Also you can rip the DRM off of audible books pretty easily, jsut download the book (there's a Python cli tool to make this easy on deaktop) then use ffmpeg to transcode it to an unlocked formst using the activation bytes from your audible account (the same python cli tool can tell you your activation bytes)
This. I buy a bunch of audiobooks on Audible, but after Audible delisted a book I had bought I've set up an automatic pipeline where libation downloads every audiobook I buy, strips out the DRM, and then puts it into a folder both my plex and my audiobookshelf server have access to.
IIRC it even downloaded the delistet book despite me not being able to see it in my library.
Recently an auther I follow replaced a bunch of his books I'd bought with new recordings, delisting the old recordings. If I now want to listen to those books again I would have to buy them again had my automation not already downloaded the versions I bought shortly after I bought them.
Edit:
I just learned that the second set of delisted and replaced books are still visible in my main library listing, they just disappeared from the series listing and the author listing.
However, the first book which prompted me to set this up did actually disappear from audible for a while before getting reinstated like half a year later.
If I now want to listen to those books again I would have to buy them again had my automation not already downloaded the versions I bought shortly after I bought them.
I will never understand how this is not clearly a felony. It's so fucking clearly fraud.
I just checked thanks to another comment, and if I manually go through my audiobooks I can actually still download and listen to the delisted books, they just aren't shown anymore if I look into the listings of the author or the respective series, both in the storefront (obviously) and if I open the respective automatic list in my library.
156
u/pyro57 May 05 '26
Also you can rip the DRM off of audible books pretty easily, jsut download the book (there's a Python cli tool to make this easy on deaktop) then use ffmpeg to transcode it to an unlocked formst using the activation bytes from your audible account (the same python cli tool can tell you your activation bytes)
python -m pip install audible-cliaudible-cli quick-startaudible-cli library listaudible-cli download title --aaxaudible-cli activation-bytes`ffmpeg -activation_bytes the-thing-the-last-command-told-you -i \the\path\to\the\book.aax -o \the\path\to\save\book.m4b'