Audible is an American online
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...
and
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer. The service is owned by Audible, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
, headquartered in
Newark, New Jersey.
History
The company's first product was an eponymous
portable media player
A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...
known as the Audible MobilePlayer; released in 1997, the device contained around four
megabytes of on-board
flash memory storage, which could hold up to two hours of audio. To use the player,
consumers
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...
would go online to the official Audible website, download the audiobook, and put it onto the player.
In 1999,
Microsoft invested $11 million into the company.
[ On October 24, 1999, Audible suffered a setback when its CEO, Andrew J. Huffman, died.] Development proceeded, however, leading to Audible licensing the ACELP
Algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP) is a speech coding algorithm in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to a linear prediction filter. It is a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm that is based on the code- ...
codec for its downloads in 2000, and Amazon bought a 5 percent stake in the then-publicly traded company the same year.[
In 2003, Audible reached an agreement with Apple to be the exclusive provider of audiobooks for ]iTunes Music Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 ...
. This agreement ended in 2017 due to antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust ...
rulings in the European Union.
Two years later, the service released "Audible Air", which allowed users to download audiobooks directly to PDAs and smartphones
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...
. Its content would update automatically, downloading chapters as required that would then delete themselves after they had been listened to. In 2006, the company released its A-List collection, which had famous works read by Anne Hathaway
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, she was among the world's highest-paid actresses in 20 ...
and Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a British Academy Film Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominat ...
.[
In 2007, CEO Donald Katz moved the company headquarters with 125 employees from suburban Wayne, New Jersey to Newark.] The new headquarters was a high-rise building on One Washington Park.[
On January 31, 2008, ]Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
announced they would purchase Audible for about $300 million. In April of that year, Audible began producing exclusive science fiction and fantasy audiobooks under its "Audible Frontiers" imprint. At launch, 25 titles were released.
In May 2011, the service launched Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), an online rights marketplace and production platform.[Max Humphreys]
Audible's Audiobook Creation Exchange Reports Big Growth In 2012
, NextAdvisor, February 4, 2013 The platform was so successful that in 2012, Audible reported it had received more titles from ACX than from its top three audio providers combined.[ In March 2012, Audible launched the A-List Collection, a series showcasing Hollywood stars including ]Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes (born April 12, 1979) is an American actress. She is the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2012, '' Time'' named her one of the 100 most influenti ...
, Colin Firth
Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the " Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a challenging series of roles, including leading roles in '' A M ...
, Anne Hathaway
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, she was among the world's highest-paid actresses in 20 ...
, Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood
The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American ...
, Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him ...
, Diane Keaton, Nicole Kidman, and Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet (; born 5 October 1975) is an English actress. Known for her work in independent films, particularly period dramas, and for her portrayals of headstrong and complicated women, she has received numerous accolades, inc ...
performing great works of literature. Firth's performance of Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
's ''The End of the Affair
''The End of the Affair'' is a 1951 novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films (released in 1955 and 1999) that were adapted from the novel. Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the n ...
'' was named Audiobook of the Year at the Audie Awards
The Audie Awards (, rhymes with "gaudy"; abbreviated from ''audiobook''), or simply the Audies, are awards for achievement in spoken word, particularly audiobook narration and audiodrama performance, published in the United States of America. They ...
in 2013.
The service began offering its narration workshops at acting schools, including Juilliard and Tisch School of the Arts; in 2013, Audible's CEO speculated that the company was the largest single employer of actors in the New York area.
In September 2012, Audible introduced a feature known as "Whispersync for Voice", which allows users to continue audiobooks from where they left off reading them on Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...
.
In 2016, the company announced that it would open a new facility in Newark, New Jersey, the "Innovation Cathedral", in a former Second Presbyterian Church, last used in 1995.
In July 2019, a new feature was announced called Audible Captions, in which machine-generated text would be displayed alongside the audio narration. The company was sued by the Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercial ...
shortly thereafter for copyright violation
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
. The lawsuit was settled in early 2020, with Audible agreeing not to implement the Captions feature without obtaining express permission.
In November 2020, Audible modified its return and exchange policy in response to concerns by authors, who felt that customers were abusing the policy to listen to audiobooks without paying.
Content and pricing
Audible's content includes more than 200,000 audio programs from audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers and business information providers. Content includes books of all genres, as well as radio shows (classic and current), speeches, interviews, stand-up comedy, and audio versions of periodicals such as '' The New York Times'' and '' The Wall Street Journal''.
