• Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • Ethereal87@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • Tbird83ii@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Omg this is amazing.

        Not only is this awesome, but their list of books stores to support has expanded my bookstore list by like 20 places…

      • papertowels@lemmy.one
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        10 months ago

        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?

    • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • Rogers@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      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!

        • Rogers@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Oh yeah, it’ll work fine on any truenas/unraid/synology system it works on about anything with docker/linux there’s even a beta for windows.

          My only complaint is a lack of URLbase so setting up a reverse proxy on some setups does not work well.

          • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            I run everything through a Tailscale intranet, so that should not be a problem.

      • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        +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!

    • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        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.

    • Cossty@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • Mellow@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      OpenAudible. I strip the DRM from all of my Audible audiobooks and archive them.

      There’s a free way to do it using rainbowcrack but OA is simpler.

      • The_v@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        My library has booth Libby and Hoopla.

        Hoopla is by far the better service. 10 books per month with a huge library to choose from. No waiting for somebody to return it in a line.

        I use both mine and my wife’s library card so I am going through 20 books per month. Plus aother 5-6 on Libby.

      • plantedworld@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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

    • ErwinLottemann@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      i did not look for it in the tos but i guess you don’t own the audiobook and you purchase a license and not the actual audiobook.

  • besbin@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Do DeDRM, and yet they host their code on GitHub and have a link directly to PayPal in the README for funding? Are these guys trying to get sued?

    • pezhore@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Yeah, after the yuzu debacle, if I were anywhere close to the gray side of piracy I would pull down any and all links to funding.

      I’m not sure how you would actually get that necessary funding - maybe through discord links periodically?

    • topinambour_rex@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      As long they don’t paywall the latest update allowing to listen the leaked books before their release, they are good.

  • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          Fair enough. It sounded like you were using “I’m not happy with this book” to return it for a credit and get a different book repeatedly.

          I haven’t heard any podcast ads so I’m not sure if people are doing their own bad reads. The actual cancel page made it pretty clear to me that unused credits disappeared every time I turned it on and off.

          I’ve never seen a book for more than one credit, so not sure if you’re in a country with a different setup or what.

    • William@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • blindsight@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      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.

  • _edge@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    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.

  • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    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?

    • Radical Dog@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.)

  • 0xtero@beehaw.org
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    10 months ago

    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!

  • fenndev@leminal.space
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      a lot of people who don’t understand how AI works think it’s using stolen images so it’s close enough for me

      • adr1an@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        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…

      • xenspidey@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        Sure, but this wasn’t an open source discussion. I really enjoy the software, if there are FOSS alternatives I’d be down to switch for sure.

      • antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        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.

  • pelletbucket@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    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