Audible.com

Audible.com

Opened	1999
Pricing model	Variable subscription and a la carte
Platforms	Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Kindle
Format	AA format (.aa) variable bit rates; AAX format (.aax) high quality bit rate
Restrictions	Single burn to media, streaming to authorized devices
Catalogue	1,000,000+ hours of spoken audio programming, or 100,000+ titles
Preview	10 minutes
Streaming	Purchased titles only
Trial	varies
Protocol	HyperText Transfer Protocol (http://)
Features	Bookmarking, wireless distribution, wish list, author interviews, free downloads weekly
Website	www.audible.com
Alexa rank	1,523 (March 2012[update])[1]

Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming. Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. On January 31, 2008 Amazon.com announced it would buy Audible for about US$300 million.^[2] The deal closed in March 2008 and Audible is now a subsidiary of Amazon. The company enjoys a near-monopoly in the commercial online digital download market for audiobooks.^[3]

History

Audible introduced one of the first digital audio players in 1997. The following year it published a Web site from which audio files in its proprietary .aa format could be downloaded. Audible holds a number of patents in this area.

In 2000 Audible licensed the ACELP codec for its level 3 quality downloads.^[4]

In 2003, Audible made an exclusive deal with Apple to provide their catalog of books on the iTunes Music Store. Books purchased on iTunes have a .m4b extension (a variation on MP4), and contain AAC audio covered by Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management.

Founder of Audible, Don Katz,^[5] gave a talk on May 9, 2005^[6] that is recorded on IT Conversations about the early history of Audible. There is a brief profile^[7] of Katz in AudioFile magazine. Katz gave a Keynote address^[8] at the Podcast Expo on November 12, 2005. He was also featured in the March 2006 issue of Business 2.0.^[9]

In 2005, Audible launched Audible Air, software that makes it possible to download (copy-controlled) audio books over the air - wirelessly and directly to devices such as a smartphone or PDA. This eliminates the need to download copy-controlled audio books first to a computer and then transfer it to Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Mobile devices. Audible Air content updates automatically, chapters download as required and delete themselves after they have been listened to.^[10]

In April 2008, Audible began producing exclusive science fiction and fantasy audiobooks under its "Audible Frontiers" imprint. At launch 30 titles were released.

The company also launched Audible Education. The service offers lectures, study guides, skill builders, teaching aids, and test preparation resources, across a wide range of subject areas.

Website, pricing, and catalog

Audible's content includes over 100,000 titles by more than 1200 different providers, amounting to over 1,000,000 hours of audio programming.^[11] Content includes books of all genres, as well as radio shows (classic and current), speeches, interviews, stand-up comedy, and audio versions of periodicals such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

In addition to the regular price charged for audiobooks, Audible offers subscriptions with the following benefits:

• Credits: For a monthly subscription fee, a customer receives one or two audio credits. Most titles can be purchased with one of these credits. Some titles (usually larger books or collections of more than one book) may cost two credits, while others (usually very short works) cost only a third of a credit. (Users may also purchase a year's subscription at a time, for a discount, receiving all credits at once, but only in some countries.) Platinum subscribers also receive a complimentary subscription to the digital audio version of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
• Subscriber Discount: A subscriber may choose to purchase books without credits for a 30% discount.

Additionally, some content—particularly political speeches, government hearings, content such as the 9/11 Report Speech, excerpts, and short stories from books—are available for free.

Once a customer has purchased a title on Audible, it remains in that customer's library and can be downloaded at any time, or the customer may listen to the file directly from the website, regardless of whether it has been downloaded before.

Device support

Audible audio files are compatible with over 500 models of audio players, PDAs, mobile phones and streaming media devices.^{[citation needed]} Devices that do not have AudibleAir capability (allowing users to download content from their library directly into their devices) require a Windows PC or Macintosh to download the files. Additionally, titles can be played on the PC (using iTunes, Windows Media Player, or AudibleManager). Titles cannot be burned to CD with AudibleManager. According to Audible's website, they can be burned to CD using Apple's iTunes and some versions of Nero. (The DRM generally allows a title to be burned to CD once, although the resulting CDs can be played in any CD player and have no copy prevention.)^[12] Currently there is no support for the .aa format on Linux^[13]

Prospective buyers of media players can check the audible.com "Device Center" ^[14] to verify whether the device will play .aa files, as well as play them at the desired level of audio fidelity. The most popular Audible players are Apple iPhones, Apple iPods, and Android devices.