The service offered two monthly subscription tiers, "Audible Gold" and "Audible Platinum", priced at US$14.95 and $22.95 respectively: Both services allow users to obtain credits which can be used to purchase audio books (one whole credit for Gold, and two whole credits on Platinum), while Platinum also included additional incentives such as exclusive discounts. On August 24, 2020, Audible replaced both plans with "Audible Premium Plus" (a renaming of Gold, though with the Platinum pricing and credits grandfathered for existing subscribers), and introduced a new $7.95 subscription tier known as "Audible Plus." Both tiers include access to a curated on-demand library of audiobooks, podcasts, and other original productions, while the Audible Plus tier does not include credits.
Once a customer has purchased a title, it remains in that person's library and can be downloaded or streamed at any time. As of April 1, 2019, credits expire one year after issue, and credits prior to this day expire after two years.
Original content
In May 2015, Audible hired Eric Nuzum, formerly VP of programming at NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
, as its SVP of original content development.
In 2016, the service introduced an on-demand service known as "Audible Channels", which features short-form audio programming from various outlets, including news and other original productions. Access is included as part of Audible's subscription, and also became available to Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one- ...
subscribers. Nuzum compared this strategy to original content created by HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television, premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office busi ...
or Netflix, and stated that the service deliberately avoided use of the word "podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
" as to not alienate listeners unfamiliar with the concept.
Among its original productions are ''Where Should We Begin?'' — a relationship podcast with Esther Perel
Esther Perel (born 1958) is a Belgian-American psychotherapist, known for her work on human relationships.
Perel promoted the concept of "erotic intelligence" in her book ''Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence'' (2006), which has b ...
, ''Sincerely, X — a podcast featuring anonymous TED Talks, ''Ponzi Supernova'' — a chronicle of the Madoff investment scandal, ''The Butterfly Effect'' — a podcast series by Jon Ronson chronicling the impact of PornHub
Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography website. It is one of several pornographic video-streaming websites owned by MindGeek. , Pornhub is the 10th-most-trafficked website in the world and the second-most-trafficked adult website afte ...
on internet pornography, and ''West Cork'', a true crime
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events.
The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...
podcast investigating an unsolved 1996 murder in West Cork, Ireland
West Cork ( ga, Iarthar Chorcaí) is a tourist region and municipal district in County Cork, Ireland. As a municipal district, West Cork falls within the administrative area of Cork County Council, and includes the towns of Bantry, Castletownber ...
.
In August 2018, it was reported that Nuzum was stepping down, and that Amazon had laid off most of the short-form content staff. This move came amid a shift in Audible's original content strategy, including a greater focus on "audiobook-first" deals with writers.
The service's new strategy for original content was announced in fall 2020 with the debut of a new lower-price tier providing access to "Audible Originals." The new tier, called Premium Plus, provided access at the time of introduction to 11,000 audio titles available only by subscription to Audible. These titles included earlier original material, plus new audio productions featuring such creators as Common, Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress, producer, children's author, and activist. She came to prominence with her portrayal of Lt. Barbara Duran on the ABC sitcom '' Operation Petticoat'' (1977–78). In 1978, she m ...
, Kate Mara, Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Forbes Fierstein ( ; born June 6, 1952) is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his theater work in '' Torch Song Trilogy'' and ''Hairspray'' and movie roles in '' Mrs. Doubtfire'', ''Independence Day'', and ...
, Michael Caine and Jesse Eisenberg. More recent releases include Newark Mayor Ras Baraka
Ras Jua Baraka (born April 9, 1970) is an American educator, author, and politician who is the 40th and current Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He was previously a member of the Municipal Council of Newark and the principal of the city's Central ...
's memoir and two works by ''Brown Sugar'' screenwriter Michael Elliot.
Device support
Audible audio files are compatible with hundreds of audio players, PDA
PDA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books
*Personal digital assistant, a mobile device
* Photodiode array, a type of detector
* Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting po ...
s, mobile phones and streaming media devices.[How Audible Works](_blank)
How Audible works at audible.com, April 22, 2007 Devices that do not have AudibleAir capability (allowing users to download content from their library directly into their devices) require a Windows PC or Macintosh to download the files. Additionally, titles can be played on the PC (using iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...
or AudibleManager). Titles cannot be burned to CD with AudibleManager. According to Audible's website, they can be burned to CD using Apple's iTunes and some versions of Nero. (The DRM generally allows a title to be burned to CD once, although the resulting CDs can be played in any CD player and have no copy prevention.) Currently there is no support for Linux, although AudibleManager is known to work through Wine (though this is not officially supported by Audible).
