The announcement clearly mentions audio books where Audible holds the
copyright.
Iain
On 20 Aug 2016, at 11:09 pm, David Griffith <daj.griffith@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I did try to acknowledge that it was an
good development but I still felt it should have clarified the situation. I may
be naive but the positivity of the announcement certainly did not seem to
indicate that only 1 in 50 of Audible available books would be available now to
RNIB subscribers.
Interesting you mention 25,000 RNIB books. In the announcement they said the
RNIB library consisted of 10,000 books of which of course 4,000 extra would be
a greater increase. did I misunderstand the announcement or is the announcement
incorrect as well?
David Griffith
On 20/08/2016 22:34, John Ramm wrote:
Hi David
I'm struggling to believe that anyone can be quite so unexcited about an
increase from 25,000 to 29,000 books available to borrow for free from the
RNIB Talking Book service! I don't know whether you know how difficult it is
to persuade organisations to wave or share their copyright for the benefit of
blind and partially sighted people, but it's not easy and I believe that this
is a major step forward. I hear what you say about Audible books being
available to disc and USB users but, given that Audible is an online service,
I can't imagine that these books won't also be available via Overdrive but I
can check, or perhaps one of the RNIB staff who are members could clarify.
At no point did anyone suggest that people should give up their Audible
subscriptions, but if you did, rest assured that it is an incredibly simple
matter to subscribe again, that's business ... they want your money.
The deal announced via this link may well be followed by others and I know
that the team at RNIB is working hard behind the scenes to increase the
number of titles available to the tens of thousands of people who use
this great service on a daily basis.
Talk soon, John
At 21:06 20/08/2016, you wrote:
Very interesting and certainly sounds good news but in the intro bit it
raises a lot of unanswered questions/ clarifications needed. I did not listen
through the sample from the Militarist Audio Book to its conclusion so these
questions/clarifications may have been addressed later. But assuming they
were not.
1. It only mentions eligibility for those using the USB/Daisy Disk service -
what about those who have switched to the Download Service? Are we excluded?
2. It seems to suggest though does not make clear that actually only a tiny
sub-set of books on Audible will be available to the RNIB . That is the 4,000
books for which Audible directly hold the copyright. Audible is massively
bigger than this though. Presumably this means that only 1 in 50 of the over
200,000+ books available (according to Google when I checked just now will
actually be available to RNIB members.
3. What people should definately not be doing then is cancelling their
Audible membership in the belief that they will get anything like the
selection of books they currently enjoy.
4. If I am correct in all this I think it is possibly misleading not to
include this clarification at the stage of the announcement, certainly my
first thought was should I now cancel my Audible Membership?
This is not to downplay what is an important marginal development. An
increase of 4,000 books is certainly an uplift on the current 10,000 books
that the RNIB hold.
If as a Download Talking Book User I can access these titles I will certainly
appreciate not having to expend my Audible Credits on them.
Still I think the announcement should be clearer to prevent people taking
premature stpes regarding cancelling Audible membership that they may later
regret.
David Griffith
ON 20/08/2016 17:45, Michael Allan wrote:
Here is a link to the announcement concerning this.
https://audioboom.com/boos/4951397-audible-team-up-with-rnib-talking-books ;
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John Ramm
Drummer for 40days - @40daysofficial - www.facebook.com/40dayswrexham -
www.soundcloud.com/40daysofficial
Chair, RNIB Cymru - www.rnib.org.uk/wales-cymru-1
Trustee, Action for Blind People - www.actionforblindpeople.org.uk/
Non Executive Director, Habinteg Housing Association - www.habinteg.org.uk
Clore Social Fellow: www.cloresocialleadership.org
