Creative Commons Audiobooks 138
xanderwilson writes "The New York Times (2nd half of the article; free reg. required as always) writes, 'Project Gutenberg is well known for offering free electronic versions of famous public-domain texts. Now Telltale Weekly wants to be its audio-book equivalent.' Of interest to others in the Slashdot community: Ogg Vorbis and MP3 downloads, payment via Bitpass micropayments, and a cheap-now, free later (with a Creative Commons License) business model." (And if you buy the Ogg Vorbis versions, part of the money goes to xiph.org.)
Re:OoOoOoo! (Score:1)
Re:OoOoOoo! (Score:5, Informative)
Read more. [telltaleweekly.com]
Re:OoOoOoo! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OoOoOoo! (Score:4, Insightful)
You must not have looked very hard:
cat something.txt | festival --tts | lame - something.mp3
or something like that, I don't remember on top of my head.
I used to do that to get the news in my mp3 player automatically in the morning before hitting the road. Of course, it's not very convincing when it tells you something extremely sad or exciting, but it's understandable.
TTS is no substitute for audiobooks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you take the script of a play or a movie, run it through tts and then say it was even a passable substitute for the original?
Re:TTS is no substitute for audiobooks. (Score:3, Interesting)
You could use a distributed proofreaders approach to tag text for different voices. Then you could do voice synthesis using different voices for different parts.
I agree that this is in no way a real substitute for audiobooks. However, this has the potential of being able to be done freely, or close to it.
Real audiobooks will be difficult to ever make free, since they require huge contributions by a few individual actors, plus a load
Re:TTS is no substitute for audiobooks. (Score:3, Interesting)
I once ran Orwell's 1984 through text-to-speech; the flat coldness of the artificial voice made it pretty damn bleak. COOL! Just what I
Re:TTS is no substitute for audiobooks. (Score:1)
If it was "Matrix Revolutions", yeah, no doubt it would improve on the quality of the original.
Re:TTS is no substitute for audiobooks. (Score:2)
There's a huge difference between a play/movie script and book. A script is lines that are meant to be performed by different people and acted out. There is no description of what's actually happenening because it is to be done visually in the background.
With a book, everything is in the text. I read a few books a week, and I've tried audiobooks a couple of times. I ju
Lessig's "Free Culture" (Score:2)
Re:OoOoOoo! (Score:3, Informative)
what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Informative)
From their site [vorbis.com]: "Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source." In other words, it has better compression than mp3, and since it's open source, you don't have to pay licensing fees on players that decode Ogg like you would with mp3.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet.
every content provider is looking to incorporate more and more DRM as the quality, cost, and ease of creation of copies improves.
the music industry doesn't care about people copying songs off the radio. it didn't even really get its panties in a bunch when CD-Rs first hit the market. or when mp3s hit the ftp servers. It went ballistic when anyone could download a single application and instantly find a never ending stream of perceptibility loss-less perfect digital copies.
likewise with the MPAA and DVD encryption, likewise with the new Cable Set-top standard.
They want to cut out MythTV, Tivo, splitters, H-cards, and cable descramblers. It's becoming too easy to get at the current data, so they want a change.
with the analog system working (fairly) well as is, why else would they create a new 'standard' for the digital system? It certainly isn't in the interest of the consumer.
Why doesn't Sony support the Blu-Ray with its stock rewritable feature?
Why did Disney/Circuit City/et al try to push (the bad) Divx onto the market in the first place?
It isn't because consumers are clamoring for less control or cheaper movies.
The time is coming when content producers are going to have to realize that their profits will no longer come from format-updates (repurchasing 8-tracks as CDs, VHS classics as DVDs, etc), and will -not- come from service-style access to data. Classic TV advertising may even have to give way to pure product-placement campaigns.