Prospective buyers of media players can check the audible.com "Device Center" to verify whether the device will play .aa files, as well as play them at the desired level of audio fidelity. Audible players are available on Apple iPhones, iPods, Android, and Windows Phone devices.
The Audible App allows for the downloading and playing of audio books purchased via Audible.com and allows the user to store multiple titles for play on mobile devices using the AA file format developed by Audible.
Quality
The following qualities have been available from Audible. Currently, only the "Format 4" and "Enhanced" formats are available for download.
*AAX files are encrypted M4B's. The audio is encoded in variable quality AAC format. While the vast majority of books are encoded at 64 kbit/s, 22.050 kHz, stereo, some are as low as 32k, mono. Radio plays are often encoded at 128kbit/s and 44.1 kHz. Additionally, many audiobooks in Germany are encoded at the latter bitrate and are marketed as "AAX+"; however, there is no difference in the actual file format.
Digital rights management
Audible's .aa file format encapsulates sound encoded in either MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
or the ACELP
Algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP) is a speech coding algorithm in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to a linear prediction filter. It is a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm that is based on the code- ...
speech codec, but includes unauthorized-playback prevention by means of an Audible username and password, which can be used on up to four computers and three smartphones at a time. Licenses are available for schools and libraries.
Audible's content can only be played on selected mobile devices. Its software does enable users to burn a limited number of CDs for unrestricted playback, resulting in CDs that can be copied or converted to unrestricted digital audio formats.
Because of the CD issue, Audible's use of digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works ...
on its .aa format has earned it criticism. While multiple software products are capable of removing the ''Audible DRM ''protection by re-encoding in other formats, Audible has been quick to threaten the software makers with lawsuits for discussing or promoting this ability, as happened with River Past Corp and GoldWave Inc. Responses have varied, with River Past removing the capability from their software, and GoldWave retaining the capability, but censoring discussions about the ability in its support forums. But there are still many other software tools from non-US countries which easily bypass the DRM control of Audible by various methods, including sound recording, virtual CD burning, and even using a media plugin library once provided by Audible themselves. After Apple's abandonment of most DRM measures, Amazon's downloads ceasing to use it, Audible's DRM system is one of the few remaining in place.
Many Audible listings displayed to non-U.S. customers are geo-blocked. According to Audible, this is because the publisher who has provided the title does not have the rights to distribute the file in a given region. Logged in are unable to see titles that are unavailable for purchase.
There were hopes that Amazon, after its purchase of Audible, would remove the DRM from its audiobook selection, in keeping with the current trend in the industry. Nevertheless, Audible's products continue to have DRM, similar to the policy of DRM-protecting their Kindle e-books, which have DRM that allows for a finite, yet undisclosed number of downloads at the discretion of the publisher, however Audible titles that are DRM free can be copied to the Kindle and made functional.
Audible is able to offer DRM-free titles for content providers who wish to do so. FFmpeg 2.8.1+ is capable of playing Audible's .aa and .aax file formats natively.
Market power
Audible operates the Audiobook Creation Exchange, which enables individual authors or publishers to work with professional actors and producers to create audiobooks, which are then distributed to Amazon and iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...
. The service is available to residents of the United States and the United Kingdom. Audible produces 10,000 titles a year and may be the largest employer of actors in New York City.
See also
* RBMedia
* LibriVox
* Storytel
Storytel AB is a Stockholm-based e-book and audiobook subscription service.
It compares with Audible using a monthly credit model, and is available in more than 25 countries. Its English audiobook service Audiobooks.com is available in more th ...
References
External links
*
Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Audible
by Katherine Kellgren
{{DEFAULTSORT:Audible.Com
Amazon (company) acquisitions
Audiobook companies and organizations
Retail companies established in 1995
Internet properties established in 1997
Online retailers of the United States
Companies based in Newark, New Jersey
Mass media in Newark, New Jersey
IOS software
Android (operating system) software
Windows Phone software
Windows software
Universal Windows Platform apps
2008 mergers and acquisitions
Subscription services
YouTube sponsors