I’m a huge fan of audio books.
As a child, I spent hundreds of hours immersed in the stories of Island of the Blue Dolphins (narrated by Christina Moore), The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (narrated by Elaine Stritch), The Foxman (narrated by Johnny Heller), Hatchet (narrated by Peter Cayote), and many more.
If you claim audio books aren’t reading, we can’t be friends.
So, naturally, I’m a huge fan of Audible too, right?
Not so much. Did you know you don’t ‘own’ the books you’ve ‘purchased’ on audible? (I’m going to assume you sort of do. I sort of did.)
When you ‘buy’ a book on audible, what you own is a license, not the book.
This license allows you to listen to your ‘purchased’ book in it’s entirety, without commercials (lucky you). There’s just one problem; the license you ‘own’ can be revoked.
The real problem I have with Audible (and almost all streaming services) is that the customer is a renter.
Renting is permission to use, with some caveats. And those permissions can disappear if you don’t play ball with the owner.
Everybody knows it’s better to own than to rent.
This little licensing scheme applies to all your eBooks too.
And the TV shows on Netflix. And all your music on Spotify. And all your movies ‘purchased’ on Prime.
You don’t own them. You’re allowed to use them. You can’t share them, return them*, sell them, lend them to a friend, or throw them away. And Amazon has the power to delete content, without notice, if deemed necessary.
You can’t do anything with your audio books, your eBooks, and your music without permission from the streaming company. And if their license agreement isn’t renewed, then there goes ‘your’ digital content. I don’t know about you, but I like owning the things I pay for. I want to use or abuse them (or sell and lend them!) as I choose.
I know. I’m so American.
Streaming and licensing seems great on the surface, but it’s a low-key scam.
Recently, I ‘bought’ an audio book entitled Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple. In my mind, it’s mine now; or it should be. For some reason, come November, my license to use this book was no longer applicable. Thus, I could not listen to it anymore.
Upon further investigation, I learned Audible has a rotating selection of “free” books you can access as a Premium Plus member. I thought I was buying this book (in the Audible sense of the word) but apparently, I was not. The book goes into your library, but is then removed when the selection rotates. And it rotates at their discretion.
To be fair, this one was on me. But the more I considered this whole model, the more annoyed I became. I could always ‘buy’ this audio book again “for real” this time. The customer service agent even gave me a one-time-sorry-for-the-inconvenience credit.
I appreciate the generous offer Raj, but I think I’ve lost my taste for Audible. And streaming services in general.
Enter hardcopies, stage left.
About a year ago, my husband and I both decided to stop playing the streaming game. We’ve always been a huge fan of physical books, despite the popularity of eBooks. We chose to add music and movies to our shelves.
The best thing about purchasing vinyl, CDs, and DVDs—besides no Terms and Conditions, gimmicks, or commercials—is streaming services have made hardcopies dirt cheap, especially if you buy secondhand. No body wants actual CDs anymore, right?
I’m not sure yet what we’ll do about our audio book conundrum. But my vote is to cancel our subscription and start buying them in hardcopy too.
What I’ve really bought from Audible all these years is an expensive lesson; if you don’t play their game, you don’t have to follow their rules.
Join us on the dark side.
We have physical books, CDs, DVDs, and vinyl.
* Technically you can return an audio book within the first 365 days of ‘purchase.’ However, you can only return a book on your web browser, and the browser’s automated system has a return limit (Audible customer service was unable to provide me with the specific numerical limit of the automated system. There’s just a limit). If you want to return more than the unspecified limit, you have to contact Audible directly. Good luck with that.
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