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Wot The Fsck You Say, Spotify? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by Cinner@lemmy.world to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Edit: A couple times I've said eBook while I actually meant Audiobook. I've learned that Spotify has a 15 hour limit per month for their free 'included in premium' audiobooks. However these are the two books I listened to for free, and even rounding up to 13 hours it doesn't make sense, unless they count accidental chapter skips which weren't actually listened to. But it's clear now that I know about the 15 hour limit, that they are not counting the time listening to paid audiobooks.

First book I listened to for free:

Second book I listened to for free:

OG post:

I purchased 3 eBooks in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series (2 came free) and I'm on the final book. 20 minutes left in the last book and this is what Spotify tells me.

I'm over the edge now. I've been putting it off too long. I have a nice NUC I purchased about a year ago.

I'm tech inclined, 20 years of hobbyism, know the linux command line well. Work in IT consulting. But I'm busy. Very busy, and unmotivated to do things like hours of research and toying with settings getting things to work, if I ever have the time.

But this is the start of my new personal revolution.

I'll read the wiki and have read about Sonarr, etc, and I also want movies and shows, but is there anything specifically for eBooks? Looks like Readarr is my best bet? Stripping the DRM of already purchased (and free with Spotify 'Premium') books to share on a seedbox is also something I'm willing to take requests on. Is there a way to rip from Spotify if you have a premium account? And what's the best Android eBook reader (the last 3-4 I tried sucked with pirated eBooks)?

I know I'm sounding like a noob asking everything to be handed to me right now, but I am willing to put in the research and welcome and highly appreciate anyone with tips to point me in the right directions.

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[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 260 points 9 months ago

If the experience that a paying customer gets is worse than the experience they get from pirating, then that's the fault of the company selling that enshitified experience.

It's wild how modern businesses are trying to kill themselves with every terrible idea they have to make more money.

[-] Zahille7@lemmy.world 37 points 9 months ago

As shitty as Amazon is, I will say that the books I've gotten through Audible are all still there and I can listen to them whenever I want even though I don't have a subscription or anything anymore.

[-] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 38 points 9 months ago

Wait for a while and Amazon will go down the same route.

[-] w3dd1e@lemm.ee 33 points 9 months ago

Audible replaced a version of a book my boyfriend bought with a completely different version of the same book. I mean a different narrator and everything. He had purchased the book a few years earlier but he didn’t manage to get a refund from them.

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[-] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 191 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Full Explanation:

Spotify introduced Audiobooks to their platform in November 2023:

Unlimited listening to public domain classics.
15 free hours per month of premium audiobooks.
10 hour top ups available.
Can purchase premium audiobooks for unlimited listening.

OP purchased book 1 and can listen to it all they want. They did not purchase book 2 or 3, and also listened to other audiobooks, putting them over the 15 hour limit.

Key Facts:

Spotify Audiobooks are a new feature with no additional subscription cost.
OP used all of their free credits for the month.
OP was never prevented from listening to a book they purchased.

That said, stop paying for audiobooks like a chump and get a library card.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 43 points 9 months ago

That's an awful lot of words for "Spotify is bullshit."

[-] null@slrpnk.net 16 points 9 months ago

I mean, seems like this is way better for listening to audiobooks than when they had no audiobooks whatsoever

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[-] Pulptastic@midwest.social 40 points 9 months ago

All the free audiobooks you want from your library using hoopla and Libby.

[-] Neil@lemmy.ml 15 points 9 months ago

I tried this and the waiting list for anything remotely worth a damn was months long. I just went and pirated the thing instead.

Has your experience been different?

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[-] capital@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

Important info here. Definitely not the impression I got from the OP.

[-] RouxBru@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

So OP is complaining about being limited by the amount of free books OP can listen to? Sounds fair to me, these things cost money to make, and websites cost money to run.

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[-] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 9 months ago

Weird way to say "just torrent the audio book"

[-] NightAuthor@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Oh man, I did the hard work (it was easy) of reading some rules and answering some questions via irc to get an invite to MAM and wow is that a treasure-trove of ebooks and audiobooks.

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[-] ptz@dubvee.org 93 points 9 months ago

https://archive.org/details/hhgttg-ab/

Read by Stephen Fry, no less.

[-] Cinner@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago

The OG HHGTTG is, the prequel and subsequent books in the series are not unfortunately. But I got used to the other guys voice quickly.

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[-] Kit 82 points 9 months ago

Tbh as a quick fix your local library almost certainly has this audio book. Finish your book then you can look into piracy.

[-] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 38 points 9 months ago

Sadly, that’s the case less and less these days. Distributors are forcing libraries to use digital resources and gouging them on prices.

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[-] Cinner@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago

You reminded me I do have major regional library card access, if they don't expire after a couple years.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yo always check out your library first before piracy, if you can get it free and traffic your library you ought to

(Just cuz libraries are dope)

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[-] mvirts@lemmy.world 68 points 9 months ago

Don't panic. You've come to the right place. Spread out your towel and lay on it for a nice nap while you wait for lemmings to reply.

