Comments | dlighe: Dealing with Borders Digital Audio Books

dlighe

Dealing with Borders Digital Audio Books

Dec 26, 2009 17:47

My father asked for MP3 books for Christmas. After much searching, I finally found a site I thought I could trust that would let me download some MP3s. After I had selected and purchased the books and got to the download page, you bother to mention that I need special software to use this MP3 file. Special software for MP3s? This reeks of a scam, ( Read more... )

Comments 9

mediaprophet December 27 2009, 03:29:35 UTC

thepiratebay has audiobooks you can get on mp3. I hear they have great prices ;) and you do need special software; but you can extract the no-DRM mp3s from the .torrent files easily.

When they make DRM more of a hassle than the product is worth, I usually resort to piracy. I hacked that game Erik got me because I didn't want to have to plug my DVD-ROM into my netbook every time I want to play it. I still pirate mp3s when I want them (which is admittedly very very rarely) because I don't want to deal with DRM.

dlighe December 27 2009, 11:58:16 UTC

I was talking to my Dad and telling about this. I think he said that the Overdrive software would let you extract the MP3s. That was part of the whole frustration with Borders was that if I could have gotten something besides a bot answer pushing a refund, everyone would have been happier.

mediaprophet December 27 2009, 15:30:00 UTC

Well seems like they're getting their comeuppance:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090312084922AAJzkBd

gillen December 27 2009, 06:00:09 UTC

Yeah, you're going to have to go pirate to find audiobooks without DRM of some kind.

gillen December 27 2009, 06:00:52 UTC

That or buy them on CD and then rip them to mp3 yourself.

arensb December 27 2009, 11:34:36 UTC

That's weird. I thought Borders was a subsidiary (or at least a partner) of Amazon, and I just bought some DRM-free MP3s from them.

Yes, I needed to install software to do this, but that was just to download the MP3s through proper channels, with (I assume) encryption while in transit and authentication to my Amazon account and all that. Once the files were downloaded, they were where I put them, and played nicely on all my equipment.

I wonder why Borders isn't using the same system.

dlighe December 27 2009, 11:56:04 UTC

I think it is because their source for music is different from their source for audio books. I actually ran across the Overdrive site before I tried Borders and that seems to be their whole niche.

mediaprophet December 27 2009, 15:31:12 UTC

Borders used to do online sales through Amazon. They stopped so they could compete with Amazon. Bad idea, I say.

jferg December 28 2009, 02:14:38 UTC

Amazon Audiobooks == Audible.com
For a good time (in the "let's all bang our heads against the wall" sense), go read Cory Doctorow's various BoingBoing posts about trying to get online retailers (iTunes, Amazon) to allow him to sell DRM-free versions of his audiobooks.