Cable will realize that a move to pay-per-channel is the way to support content without advertising in our new time-shifted digital reality. Some people -will- pay $1/mo for TLC. Home Depot will still pay for product placements in Trading Spaces. Maybe the Super-station will go away - but the cable companies, and popular channels, need not.
the film industry has already shown that the theatre experience is not losing out to cheap cam copies. they've learned that feature-rich dvds or dirt-cheap dvds are preferred to the customer over hacked-together recompressed copies on filesharing networks.
The record companies will need to realize that to win with digital music requires providing the best quality, with the least hassle. They will need to realize that they must beat file-sharing on features. People will give up hunting around for a good (not mislabeled)256kbps rip of Britney's newest song - if they know they can just hit iTunes or its ilk and cough up $1.
Fair Use needs to win out. These purported 'losses' from file-sharing need to be revealed to be grossly overestimated fabrications. (A PSA from a supposed union set painter claiming that file sharing is killing the movie industry, and threatening his job - airing during it's highest grossing year of all time is particularly tactless)
DRM is the tool of the content dinosaur. If they concentrated on actual content piracy rings - where big money is being made off black-market copies, and abandoned their fruitless DRM research - their profits could be higher than ever.
But such is not the reaction of anti-competitive cabals. Being forced to -compete- is not what they do. Suing, threatening, bullying, bribing - these are the blunt instruments they wield instead of the precise tools of innovation, imagination and competition.
So in the meantime - expect every advance to carry DRM in the fine print.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm overconfident, but I'm fairly sure that nobody's going to show up at my house and demand a check to pay for the continued use of my iPod.
[much ranting]
I read it twice, but I guess I missed the part where you answered the question. I don't pay to use either my iPod or iTunes; both include MP3 encoding and playback. (Also AAC, which I also don't pay for.) So why should I give a damn that Ogg is free? It's not easier to use (it's consid
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course not. Apple already paid it for you -- which means you paid when you bought it. All legal mp3 players have to pay for a license. They just pass it on to you in the price of your player. Windows users don't have to pay the "Microsoft Tax" themselves when they buy a new computer, it's included in the price.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much did it cost me? Let's say I paid $300 for my iPod; how much of that $300 went to the MP3 playback license?
This fails to address iTunes, of course. I didn't pay for that at all, and yet it includes a licensed MP3 encoder. So that doesn't quite add up.
What I'm getting at is this: the fact that Ogg doesn't cost anything t
$0.75 marked up three times (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently, MPEG-1 audio layer 3 decoding costs $15,000 for the first 20,000 units shipped in each fiscal year and 0.75 USD for each additional unit [mp3licensing.com]. That's part of cost of goods sold; the cost to the end user would also have to include the administrative cost of dealing with Thomson, the distributor's mark-up, and the dealer's mark-up. Mark-up increases with price in part because the cost of insuring the merchandise against damage or theft increases with price. And then multiply that by the number of pate
Re:$0.75 marked up three times (Score:2)
I'm not sure I follow this. Are you saying that it costs Apple 75c/unit, then the distributor marks it up 100% and the retailer an additional 100%? So, it costs Apple $75 to make an iPod? ($75 for cost of goods + 100% markup by the distributor to $150, then 100% markup by the retailer taking it to $300.) As for admi
Re:$0.75 marked up three times (Score:2)
Someone else said 'it's che
Re:$0.75 marked up three times (Score:2)
Maybe not, but that IS the most important part. MP3 was first, it's the de facto standard for digital music, regardless of what the geeks think of it. People who spend time away from their computers, and slashdot, don't care about the other things because they don't know about them.
Re:$0.75 marked up three times (Score:2)
And yet iTunes is free.
How does that work, exactly?
It's a loss leader (Score:1)
The iTunes software is not entirely free but is available at no charge to end users on the Windows platform. I'll conjecture a business model that would let Apple afford $2.50 per MP3 encoder:
Re:It's a loss leader (Score:2)
No, it's entirely free. Anybody can download it at no charge. There are versions available for Mac or Windows, and neither one of them has a price tag.
