account, because I have more audio, than I can listen to, without paying for it. 



Heradel

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Reply #8 on: April 23, 2009, 08:14:13 AM
I don't disagree with any of the points made here, though I'm a US resident so the problems don't really apply to me. Part of the problem here is that copyright owner of the audiobooks tends to be the publishing company instead of Audible, and they still do business on a country by country basis. Which is about as insane as the way movies are put out, but there's not much we can do about it until the content space collapses into one global market, which looks quite a few years off at this point.

Personally I'm on the one book a month plan, which I mainly use when I'm going to be street shooting for a few hours at a time and want to be in a single mindspace.

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


izzardfan

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Reply #9 on: May 02, 2009, 03:38:37 AM
I was already an Audible subscriber when Steve started promoting Audible on the podcast.  The free book offer (for signing up, not free otherwise) is not exclusive to Escape Artists, but something anyone who signs up can get.  However, using the EscapePod or Podcastle (or Pseudopod?) URLs gives credit to Escape Artists, which are, in turn, sponsored by Audible, which pays some of the production costs of bringing us these find fine podcasts.  My point is, even if you can't play the file, if you haven't signed up with Audible yet, please do so using an EscapeArtists URL, as it helps us.

TPTB may correct my impression if I'm wrong about this.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2009, 06:59:24 AM by izzardfan »