[-] littlecolt@lemm.ee 53 points 9 months ago

Go to your local library and ask if they have audiobook borrowing through Libby or a similar platform! Not only are you NOT limited on listening hours, but it's free! You just might have to wait if all the "copies" are borrowed at the moment.

Also, if you have a cool library like I do, you might be able to borrow from multiple libraries. For example, my library card is for the St. Louis County Library, but it can also be used at the St. Charles County Library. So if I am looking for an audiobook on Libby, and SLCL has 3 virtual copies and they are all borrowed, I can search SCCL to see if they have any. I've had many situations where I'll find one library or the other will have a copy available for borrowing with no wait.

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[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 51 points 9 months ago

You bought the audiobooks on Spotify, and then they limited your listening time? What the fuck? Do you have a subscription? DIdn't even know they sold audiobooks; just thought they had some free ones.

[-] Cinner@lemmy.world 38 points 9 months ago

Exactly. I pay for Spotify premium, I purchased 3/5 books in this series, and maybe it's because 2 of the books were free with premium (incl this last book) that it's time limiting me. But if that's the case it's also counting time listened during my paid-for eBooks. Absolutely crazy to me.

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[-] maxprime@lemmy.ml 42 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Audiobookbay, My Anonamouse, Audiobookshelf

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[-] themakara@lemmy.world 40 points 9 months ago

If you wanna selfhost your own solution, I can recommend Audiobookshelf. It scraps metadata from Apple, Amazon, Google etc, tracks on a per-user basis at what point in the book you are, can be used in a browser and has an android app. It's easy to set up with Docker too. You can even add PDFs and epubs to the books.

Been using it for a few months and it has been great.

As for sourcing of audiobooks, aside from torrents there are also audiobb.com & audiobooksbee.com . They use RapidGator as host for a ddl.

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[-] cupcakezealot 40 points 9 months ago

libraries let you check out audiobooks for free

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

They even often have them streaming for free. All of my wife's audiobooks are free streamed via the library and she listens to them every day.

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[-] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 32 points 9 months ago

Fuck Spotify I would demand a refund then do a chargeback if they refuse. This is fucked.

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[-] Fades@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

What the fuck lmao

Why does anyone use shitify

[-] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 53 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Why does anyone use shitify

Virtually every single song in the world in your pocket for a little over 10 euros a month doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. Then again why does anyone use spotify for anything other than listening to music, there your guess is as good as mine.

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[-] verysoft@kbin.social 24 points 9 months ago

Convenient, easy to use, available everywhere.

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[-] slampisko@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago

This isn't exactly what you asked for and might not even work, but look up xManager. It lets you install a modded version of Shittify with premium features on free accounts -- maybe this limitation is something they also modded away?

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[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 23 points 9 months ago

The enshitification is real!

[-] solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 9 months ago

It's been a while since I had the opportunity for audiobooks, so those specifically I'm a little out of the loop. Audiobookbay was a thing at some point.

For e books... Z-library and/ or Anna's archive. The reader I use is ReadEra premium, it can handle pretty much any format although default to pick is epub. I don't think you really need to buy premium, I just did because I wanted to support them. I've been using it for forever with almost no problems. You can adjust the things you want (font, spacing, light/dark, etc), but the basic format when reading is very simple once you have it set up

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[-] Roman@lemmy.ml 20 points 9 months ago

you get 15 hours of listening to any audiobook on spotify included with premium and it refreshes every month. Two of the books did not come free they are part of the 15 hours that you can use on any book "included with premium"

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

That doesn't really sound like a premium.

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[-] Chev@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

Library Card

Depends on your local library but I have for example unlimited E Books included.

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[-] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works 15 points 9 months ago

Enshitification!

[-] ashley@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 9 months ago

for ripping music from Spotify, best solution I know is spotdl which just downloads an album or playlist link given to it, and fetches the equivalent from YouTube.

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[-] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 9 months ago

I use soggfy to rip from Spotify and can recommend that. Other than that myanonamouse is the place to be for audiobooka imo

[-] tamal3@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Love your local library. The Lemmy app is a good way to access content.

Also pirating... I live in the southern US, where they keep underfunding my library.

[-] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 23 points 9 months ago

You almost certainly meant to say Libby.

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[-] lemmyingly@lemm.ee 13 points 9 months ago

I stopped paying when they started serving adverts in 2020. Why am I paying a subscription fee to be served adverts? Especially during a period where I was only listening to a few hours per week. Fck dat greedy piggies.

[-] Hominine@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Haven't looked at the audiobook player scene on Android since stumbling over Smart Audiobook Player some years ago. I bought the full edition after enjoying it. It has a scraper for images and works well with titles downloaded from audiobookbay.