[idle speculation]
Whatever. Any one of those may be true, or none of them. The point remains: the fact that Ogg does not have a license fee attached matters not one damn bit to end users.
Re:It's a loss leader (Score:1)
No, it's entirely free.
"Available at no charge" != "free". In 1850, if a slaveowner wanted to give one of his slaves as a gift to his son at no charge, would the slave have automatically become a free man?
Anybody can download it at no charge. There are versions available for Mac or Windows
True, anybody can download the iTunes software, but what's the point of downloading a program available only for Mac OS or Microsoft Windows OS if you don't have a Macintosh computer or a Windows license?
the f
Re:It's a loss leader (Score:2)
Well, if you follow the link tepples gave and click around for awhile you find out Fraunhofer supposedly actully charges for encoders and for distributing or broadcasting mp3 files. Its the sort of thing you would worry about if you were a large organization that created mp3 software or distributed mp3 files in any way, but as an individua
Re:It's a loss leader (Score:2)
Hey, neat. That was really cool, the way you deliberately chose to misunderstand the meaning of a word in a given context to try to advance your little agenda. That's really awesome. I've never seen anything like that before. You're so cool. When I grow up I wanna be just like you.
True, anybody can download the iTunes software, but what's the point of download
Re:$0.75 marked up three times (Score:2)
It was free originally for free players. It might still be I'm not sure, but the license supposedly did change. here [slashdot.org] is the slashdot story from when people noticed it changed, and here [debian.org] is a debian thread afterwards saying it has not really changed. I do not think Fraunhofer (the patent holders) has ever
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2, Insightful)
I like Ogg primarily because it's a better format, it compresses a bit better, is much more flexible, and has other usefull features.
Mycroft
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
If the Apple product works for you ad you happen to be wealthy enough to afford it, fine. But don't try and dissuade others from choosing an alternative that is substantially better for their own n
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
Don't need to. Apple provides you with a complete and stunningly rich API for accessing all sorts of encoding and playback functions. It's called QuickTime.
But I'm also not foolish enough to spend $300 on something that's just going to be a piece of rubbish in a few years.
Some people value their time and their satisfaction more than others.
But don't try and dissuade others from choosing an alternative that is substantial
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
Some of us also have less money to work with than others.
Love the smug sense of superiority you ooze. Keep that up; it really works for you.
Seems to work for you too Mr. T. ;P
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
Help speed up the process: iPod feedback/feature request form [apple.com].
Re:Nothing new under the sun.. Almost (Score:3, Insightful)
What I found interesting is this type of advertising is far from new. I found some old radio programs. The Fibber McGee and Molly episodes were a real eye opener. The show did not break for a word from the sponsor. The pitch man added the product endorsement as part of the show. It seemed to fit just like the Monty Python SPAM SPAM SPAM episode that is so famous except the old radio show was promoting a floor wax. K
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:1)
They wouldn't enjoy the market saturation they have now. It was piracy that made it possible for Microsoft and Adobe and the entertainment industry to become as big as they are. I'm sure that you know the routine. For them, piracy was free advertising and distribution of thier product.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
I'll happily color you stupid. If you're playing MP3s with a free-for-download MP3 player, then no, I guess you're not, but someone is. If you have a hardware player, or are using an available-with-the-OS player such as iTunes, then yes, you paid for it, just as you help pay for driver development (Windows and MacOS drivers aren't free, even if they appear to be.)
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:1, Informative)
MOD PARENT DOWN
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I don't get is why they didn't choose Ogg Speex [speex.org], a codec that is similarly Free, but aimed especially at voice recordings.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:5, Informative)
Mainly it's the lack of support for Speex (I know, I know. Something has to come first, the chicken or the egg.) in devices and software. But I figure the more popular Ogg Vorbis gets (and the more support Xiph.org gets) the more likely Speex will eventually become a complimentary standard. While Ogg Vorbis was designed for music, not voice, it's still a better alternative than MP3.
