Dear Jeremy,

Thank you for contacting Audible.com. On its behalf, I would like to apologize
for any inconvenience and I am most committed to satisfying and resolving your
inquiry to the fullest of my abilities.

As per your email, I can understand how the DRM can cause such an inconvenience
to customers, and that others have found a way to work around the DRM which
seems to be listed online. However to further elaborate on the DRM, it is
important on our end to support it because majority of publishers would prefer
their content to be protected. You see without the DRM we would not be able to
distribute the majority of our 50,000 titles.

Now as for Amazon, I personally have not heard anything about us dropping the
DRM, due to a high volume of complaints. So I do apologize, but since I haven't
heard of anything, I would not honestly be able to comment on this rumor. Again
thank you for contacting us here at Audible and have a great day!!

Here at Audible, we truly value and appreciate your business; if you need
further assistance, please respond to this email or if you wish, please provide
me with a contact number and the best available time to reach you.

For additional questions, how to contact us and hours of operation, please
visit us at: www.audible.com/contactus

Sincerely,
Reggie M.
Audible Customer Support

Good day,

I keep receiving special offers from Audible which appear to be designed to
regain me as a customer. I signed up several months ago in response to an
advert in some podcasts I listen to[1] and was very pleased with the audio
quality and production values of the books I purchased.

However, the DRM restrictions placed on the books required me to change
operating systems and listen to the books on my computer rather than my mobile
mp3 player. Since I primarily listen to audiobooks in the car and at gym, this
is a deal-breaker for me and the reason I canceled my subscription.

The fact that DRM doesn't really work is common knowledge. A brief Google
search yields a number of ways to strip Audible DRM protections from
audiobooks, but all of them require more time and effort than I am willing to
expend. This means that the DRM isn't stopping the pirates (since they are
prepared to put in the effort) but it is stopping legitimate customers, such as
myself.

I believe an Amazon spokesperson has said that if enough people complain,
Audible will consider removing the DRM on their audiobooks.[2] I would very
much like this to be the case. In their current form, Audible books just aren't
very useful to me.

I intend to post the contents of this email on my blog[3], and would like to
post any response I receive as well, although I will obviously respect your
wishes should you ask me not to.

Thank you,
Jeremy Thurgood

[1] Escape Pod (http://escapepod.org), Pesudopod (http://pseudopod.org)
    and Podcastle (http://podcastle.org)

[2] Via Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:
    http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/31/amazon-buys-audible.html

[3] http://jerith.livejournal.com/

>> (1 + 2 +
?>     4)
=> 7
>> (1 + 2
>>   + 4)
=> 4

>> t = "a\tx\tb"
=> "a\tx\tb"
>> re = Regexp.new("a\t\S\tb")
=> a    S       b
>> re.match(t)
=> nil
>> re = Regexp.new("a\t[^\t]\tb")
=> a    [       ]       b
>> re.match(t)
=> #<MatchData:0xb7e57c90>

>> re = Regexp.new('a\t\S\tb')
=> atStb
>> re.match(t)
=> #<MatchData:0xb7b411dc>
>> re = /a\t\S\tb/
=> atStb
>> re.match(t)
=> #<MatchData:0xb7ae8c1c>

Dear Ruby haters: I used to be afraid of the table saw until I learned how to use it safely. This did not involve nerfing the table saw.

5. Commercial communications

5.1. Sending of commercial communications

5.1.1. All commercial messages must contain a valid originating number and/or the name or identifier of the message originator.

5.1.2. Any message originator must have a facility to allow the recipient to remove his or herself from the message originator’s database, so as not to receive any further messages from that message originator.

5.1.3. Any mechanism for allowing a recipient to remove him or herself from a database must not cost more than one rand.

5.1.7. Upon request of the recipient, the message originator must, within a reasonable period of time, identify the source from which the recipient’s personal information was obtained.

5.2.1. Any commercial message is considered unsolicited (and hence spam) unless:

1. the recipient has requested the message;
2. the message recipient has a direct and recent prior commercial relationship with the message originator and would reasonably expect to receive marketing communications from the originator; or
3. the organisation supplying the originator with the recipient’s contact information has the recipient’s explicit consent to do so.

5.3.1. Members will not send or promote the sending of spam and will take reasonable measures to ensure that their facilities are not used by others for this purpose.

5.3.2. Members will provide a mechanism for dealing expeditiously with complaints about spam originating from their networks.