How do I get away from ‘Lex Luthor’s’ audible?
I am acutely aware that amazon’s audible is data mining with such metrics as my bookmarks, when and where I pause - and for how long. This isn’t taking into account the sheer amount of profiling they can do, with just the type of books I tend to buy! Someone can tell a lot about me from my reading.
There is constant updates to the app with little to no benefit to me, where is all that code going? into data mining obviously…
At this point I dont think there are real alternatives out there. The privacy friendly way to listen to audiobooks is to buy them and never listen to them because you got an alternative listening source.
Maybe you can also get a self hosted LLM that can read your book with your favorite narrator’s voice.
Most of audiobooksnow’s catalog is DRM-free. Libro.fm sells only DRM-free audiobooks. They have over 400,000 audiobooks in their catalog. It’s probably the biggest competitor to Audible.
Librivox is a notable one if you’re interested in listening to public domain works (some of Agatha Christie’s earlier works, for example, or maybe a Charles Dickens novel). Anyone can submit a recording so the quality varies, but it’s a common place to start for people who want to professionally narrate audiobooks.
Unfortunately, Amazon has a complete stranglehold on the market, so you might not see the books you’re interested in on Libro.fm and audiobooksnow. This is despite the ludicrous revenue share you get when you publish with Audible—they take 75% of your royalties. You can get it down to 60% if you agree to be Audible-exclusive.
Compare this to ebooks on Amazon, which are far cheaper to produce. You can choose to take 70% of the royalties when you publish a kindle book with Amazon. Audible commands so much of the audiobook market that they can demand those terms and publishers will accept them.
But things might be changing. I certainly hope so. I’d love to buy more audiobooks directly from the author or publisher like I do with Cory Doctorow. That’s another good option—buying direct. You’ll usually be able to obtain DRM-free books this way, but it’s not as common to sell audiobooks this way yet as compared to ebooks.
I’m not much help in removing DRM from Audible books since I’ve only done that once (and I forget what I used), but I put my audiobooks on Plex and it works really well. There’s probably support for audiobooks on Jellyfin as well, if I had to guess. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
I am unsure if this falls in the privacy department, but I went and got a library card at the local public library, plugged that into Libby, and I borrow audiobooks from there, just like a library book. Works really well, though you have to be comfortable putting holds on things and listening through popular books quickly before they are returned.
Your suggestion still feels a bit less than desirable. Might as well get it straight from the bay if you know what I mean. That way, you will not put your library in possible problem.
It feels like you do 4 steps when 1 direct step would be sufficient.
This also feels like you borrowed a book and photocopied the whole thing.
I don’ t think they were recommending to remove drm from library audiobooks, simply that you could use library to get audio books for free (if you’re ok with borrowing and waiting and stuff)
Yup the UI is garbage but once you make it past that its very powerful. Can download and decrypt all your library in one fell swoop. Even works with other country’s Audible storefronts.
Amazon should be grateful. I would not have spent as much money on their audiobooks otherwise if this wasnt a thing
Thanks for all the tips, my opensource life is coming together nicely.
I now have audiobookshelf running on a rockpro64 with armbian. My audiobooks were free’d from Lex Luthor with Libation. I’m streaming onto my GrapheneOS pixel, all is well apart from:
A book I wanted was banned. 2nd hand paperback can go up to 8k!
It is not on CrapaZon, libro.fm or audiobooksnow.
Is my only option to pirate?
