Remove DRM from Audible's audio books (Removing copy-protection from .AA files)

Audio books from Audible come with copy-protection. What if your player is not compatible with .AA format? What if you want to listen to them on any device you have?

• Remove copy-protection from .AA files using DRM removal software like Soundtaxi, Tunebite.
• Remove copy-protection by recording from your sound card using direct sound recording software like freeware sound editor Audacity. Like the above mentioned DRM removal software these programs record sound produced by your sound card.
• Remove copy-protection from .AA files by burning copy-protected audio files to Audio CD and ripping them.
  • Note Burner can burn DRM protected files to a virtual audio CD and rip them. It preservs ID3 tags for artist, album, title names, etc in the ripped audio files.
  • Nero 7 can burn .AA audio files to an Audio CD.
  • Older version of Audible Manager has the ability to convert .AA files to an Audio CD (using Roxio software). You can downgrade to version 3.5 and 4.0 and work with another software (like GoldWave).
• Use DRM free audioboooks

Do you really need those ID3 tags that DRM removal software can save for you? Saving ID3 tags like artist and title is very important when removing copy-protection from music files. And what about audio books? May be it is better to save some cash?

Although DRM removal software usually work faster. Besides many programs allow you not to worry whether any other sounds are played by your sound card or not while you're recording something.

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

How to convert DRM-protected Audible .AA files to DRM-free .MP3 files so that you can play them on any player.

Goldwave is an audio conversion program. It requires Audible Codecs to perform the conversion. You should install Audible Manager before Goldwave, so that Goldwave can open audible .AA audio files.

You need an older version of Audible to be able to convert with Goldwave. Try to download "audibleMediaPlayerFilter.exe" and install it.
Download audibleMediaPlayerFilter.exe:

http://www.coolutils.com/Downloads/audibleMediaPlayerFilter.exe

When installing Audible software, make sure to select the "Listen on my Computer" option so that the correct files are installed by Audible for your Windows Media player. If you can listen to your .AA files in your Windows Media Player, then your Audible Manager is installed correctly.

Please note, that the newest version of of Goldwave require payment after a trial period. Download Goldwave 5.06 or earlier to get an older full version that never expires.

1. Log into you Audible account
2. Download and install Audible Manager
3. In the Audible Manager select "Edit" -> "Options" and see the "Location of Audio Files". Your .AA files will be downloaded into this folder.
4. Download an .AA audiobook from Audible.
5. Close the Audible Manager.
6. Run Goldwave
7. Select "File" -> "Open" and load the .AA audiobook from the audible download directory (see above).
   
   Note that Goldwave may require the ID and password of the Audible user who originally purchased the file before it can be opened.
8. Select "File" -> "Save". Select MP3 format, 128kbps, 44100 Hz.
9. Save the MP3 file into the target directory.
   
   Note: If you get the "Encoder not found. A recent version of the MPEG Layer 3 encoder LAME MP3 cannot be found" error, then you need to download the LAME encoder. You can usually click the "Download" button in the Goldwave window to download and install it.
10. You can use Goldwave to split MP3 file into several files:
    1. In step 8, instead of doing the "File" -> "Save", click on "Options" -> "File Format".
    2. Select the "Default Save Format" tab and select the format you need (MP3, WMA, etc.)
    3. In the attributes box, select which attribute you want and then make sure to check the "Use this format for Save As, Save Selection As, and Copy To" box. The Auto Cue setting discussed next won't work unless you set the Default Save format first.
    4. Click on "Tool" -> "Cue Points" -> "Auto Cue". Select the "Spacing" tab.
    5. The "Starting at time" should be 0.00. In the "Interval" box, select the length you want your tracks to be.
       Note that 1.0, 2.0, 5.0 etc. are seconds, not minutes! Five minutes is shown as 5:00.00, thirty minutes is shown as 30:00.00. One hour is shown as 1:00:00.00.
    6. Click on "OK" and the "Cue list" will be shown.
    7. Click "Split File". In the Destination Folder navigate to the folder where your files will be be saved.
    8. In the "Base filename" box, it will show track# or track##. The number of number (#) signs is how digits will be in the track number.
       If there will be 9 or less tracks, it should be "track#".
       If there will be 10 to 99 tracks, it should be "track##".
       If there will be 100 to 999 tracks, it should be "track###".
    9. In the "First number" box, put whatever number you like the first track to have. (This is handy if you are converting a book that has multiple parts)
    10. When you are done, click "OK" and Goldwave will start processing the tracks.
    You can also split MP3 with MP3DirectCut as well as other programs.