For the "fundraising" part of this audiobook project, a third format Telltale might offer would most likely be AAC, based on user requests. But I do intend to eventually support Speex for free works.
Alex.
Re:what is Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2, Informative)
Just
Why Vorbis is important. (Score:3, Interesting)
With open source software however, it is impossible to keep track of how many copies have been distributed because anyone is free to modify or redistribute the software. This pretty much makes it ill
Time to upgrade (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:2)
Pff, real men download James Joyce's Ulysses.
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:2)
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:2)
Given the weight and size of the softcover version of Ulysses, I'd guess about 5.
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:1, Funny)
about 3 football fields, half a great pyramid at Giza and 10 VW bugs.
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:2)
I finally settled on 24kbit/s (at 11Khz, mono). And so, they should even stream over modems -- and an hour of audio comes out to only about 10 MB...
Re:Time to upgrade (Score:2)
I'm not trying to dispute any point, just give some numbers to it. The 10MB file for an hour of audio (read by perhaps a somewhat slower reader) was for about 25 pages.
According to Amazon, "War and Peace" is about 1400 pages, and so that roughly maps to 56 hours, or 560 MB total.
You can certainly stream 560 MB of audio within 56 hours, and so the only issue reagards downloading a local copy, and then it's just a question of how fast
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
How about p.d. songs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about p.d. songs? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How about p.d. songs? (Score:2)
I think a safe bet would be anything from WWI or earlier is public domain.
I bet that song "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal," is public domain. Just about any early ragtime piece would be, I think, like the Scott Joplin stuff. The song "The Entertainer," for instance, is copyright 1902, and stuff that old is certainly public domain, despite Disney's best efforts.
Re:How about p.d. songs? (Score:2)
It's not quite a song, as in a recording (any recordings from before the PD date probably haven't survived), but it's still public domain music.
finally someone "gets it" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:finally someone "gets it" (Score:3, Funny)
This is so in order for the mentioned artists not starving to death.
Life PLUS? (Score:1)
If copyright terms approximating the life of the author are necessary to prevent the author from starving to death, then what about the works of recording artists who have already passed away, often along with the songwriter? Why can't Elvis's recordings become free? What is the reasoning behind life plus 70 except as welfare for people who happen to be born heirs to an author?
Duh, Have you listened to new music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Duh, Have you listened to new music? (Score:2)
the supply of '67 Cadillacs is limited and numbers are falling... Pink Floyd music is limited to how many times they can keep cranking the presses to knock out perfect copies in fresh formats everytime there's a new playing medium available. ie it's currently out on 30th anniversary special edition in 5.1 surround sound with DVD extras... The music hasn't changed... but there are limits to how many times t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:finally someone "gets it" (Score:1)
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
This project, is not free, thought it is cheap, but does it have the depth of literature behind it? Audiobooks are relatively new compared to normal books, is there such a great selection and wealth of information/literature out there to warrant a community project such as this?
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Selling the work cheaply until then pays for current and future bandwidth, hosting, and recording costs--and attracts more talent to the project.
Alex.
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:1)
Its starting slowly but been fun so far. Tell me what you think
Reg Free Link (Score:5, Informative)
AC
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:1)
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:1, Offtopic)
AC
Neato... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I had the free time available, I would so love to "make" an audiobook reading an older public domain work or something... too bad I don't have anything in the way of good enough sound equipment for it.
That would be a good way of making older or more obscure works of literature available to the blind or anyone who wants to enjoy them on the go, with volunteer readers narrating the texts. Of course they'd need to be screened for quality, but I think something like that would be feasible. The fees could pretty much be cheap enough to just cover the costs of bandwidth and hosting.
