4 ms·

Unless you can strip the DRM, you're not buying.

by throwanem 6y ago

recursive 6y ago
I don't think most audiobook listeners care about this distinction enough to overcome the price difference.
- xtracto 6y ago
  Until all their "purchased" books get into the DRM graveyard because in fact they did not purchase anything. I lost access to all my "purchased" Amazon Kindle books when they blocked my account and no amount of calls and explaining allowed me to at least get my "purchased" content. Since then I created r/drmgraveyard to follow up the dead of DRM encumbered services.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    The curse is that, like targeted social engineering, it doesn't happen to enough people enough of the time to change behavior. How many people use Steam knowing and caring that you can't enter offline mode to play your games unless you connect to the internet every month?
withjive 6y ago
It's actually quite easy to strip the DRM on Audible using ffmpeg - which I do to keep an archive of all my purchases. There's a script on github to get the encryption key for your account by letting it sign in for you. Then from there it's easy to get ffmpeg to turn the DRM aac to a mp3
- errantspark 6y ago
  Is this legal? I sort of assume it isn't, in which case why bother? It seems faster/easier just to pirate from the get go.
  - techsupporter 6y ago
    > It seems faster/easier just to pirate from the get go Then the author doesn't get paid. That's the difference; buying an encumbered file and removing the encumbrance still pays the creator.
    - BitwiseFool 6y ago
      Why not borrow audiobooks from a local library?
      - techsupporter 6y ago
        I do, but that's the point of the article, that Amazon/Audible exclusives are not available to libraries for electronic lending. At that point, a prospective customer has two choices: Not buy (which is the choice I largely make), or buy from the sole source and remove the DRM.
      - nightfly 6y ago
        > Then the author doesn't get paid.
    - yesenadam 6y ago
      The creator presumably gets a very small cut. If you want to pay the creator, why not send the full price, or some amount, directly to them?! I'm sure they would appreciate that.
  - riazrizvi 6y ago
    Copyright infringement is generally a criminal act if the act of copying provides an expectation of any type of monetary gain, where monetary is broadly defined to be anything of value [1][2]. So removing the DRM on something that you already have a license to consume? Not a copyright infringement crime. Sending a copy of the DRM free product to a friend who hasn't bought a copyrighted version? Yes a copyright infringement crime. Removing the DRM that limits your ability to consume the product unless you buy a specially licensed version of the product, when you haven't paid for it, yes a copyright crime. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act
- dwighttk 6y ago
  Is there a tutorial on how to do this somewhere... I’ve got 5 or 6 audible books I’d like to backup.
  - jscholes 6y ago
    You can use this to get your activation bytes from Audible servers: https://github.com/inAudible-NG/audible-activator https://github.com/inAudible-NG/audible-activator Or this, to crack the activation bytes in an existing .aax file, offline: https://github.com/inAudible-NG/tables https://github.com/inAudible-NG/tables Both methods are easy. It's then a case of using FFmpeg with an -activation_bytes parameter to convert to MP3 or whatever (or just remux into an M4A/M4B without transcoding). Tutorial here: https://www.kylepiira.com/2019/05/12/how-to-break-audible-drm/ https://www.kylepiira.com/2019/05/12/how-to-break-audible-dr... There are a bunch of other tools (both commercial and free) which use the above techniques but add either a nice CLI or GUI. The original was Inaudible itself, which can be found on your favourite torrenting site. Alternatively you can grab it from here, but I'm not sure how up-to-date it is: https://github.com/rmcrackan/inAudible https://github.com/rmcrackan/inAudible
    - throwanem 6y ago
      inAudible works quite well, it turns out.

Unless you can strip the DRM, you're not buying.

recursive 6y ago

I don't think most audiobook listeners care about this distinction enough to overcome the price difference.

xtracto 6y ago
Until all their "purchased" books get into the DRM graveyard because in fact they did not purchase anything. I lost access to all my "purchased" Amazon Kindle books when they blocked my account and no amount of calls and explaining allowed me to at least get my "purchased" content. Since then I created r/drmgraveyard to follow up the dead of DRM encumbered services.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  The curse is that, like targeted social engineering, it doesn't happen to enough people enough of the time to change behavior. How many people use Steam knowing and caring that you can't enter offline mode to play your games unless you connect to the internet every month?

withjive 6y ago

It's actually quite easy to strip the DRM on Audible using ffmpeg - which I do to keep an archive of all my purchases. There's a script on github to get the encryption key for your account by letting it sign in for you. Then from there it's easy to get ffmpeg to turn the DRM aac to a mp3

errantspark 6y ago
Is this legal? I sort of assume it isn't, in which case why bother? It seems faster/easier just to pirate from the get go.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  > It seems faster/easier just to pirate from the get go Then the author doesn't get paid. That's the difference; buying an encumbered file and removing the encumbrance still pays the creator.
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    Why not borrow audiobooks from a local library?
    - techsupporter 6y ago
      I do, but that's the point of the article, that Amazon/Audible exclusives are not available to libraries for electronic lending. At that point, a prospective customer has two choices: Not buy (which is the choice I largely make), or buy from the sole source and remove the DRM.
    - nightfly 6y ago
      > Then the author doesn't get paid.
  - yesenadam 6y ago
    The creator presumably gets a very small cut. If you want to pay the creator, why not send the full price, or some amount, directly to them?! I'm sure they would appreciate that.
- riazrizvi 6y ago
  Copyright infringement is generally a criminal act if the act of copying provides an expectation of any type of monetary gain, where monetary is broadly defined to be anything of value [1][2]. So removing the DRM on something that you already have a license to consume? Not a copyright infringement crime. Sending a copy of the DRM free product to a friend who hasn't bought a copyrighted version? Yes a copyright infringement crime. Removing the DRM that limits your ability to consume the product unless you buy a specially licensed version of the product, when you haven't paid for it, yes a copyright crime. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Electronic_Theft_Act
dwighttk 6y ago
Is there a tutorial on how to do this somewhere... I’ve got 5 or 6 audible books I’d like to backup.
- jscholes 6y ago
  You can use this to get your activation bytes from Audible servers: https://github.com/inAudible-NG/audible-activator https://github.com/inAudible-NG/audible-activator Or this, to crack the activation bytes in an existing .aax file, offline: https://github.com/inAudible-NG/tables https://github.com/inAudible-NG/tables Both methods are easy. It's then a case of using FFmpeg with an -activation_bytes parameter to convert to MP3 or whatever (or just remux into an M4A/M4B without transcoding). Tutorial here: https://www.kylepiira.com/2019/05/12/how-to-break-audible-drm/ https://www.kylepiira.com/2019/05/12/how-to-break-audible-dr... There are a bunch of other tools (both commercial and free) which use the above techniques but add either a nice CLI or GUI. The original was Inaudible itself, which can be found on your favourite torrenting site. Alternatively you can grab it from here, but I'm not sure how up-to-date it is: https://github.com/rmcrackan/inAudible https://github.com/rmcrackan/inAudible
  - throwanem 6y ago
    inAudible works quite well, it turns out.