Audiobook Popularity Growing Rapidly, DRM Problem Intensifies: New Tunebite Version Helps
Karlsruhe, December 13, 2005 – RapidSolution Software today announced the latest release of Tunebite, Windows software that helps frustrated users play protected music and audio files on all MP3 players without limitation. The release, offering new support for audiobook, is available at http://www.tunebite.com
Audiobooks Achieving Significant Market SharePoetry and fiction, verse, trade literature, current events and many other types of information traditionally found in print are now available as audiobooks that can be used on-the-go. According to experts, audiobooks are capturing nearly 10% market share in the US. The UK leads this trend in Europe thanks to the BBC. In Germany, approximately 13,000 audiobooks have captured an estimated 4% share of the German literature market, and the German Book Dealers Association has estimated that revenue from audiobooks will grow 20% in 2005.
Proprietary Solutions from Online Providers Making Audiobooks Harder to Use Online audiobook providers—like online music providers—have turned to Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection formats to defend against copyright infringement. New DRM formats now exist for audiobooks—formats which, like their musical cousins, often result in playback limitations for legitimate consumers.
Apple iTunes now makes around 10,000 audiobooks protected with their proprietary M4B DRM format available online...
The bottom line: the typical, non-expert user with a mid-level quality MP3 player or MP3-capable mobile telephone has a good chance of walking away from the Apple and Audible services with empty hands. A standardization of DRM formats and adherence to such standards by all playback media is unfortunately not in sight.
Tunebite Eliminates the ProblemTunebite, long the internet standard for resolving copy-protection problems, now supports re-recording audiobooks in the DRM format M4B at 2x to 4x recording speed. Using Tunebite, users can legally make copies of audiobooks they have legitimately acquired and save these recordings as unprotected MP3 files that can be played on any MP3 player. US and European lawmakers have clarified that users may legally re-record legitimately acquired, copy-protected files to make private copies for personal use without violating copyright laws.
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