Re:Neato... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where the cost comes into it is in the editing. Most people probably have acceptable voices - if you just teach yourself to speak at a good rate without stuttering. However, NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, can read a page of text without any errors. Those nice audiobooks that you buy probably had 5 takes for every paragraph. If somebody misreads a sentence they probably just pause and reread it. Then the editor has to listen to the whole thing and splice out the errors. That takes TIME! Plus they probaby do multiple recordings of passages as necessary to get the right dramatic effect.
Then of course somebody has to "proofread" the final work for accuracy.
It is just like filiming movies - a nice digital camera is probably all you need to make a feature film, in theory (that and the sound equipment). However, the reality is that you need to film each scene from 14 angles 24 times and pick the very best clips for the show. That is what makes filming expensive.
I don't think that you'll ever see a completely free Gutenberg-like project for audiobooks - at least not until voice synthesizers sound just like people. Gutenberg works because of OCR and the ease of distributed proofreading.
Maybe the first step would be a distributed editing approach for audiobooks. If you could get somebody to do the initial reading, the editing could potentially be distributed. Granted, forget a simple web-browser interface - we'll need client-server at the least (potentially a Java applet might work), and lots of bandwidth. Still something worth thinking about though...
Re:Neato... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, somebody understands....
Still something worth thinking about though...
At some point later this year I'd like to start a steering/planning discussion (forum or list, likely) about the direction Telltale will take to become more community-led. I'm fairly certain that by the end of the year, this project will be limited by what I'm doing with it, rather than encouraged by my work. If this is something that interests you, I hope you'll send me a note or join the newsletter.
Alex.
Re:good enough sound (Score:3)
File size is important. Super high fidelity CD quality is not required or even wanted. It makes the files too big.
Voice is defined by the telephone company as 300 HZ to 3KHZ, not 20 HZ to 20 KHZ usualy mentioned for high fideliety music.
A computer with a sound card and a headset with MONO boom mike provide excelent results. If you are running Windows, then the free utility CDEX used for ripping CD's to MP3 has a record fu
Not that cheap (Score:4, Informative)
From Telltale A Modest Proposal Swift, 18m 21s) costs 75 cents. That's 4.15cents a minute.
Of course, you don't have the DRM crap you get with audible, or the subscription stuff, and you get it in plain mp3s (or OGGs!), and you can give it to your blind neighbour for free, and eventually they'll set the file free for anyone...but for *now*, it's still not the cheapest thing on the block.
(Someone please check my maths)
Re:Not that cheap (Score:2)
Re:Not that cheap (Score:2)
Re:Not that cheap (Score:2)
Audio Books For Free . Com (Score:5, Informative)
great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Audiobooks have completely changed my reading habits over the past few years. I now read several books each week, during exercise, driving here and there, etc.
The trouble would be to find talented readers (as a previous post pointed out), but if it required a minimal download fee to hire good readers (or let them quit their day job), I'd certainly support that.
I currently pay $50/month for a membership at Talking Book World, which has a lot of titles, though their selection is fairly light on nonfiction and technical subjects.
Re:great idea (Score:2)
Works currently under copyright, but released under a CCL (most often a noncommercial one) would likely have to be produced and hosted competely free of charge from the start, which will be possible down the road, but probably not now, especially for
Re:great idea (Score:2)
I know that it would be tough for a reader to articulate all of the notation properly, but someone who knew the material well enough would, I believe, have a good shot.
Free Audiobooks? Start with the Bible... (Score:2)
I see they have one track from the Bible up right now. I wouldn't be suprised if that was their best seller (at least, before /. linked to them!)
