DRM-free audiobooks at LibriVox

At LibriVox, volunteers record their own audiobooks out of texts in the public domain, and give them away for free. Isn't that amazing?

Today I listened to Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly, written in 1887. Bly was a journalist who infiltrated a mental institution in New York to see what it was like. It was pretty bad. The nurses were sadists, and nobody bothered to find out if she really belonged there. The book caused an embarassment, (much like the 'thud' experiment a hundred years later.)

The recording is not up to commercial standards, but who cares? I don't. I'm just glad to find another source of DRM-free audiobooks. It's easier to use than eMusic, and it doesn't straitjacket you like Audible.

I picked this book at random. That's what I love about public domain book projects, like LibriVox and Project Gutenberg: The chance to find a strange old book that few people remember. When people pick an old book to read, it's usually a Classic, because all book readers feel guilty about not having read enough Classics. But classics are often just old bestsellers. John Grisham, but with more flowery language. No - give me a book that didn't define literature as we know it, but displays a memorable point of view.

What every book at LibriVox has in common is that somebody loved it enough to take the time to record it for you. What better recommendation is there?

SNAFU at eMusic.com

I have a long and troubled relationship with eMusic.com. Selling DRM-free MP3's back when most record companies were still learning how to code HTML, they've always had this spark of unfulfilled potential about them. DRM is stupid for a lot of reasons, such as "what do you do when the technology changes". eMusic is the one company that have always understood this, and yet they always make some mistake that balances out their good intentions. Back in 2001, the mistake was to sell low quality MP3 files. (I asked them why, they said they didn't have the storage space for higher quality. Well, that's allright then!) Today it's their pricing model. eMusic.com doesn't have prices, they have "credits". You subscribe to a plan that gives you a number of credits every month. Mistake #1: You're not allowed to have an audiobook subscription without a music subscription. What if you only want audiobooks? (I do.) Not possible. It says so on the website. Except it is possible, if you send them an e-mail about it. What? Mistake #2: When you've finished your one book of the month, there's no obvious way to buy more credits. The page for doing this is well hidden, and you must spend those extra credits within 90 days, so think carefully. Other stores encourage you to spend money. eMusic have created something closer to a rationing system. And still they're better than most competitors. Is it any wonder I pirate first, and buy the things I like on CD and DVD afterwards?