Quality

Books can be downloaded in different versions / qualities. The descriptions of these quality levels are often said to be inaccurate, as CD audio quality is 1411 kbit/s and MP3 quality varies greatly depending on encoding.

Currently you can download:

Digital rights management

Audible's .aa file format encapsulates sound encoded in either MP3 or the ACELP speech codec, but includes unauthorized playback prevention by means of an Audible user name and password, which can be used on up to three computers at a time. Licenses are available for schools and libraries.

Audible's content can only be played on selected mobile devices. This is enforced by an "approved" list of player products, when you "add a device" to the Audible manager.

Audible's software does enable users to burn a limited number of CDs for unrestricted playback, resulting in CDs that can be copied or ripped on any computer that has CD burning capability.

Because of the CD issue, Audible's use of digital rights management on its .aa format has earned it criticism.^[15] While multiple software products are capable of removing the Audible DRM protection by re-encoding in other formats,^[16] Audible has been quick to threaten the software makers with lawsuits for discussing or promoting this ability, as happened with River Past Corp and GoldWave Inc.^[17] Responses have varied, with River Past removing the capability from their software, and GoldWave retaining the capability, but censoring discussions about the ability in its support forums. But there are still many other software tools from non-US countries which easily bypass the DRM control of Audible either with a sound recording or virtual CD burning method. After Apple's abandonment of most DRM measures, Amazon's downloads ceasing to use it, Audible's DRM system is one of the few remaining in place. Many have argued that, since the audible books are often broadcast on FM radio, and made available for download by the broadcaster for a few days afterwards, protecting them in the way that Audible does is futile and merely puts off swathes of otherwise enthusiastic customers. The argument goes that audio DRM is futile because ultimately you have to be able to play the content back as audio and at that point copying it via an audio lead to another computer audio input is something that even most kids could do. This argument is often summarized as "If you can play it, you can copy it". However, some in the content-supply industry still see value in making copying as hard as possible, but find it hard to quantify how much illegal copying (or lost sales opportunities) such measures affect.

Many Audible listings displayed to non-U.S. customers contain the following text: "We are not authorized to sell this title to your geographic location." According to Audible, this is because the publisher who has provided the title does not have the rights to distribute the file in a given region. When a user is logged in, titles that he or she cannot purchase will be hidden.^[18]

There were hopes^[19] that Amazon, after its purchase of Audible, would remove the DRM from its audiobook selection, in keeping with the current trend in the industry. Nevertheless, Audible's products continue to have DRM, in keeping with Amazon's policy of DRM-protecting its Kindle e-books, which have DRM that allows for a finite, yet undisclosed number of downloads at the discretion of the publisher, however Audible titles that are DRM free can be copied to the Kindle and made functional.^[20]

In the future, Audible plans to offer DRM-free titles for content owners who wish to do so. Currently, there is no set date for this.^[21]

Market Power

Audible is the exclusive supplier of audio content to iTunes and Amazon. Publishers or authors wishing to feature audiobook content through these channels must work through this company, who will only form partnerships with suppliers who can offer at least five pieces of material. Even then margins offered to the author and/or publisher can be around 20 percent.

Amazon operates Audiobook Creation Exchange which enables individual authors or publishers to work with voice over artists and producers to create single items, which are then distributed to Amazon and iTunes. Whilst this solves the issue of monopoly in the United States, the service is not available for individual authors or publishers elsewhere in the world.

References

External links

• Official website
• Groups.google.com/group/audible-for-android-beta for Google android Audible app (beta release)
• Audible.co.uk for the United Kingdom site
• Audible.fr for audiobooks in French
• Audible.de for audiobooks in German
• AudibleEducation
• Yahoo! Finance profile
• Audible Investor relations
• ADBL.org Message board for Audible shareholders
• Audible cranks it up - Business 2.0 article
• January 3 2003 discussion concerning DRM on Audible.com
• DRM, Audible and Dave Winer