Can I loan my audiobook CDs or downloads to a friend?

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This is a valuable question and in much debate within the audiobook industry. Our company's view is that an audiobook should be able to be loaned to anyone on a "license" basis, as long as the intentions of the loaner or loanee are not to rip or copy the audiobook for illegal distribution.

What does this mean? We think that, if you purchased one copy of a download (free or not), then you own and should be able to loan out ONE copy of that audiobook. This means that ALL related files are to be "checked out" during this time period.

However, with downloads, you are able to purchase multiple copies (licenses) and only need to download them once. This means you could, in theory, purchase two downloads, download the files once, keep the files on your computer for listening, and make CDs to loan out (one license is on your computer and another license is on the CDs).

That being said, we also encourage everyone to keep a digital backup of their audiobooks. But, to comply with copyright laws, this backup CANNOT be used while the audiobook is "on loan" or in use (referring specifically to single-license copies).

This is all a moot point though as the entire system is based on integrity and honesty. We trust our customer to be honest with the titles they are purchasing from us and NOT to distribute the files to all their friends without purchasing "licenses" from us.

You can tell the sites who "trust" their customers from those who do not. Notice than 99% of the downloads available from our site are DRM (digital rights management) free, meaning you can have those files on all personal devices you personally own and exclusively, personally use. However, most sites (including Audible and eAudioSource) as well as a few publishers on christianaudio, require their files to be DRMed so their customers cannot share the titles or put the files on multiple devices.

This topic began in the discussion forum of our Facebook Page!