Yeah, used to be a big Audible fan when I was in China, but no longer after I lost all my books when I switched computers. Serious BS.

Found this post while searching around and I thought I'd jump in here. I'm a big fan of both TWIT and Audible, I've actually been an Audible premium subscriber for over two years now and I love it.

In my opinion, the Audible DRM is probably the best DRM model I've seen, not that I wouldn't love to get rid of it, but they've done a good job.

The things I like about it is that while it can be a pain to deactivate and activate devices they're very good at helping you if you need it. I had both a computer and a PDA go down last year and I didn't have any activations left and no way of deactivating my broken devices, one email to Audible and they had reset everything.

The DRM plays well with almost everything, both Windows Media Player and iTunes; both PlayForSure and the iPod line. The only major exception right now is the Zune, but hopefully MS will get that working soon.

Finally, it's not actually that difficult to get past the DRM, you can go the brute force method of writing out to CDs and ripping them back in, or I've seen people get around it with TuneBite pretty easily.

But even if the DRM was way worse I'd still use Audible because I've never found a comparable service. Actually, I think I've gotten a better education for $22 a month with Audible than I'm getting for my four $60,000 BFA at the university (but don't tell them I said that).

I found this post while searching for TWiT's list of Audible recommendations. I don't have one of the DRM capable devices that Audible supports. What I do have is the Nero suite. Nero & Audible play well together. I download an audio book, burn it to virtual CDs (creates an ISO-like file for each CD which can later be mounted on Nero's virtual drive). Then I use Nero to rip the "CDs" to playable tracks. No DRM. I can choose where to play them. It's working for me.

The worst thing about audible DRM is that there is no way to use it on linux with an iPod. Its driving me crazy, I just wish there was an alternative!

the information in this thread is incorrect. You DO NOT lose anything when you move to a new computer!!!

In fact, you can re-download any book as many times as you like - over an over and over again. Also, when Audible creates a new audio format with a higher quality, you can re-download your favorite books when they are available in the new format.

Lastly, for those so worried about DRM and Audible, take the advice of a previous poster here and burn to CD (or virtual CD) and then rip or just listen to the CDs. I used to do that until I got smart and went with Apple iPods, which work seamlessly with Audible files. No fuss, no muss, it all just works.

For the dude on Linux, you gotta face reality dude. I love Linux and have used it for years too, it's far superior to anything else, but the fact is that there are not enough people in this world who realize that. In this day and age (and it might improve someday), you have to have a Mac or Windows box to ensure you can take part in everything out there including Audible. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Audible cannot afford (obviously) to support platforms with a small demographic.

For me, someone who LOVES Audible so much, the most important thing is that they do what they need to do to stay afloat in this economy.

Support Audible!! Support Audible!!!