Already available (Score:5, Informative)
http://audiotreasure.com/ [audiotreasure.com]
In several languages:
The World English Bible narrated by David Williams Old and New Testaments
The King James Bible narrated by Stephen Johnston Old and New Testaments
La Biblia Reina Valera narrated by Juan Alberto Ovalle Nuevo Testamento y Salmos
The King James Bible narrated by ASI New Testament
The Mandarin Bible narrated by ASI Old and New Testaments
Cantonese NT narrated by ASI
Scripture Selections KJV and WEB Encoded for email
Urdu New Testament narrated by ASI
Hindi New Testament narrated by ASI
Tagalog New Testament narrated by ASI
Slovak New Testament narrated by ASI
Polish Bible narrated selections
The Gospels and Psalms in Arabic
Worship Songs in mp3
Hebrew Old Testament narrated by ASI
Punjabi New Testament
Bengali New Testament
Free Christian AudioBooks
Tamil New Testament
God's Powerful Saviour
Re:Already available (Score:1)
More Free AudioBooks (Score:3, Informative)
BTW: Linux on laptops for blind people [tuxmobil.org].
Nice idea, but you're probably already paying (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not a good deal for me, since I'm already paying for audiobooks through my taxes. My county library system has a very large collection of audiobooks (cassette and CD). If my local branch lacks one I want I just request it through the web interface and in a few days I can pick it up right down the street. In the US the situation is probably similar for most people.
This assumes that Telltale Weekly will expand beyond its current catalog of 23 titles of course...
Re:Nice idea, but you're probably already paying (Score:2)
Natural Voices (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as the author isn't inconsiderate enough to write sentence longer than 30 words...
But, before this egregarious misapplication of provisionally available proprietary technology commences, does anyone know what good, free (as in speech and beer) text-to-voice tools are available?
Re:Natural Voices (Score:2)
I don't know how blind computer users can stand it..
Re:Natural Voices (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Natural Voices (Score:1)
Re:Natural Voices (Score:2, Interesting)
for the author in search of a publisher (Score:2)
- take some of my best short stories,
- get my wife who worked in radio to record them,
- post the MP3s,
- encourage editors to listen on the subway ride.
Maybe that way i could get a book deal.
audio vs text (Score:1)
Re:audio vs text (Score:1)
Free non-book, spoken word (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the oral arguments to the most important Supreme Court cases are available as MP3's from Oyez.com [oyez.com].
Thousands of old radio programs, including mysteries, comedies, political/historical audio, etc. are available for a small flat monthly fee ($7.50/month) at RUSC.com [rusc.com].
I've found it really interesting to be able to listen to *primary* sources for a lot of the cultural history of the United States. Think you understand Brown v. the Board of Education? Listen to the arguments and you'll see how much is missing from your high school telling of the story. It tends to be a bit more meat for listening when compared to the candy that many modern audiobooks provide.
Plays and books on the BBC (Score:3, Interesting)
The current Book at Bedtime [bbc.co.uk] (GMT and not streaming live) is Jane Eyre and there are Plays, Short Stories and Soaps [bbc.co.uk] too. Contemporary and classic.
All content is free -- paid for by the British taxpayer :)
-DK-
Semi-related question (Score:2)
I have also been thinking about doing it for free (after all, I'm sure there must be charities somewhere that need books/magazines/newspapers readers for people that can't read for a reason or another) but google was not very helpful, does anybody have any ideas about where to look?
Re:Semi-related question (Score:3)
I'll be putting up some recording tips (& recommended equipment) shortly for producers/performers who want to be involved at Telltale. Up to this point, participants in the project have had their own home studios (from a simple four-track an
Re:Semi-related question (Score:2)
I'm there (Score:5, Interesting)
After hearing about TellTale Weekly on NPR I decided to see if they'd post my story.
They did.
They set the price to cover bandwidth costs and still give me some pocket change. It's a 20 page story which reads in just under 30 minutes. The price was set at $1.50.
I think that the biggest detractor for this medium is that most people don't realize how long it takes to read things out loud.
I read books on tape for the blind through Minnesota State Services for the blind. Even a book which is written with the intent to be read aloud takes more time than just reading through it to yourself.
Anyway, just thought I'd throw in a shameless plug for my story, with hopefully some insights into the whole process.
It's called Ah Sunflower
Radio Gutenberg (Score:2)