[elFarto]

The DRM on the Audible downloads is so easy to remove, then you can have it in whatever format you want:

   ffmpeg -activation_bytes <your magic bytes> -i inputfile.aax -vn -c:a copy output.m4a

You'll need to search around for how to find out your magic bytes, but it's not difficult.

[kick]

Congratulations, you've committed a felony. That's what Doctorow's protesting: that Amazon forces you to commit a felony to do something as basic as changing a file format. He points this out in his Kickstarter:

What's more, Audible won't allow you to sell your audiobooks through their store unless you allow them to wrap your books in their DRM, which cannot be removed without committing a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Every audiobook you buy from Audible is locked to Amazon's platform...forever. They can revoke access to the book (they've done this with Kindle ebooks, starting with -- I shit you not -- George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four... You can't make this stuff up!).

[m463]

It kind of depends on the location of the commenter.

He could live in a country without those pesky US laws or be posting from international waters.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Due to the insane reach of the US and the political pressure they put on other countries, I suspect there are few countries where this specific pesky law doesn't exist.

[bad_user]

It’s a felony in Europe too.

[DanBC]

No.

In the UK it's only a criminal offence if it's done as part of business, or you do it so much you prejudicially affect the rights holders. This is why eg people who buy a DVD player can change it to region free mode (they're not committing a criminal offence) but the shop who sells the player to you can't tell you how to do it (they would be committing a criminal offence).

Read "F2296 Devices designed to circumvent copy-protection" and "F4296ZA Circumvention of technological measures", and contrast those with "296ZBDevices and services designed to circumvent technological measures".

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/VII/crossh...

[selfhoster11]

There is no such thing as a "felony" in Europe. Besides, not all European countries are part of the EU, so they wouldn't share the same legal framework.

[mxuribe]

But i guess the point is that it sorta sucks that such a thing even has to be done/considered, right? I happily pay an author for their work, but dislike drm and other similar controls.

[Wowfunhappy]

This is what I do when there's an Audible exclusive I want, and I'm glad it's so easy. But, when a majority of audiobooks are so readily-available from actual DRM Free retailers (libro.fm, Downpour.com, Google Play), I don't see why I should buy DRM'd copies from Audible.