Audible.com
Encyclopedia
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 $300M. 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.
In 2000 Audible licensed the ACELP
codec for its level 3 quality downloads.
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
, gave a talk on May 9, 2005 that is recorded on IT Conversations about the early history of Audible. There is a brief profile of Katz in AudioFile magazine. Katz gave a Keynote address at the Podcast Expo on November 12, 2005. He was also featured in the March 2006 issue of Business 2.0.
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.
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.
In addition to the regular price charged for audiobooks, Audible offers subscriptions with the following benefits:
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.
s, mobile phone
s and streaming media
devices. 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.)
Prospective buyers of media players can check the audible.com "Device Center" 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.
Currently you can download:
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 software does enable users to burn a limited number of CDs for unrestricted playback.
Audible's use of digital rights management
on its .aa format has earned it criticism. While multiple software products are capable of removing the Audible DRM protection by re-encoding in other formats, 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. 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 bypass the DRM control of Audible either with a sound recording or virtual CD burning method.
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.
There were hopes 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.
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.
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.
Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers.
On January 31, 2008 Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
announced it would buy Audible for about $300M. 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.
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
ACELP
Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter....
codec for its level 3 quality downloads.
In 2003, Audible made an exclusive deal with Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
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
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
audio covered by Apple's FairPlay
FairPlay
FairPlay is a digital rights management technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, iTunes, and iTunes Store and the App Store. Formerly, all songs in...
Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
.
Founder of Audible, Don Katz
Don Katz
Donald Katz is founder and CEO of Audible, Inc. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Newark, NJ, Audible developed audible.com, the ecommerce web destination and the first system for distributing audio via the Internet for playback at or away from the PC. Audible also commercialized the first...
, gave a talk on May 9, 2005 that is recorded on IT Conversations about the early history of Audible. There is a brief profile of Katz in AudioFile magazine. Katz gave a Keynote address at the Podcast Expo on November 12, 2005. He was also featured in the March 2006 issue of Business 2.0.
In 2005, Audible launched Audible Air, software that makes it possible to download (copy-controlled
Copy Control
Copy Control was the generic name of a copy prevention system, used from 2001 until 2006 on several digital audio disc releases by EMI Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment in several regions...
) 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.
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. 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
9/11 Commission Report
The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks...
, 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, PDAPDA
A PDA is most commonly a Personal digital assistant, also known as a Personal data assistant, a mobile electronic device.PDA may also refer to:In science, medicine and technology:...
s, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s and streaming media
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
devices. 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
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
, 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.)
Prospective buyers of media players can check the audible.com "Device Center" 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:
| Format name | Bitrate | MBytes/hour | Quality description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audible Enhanced Audio | 64 kbit/s | 28.8 | CD sound |
| Format 4 | 32 kbit/s | 14.4 | MP3 sound |
| Format 3 | 16 kbit/s | 7.2 | FM radio sound |
| Format 2 | 8 kbit/s | 3.7 | AM radio sound |
Digital rights management
Audible's .aa file format encapsulates sound encoded in either MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
or the ACELP
ACELP
Algebraic code-excited linear prediction is a patented speech coding algorithm by VoiceAge Corporation in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to linear prediction filter....
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 software does enable users to burn a limited number of CDs for unrestricted playback.
Audible's use of digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
on its .aa format has earned it criticism. While multiple software products are capable of removing the Audible DRM protection by re-encoding in other formats, 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
GoldWave
GoldWave is a popular commercial digital audio editing software product developed by GoldWave Inc, first released to the public in April 1993. It is used in dozens of schools and universities around the world and is mentioned in numerous research papers covering a wide variety of topics, including...
Inc. 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 bypass the DRM control of Audible either with a sound recording or virtual CD burning method.
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.
There were hopes 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
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
e-books, which have DRM that allows for a finite, yet undisclosed number of downloads at the discretion of the publisher.
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.
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.
External links
- 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