Tag Archives: Audiobooks

from the you’ll-miss-them-when-they’re-gone dept

Wed, Jun 29th 2022 07:29pm – By Glyn Moody

*Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com*

Michael E. Karpeles, Program Lead on OpenLibrary.org at the Internet Archive, spotted an interesting blog post by Michael Kozlowski, the editor-in-chief of Good e-Reader. It concerns Amazon and its audiobook division, Audible:

Amazon owned Audible ceased selling individual audiobooks through their Android app from Google Play a couple of weeks ago. This will prevent anyone from buying audio titles individually. However, Audible still sells subscriptions through the app (…)

Karpeles points out that this is yet another straw in the wind indicating that the ownership of digital goods is being replaced with a rental model. He wrote a post last year exploring the broader implications, using Netflix as an example:

What content landlords like Netflix are trying to do now is eliminate our “purchase” option entirely. Without it, renting become the only option and they are thus free to arbitrarily hike up rental fees, which we have to pay over and over again without us getting any of these aforementioned rights and freedoms. It’s a classic example of getting less for more.

Source: Enjoy Digital Ownership And Public Libraries While You Still Can | Techdirt

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology

An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books | The New Yorker

September 4, 2021 DrWeb

Increasingly, books are something that libraries do not own but borrow from the corporations that do.

By Daniel A. Gross, September 2, 2021

Steve Potash, the bearded and bespectacled president and C.E.O. of OverDrive, spent the second week of March, 2020, on a business trip to New York City.

OverDrive distributes e-books and audiobooks—i.e., “digital content.” In New York, Potash met with two clients: the New York Public Library and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

By then, Potash had already heard what he described to me recently as “heart-wrenching stories” from colleagues in China, about neighborhoods that were shut down owing to the coronavirus. He had an inkling that his business might be in for big changes when, toward the end of the week, on March 13th, the N.Y.P.L. closed down and issued a statement: “The responsible thing to do—and the best way to serve our patrons right now—is to help minimize the spread of COVID-19.”

The library added, “We will continue to offer access to e-books.”

Source: An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books | The New Yorker

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Web & Technology

Amazon withholds its ebooks from libraries because it prefers you pay it instead – The Verge

March 11, 2021 DrWeb

Amazon’s publishing arm has refused to sell digital books to libraries

By Nick Statt @nickstatt, Mar 10, 2021, 1:39pm EST

Amazon is withholding ebook and audiobook versions of works it publishes through its in-house publishing arms from US libraries, according to a new report from The Washington Post. In fact, Amazon is the only major publisher that’s doing this, the report states. It’s doing so because the company thinks the terms involved with selling digital versions of books to libraries, which in turn make them available to local residents for free through ebook lending platforms like Libby, are unfavorable.

Source: Amazon withholds its ebooks from libraries because it prefers you pay it instead – The Verge

Books & Reading, Libraries, Music, Web & Technology

How Digital Lending Service Hoopla Brings Libraries Into The Internet Era

March 25, 2018 DrWeb

Hoopla, one of the digital lending services allowing libraries to offer ebooks and other digital content, has helped drive the unassuming library ebook to success in over 1,600 public library systems. Here’s how.

Source: How Digital Lending Service Hoopla Brings Libraries Into The Internet Era