Audible

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Audible

logo
legal form Subsidiary of amazon.com
founding August 30, 2004
Seat Newark, New Jersey, USA (Audible Headquarters)
Branch Publishing , Internet distribution of audio books
Website Audible, Inc., (US) , Audible, Ltd. (UK) , Audible GmbH (DE) , Audible France , Audible Italia

Audible (Engl. Audible is) an internationally operating provider of commercial audio book downloads. Both Audible GmbH and the US Audible Inc. have been subsidiaries of Amazon.com  Inc. since 2008 .

Company history and company structure

Audible Inc. was founded in 1995 by US bestselling author Donald R. Katz .

The German company, Audible GmbH, was founded in 2004 as a joint venture between Audible Inc. and the publishing groups Holtzbrinck Ventures and Random House . In 2006, the Bastei Lübbe publishing group also bought Audible GmbH as a partner. Audible Inc. was bought by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) in 2008 for US $ 300 million. In 2009 Amazon bought the shares of the other partners in the German joint venture.

In addition to Germany, Audible also serves markets in the USA, Great Britain, Italy and France via internet platforms. In addition to its own online presence, Audible, as the exclusive partner worldwide, equips the iTunes Store with spoken audio content. Since September 2010, the company has been informing those interested in audio books in its own magazine on the subject of audio books and radio plays and provides insights behind the scenes of their own company. At the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair , Audible was awarded the Virus Thrower Prize .

distribution

Audible acts primarily as a distribution platform for audio book publishers. Under the “Audible Studios” label, Audible produces audio books and radio plays that are exclusively available to Audible customers and are not available as audio book CDs. In-house productions include radio plays, unabridged audio book versions and extensive audio book series by bestselling authors such as John Katzenbach , Preston / Child , Stephen King , Richard Morgan .

At Audible, the customer can purchase audiobooks both individually and as a subscription. When purchased individually, the prices are around 30% below the prices of the CD version.

Since April 15, 2014, Audible has been integrated into Amazon's Kindle Unlimited subscription with around 2,000 audiobooks. In contrast to their own subscription system, the user pays a monthly fee of 9.99 euros and can borrow an unlimited number of titles. A maximum of 10 titles can be borrowed at the same time.

product

In June 2015, around 190,000 titles in German, English, Spanish and French from more than 1,000 publishers were available - including a large selection of unabridged audio books. Around 30,000 of these are German audio books.

Usage rights and possibilities

Audio tracks are downloaded to the computer via the Internet, from where they can then be  transferred to mobile playback devices (e.g. MP3 players , smartphones , PDAs , navigation systems, etc.) using the proprietary Audible software, iTunes or Windows Media Player 10/11/12 .) can be transferred, provided they support the Audible file format. Audible uses its own data format that is used for digital rights management (DRM) . The name AudibleReady has become established for portable devices that recognize the Audible format . Over 500 MP3 players from major manufacturers, including all Apple iPods, iPhones, iPads, Android and Windows Phone devices and most Philips MP3 players are compatible with the Audible file format.

The customer can use up to three mobile players per computer with Windows or macOS as the operating system . The audio tracks can also be played on the PC or Mac , burned to CD and played on CD player. Linux is not supported and there is no prospect of future support. An iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone app is available for smartphone users.

The files can be downloaded again at any time from the personal online library on the Audible website. A personal backup copy in the event of a possible shutdown of the online library, for example in the event of Audible bankruptcy, is not provided. Up to three computers per user account can be used side by side.

Problems with mobile playback devices can arise if the customer is also using other DRM systems at the same time. Since the DRM format has to contact an Audible / Amazon server to activate the audiobooks, the customer can no longer use the DRM audiobooks - assuming that the server is no longer operated.

Controversy

Contract policy

In May 2015, Audible came under fire because the company is said to have terminated contracts for small audio book publishers and presented new conditions. The main content of the new contracts is the approval of a digital flat rate model. If they do not agree, Audible could list their titles, according to the publishers concerned. On August 24, 2015, the German Book Trade Association filed a cartel complaint.

File format

Complaints against Audible often came from users of a Linux operating system, as no suitable software was available for downloading and playing back .aax files. The same applies generally to users of free software, since Audible does not even allow files to be downloaded using free software in addition to using the file format. In addition, some users categorically reject digital rights management as used by .aax.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amazon takes over Audible - Amazon press release , January 31, 2008
  2. ↑ Audible.de now belongs entirely to Amazon , golem.de, May 18, 2009
  3. ↑ Audible Magazine
  4. ↑ audiobook premiere section at audible.de
  5. ↑ Audiobook subscription Audible . audible.de. Retrieved June 21, 2011.
  6. ↑ Audible.de → How does it work?
  7. ↑ Technical requirements
  8. ↑ Audible apps
  9. ↑ Audiobook publishers examine cartel complaint against Audible SPIEGEL online, accessed on May 17, 2015
  10. ↑ Amazon audio book subsidiary: Booksellers submit cartel complaint against Audible to SPIEGEL online, article from September 19, 2015, accessed on November 3, 2015
  11. ↑ Discussion about how Audible deals with Linux users