Note: audibleMediaPlayerFilter.exe doesn't seem to support Windows 7, so you need to use other methods mentioned in the previous post to remove DRM protection from .AA files (for example: DRM removal software like Soundtaxi works in Windows 7 x32 and x64).

[Lexie]

Note: audibleMediaPlayerFilter.exe doesn't seem to support Windows 7, so you need to use other methods mentioned in the previous post to remove DRM protection from .AA files (for example: DRM removal software like Soundtaxi works in Windows 7 x32 and x64).

I have win 7x64 premium and successfully installed audiblemediaplayer.exe by running in windows xp compatibility mode as admin and copying msvci70.dll to the windows\system folder.
To run it in compatibility mode, right click the audiblemediaplayer.exe installation file, hit properties, check run this program in compatibility mode and keep it windows xp sp3. Then go to the bottom of that window and tick run program as administrator and it works like a charm. You also need to run Goldwave un the same mode during installation and possibly when running the program. Have not run it yet so I'll let you know when I do.

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Thank

[stranzenbach]

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 with wine.
Following the above procedure, goldwave does not recognise .aa files.
Is there any body with luck using linux?

[Loyalise]

Thank you so much! The toolkit was still available (June of 2012) and everything worked great! I was already a dedicated GoldWave user, but didn't have the ability to open AA files until I downloaded the older Audible Manager version. I am converting an AA file to MP3 as I type.

Thanks again!

[bkw]

http://swankandswill.blogspot.com/20...thout-drm.html

Setup is a little complicated but that's one-time. It's far faster and easier than anything else after that. And ridiculously ludicrously faster.
Some Audible drm strippers brag about running at 5x. 5x? A 36 hour book will only take 7.2 hours to convert? Wow where is my seat belt!!!? Try 400x ! Not 400%, 400X! A 36 hour book takes 0.09 hours, 5.4 minutes. That's with a good cpu. With a lowly Atom it only gets a paltry *90x*. What were you saying about 5x? hehe

Best thing is the crucial DRM-stripping part is Audibles OWN software. The directshow filter library/plugin.

The crucial speed-making part is the Helix mp3 encoder.

And dbpoweramp is just a super flexible and handy glue connecting those two together. Neither Helix nor dbpoweramp are doing any DRM stripping.

And unlike the kludges that use the cd-burning option in the desktop player, or sound-card loopbacks, or virtual sound cards, Audible can not legally claim that using the directshow filter in this way violates the intended purpose. They can claim that using the cd-burner option for any other purpose than to play a real cd, for instance burning to a fake software cd and then ripping it, or similarly using a fake virtual sound card that records instead of plays, violates the advertised purpose of the software.

But the directshow filter is by definition just a filter, a plugin, whose interface is the directshow api. No one made them make that software. If they didn't want people to have access to a generic, application-agnostic library plugin, they should not have produced and then distributed one.

All they can really do is stop distributing it themselves, and stop advertizing that it exists, and try to pretend it never did exist, and introduce new audio formats that the old filter will not know how to play. And they have done all of that. But, it really did exist and it still does.

--
bkw

[jacktheripper]

If I understand this correctly, this (Sound Taxi and similar) not only strips DRM from audiobooks (like DeDRM plugin in ebooks) but it must re-encode the stuff (with a degrade in sound quality) unless I choose to save it in WAV or FLAC. Correct?

Anyways, say if I had a DRM-free AA or AAX file, what are they? What codecs they use and what Windows desktop player plays them natively?

[Phalanx]

Gents...

I think we have a problem.

I've downloaded 2 audio books lately and audible won't decrypt them.

Error message reads:

'Unhandled exception has occurred in your application.'

I've tried to continue to no avail.

It details lots of C#/Javascript code strings in the error details.

When I continue:
'crash in main decryption loop - System.formatException....'

Something tells me that the heads at Audible currently have one over the heads of those at InAudible.


Anyone any suggestions in how to overcome this? I'm using InAudible 1.75

Thanks,

P

[Phalanx]

**************************Above,

Completely sorted by installing the latest version of InAudible.


Awesome!!!