I fear one of the significant reasons behind so many titles having abridged versions when released in audiobook form is a protection against open distribution, but is there an alternative that not only circumvents the need to understand online downloads and file formats, but protects redistribution in exactly the same way as the printed version?

Companies such as Audible, through their alliances with iTunes, are able to control audiobook distribution via DRM (Digital Rights Management), a legacy of the protection work done by the music industry to combat online piracy and encourage responsible online purchase of music. Ebook distribution has similar schemes in place to lock-down the title to the original purchaser - something even the printed copy is unable to achieve.

Given the sometimes apparent obsession by all arms of the publishing industry to protect distribution - because it is far more about distribution than it is about rights, despite their cries to the contrary - audiobooks are primarily distributed on CD, which can be very easily copied onto electronic formats, such as mp3, and distributed. Or even simply duplicated to other CDs. CD audio protection is available, but in nearly all cases can be circumvented with a little research and effort.

What we need for audio is a method of distribution identical to that of the printed book version, at which time the audio distribution becomes a direct purchase option for the material.

Cheap mp3 players

Mp3 players are flooding out of manufacturing countries such as China. Low in capabilities compared to the models costing multiple hundreds, they are, nevertheless, quite capable of delivering CD quality sound from the stored audio files.  They are also frighteningly cheap to produce, as is suggested by the number of giveaways and dirt-cheap units available in supermarkets.

Produce an audiobook, burn it into the memory of a cheap mp3 player, remove the ability to that player to do anything other than play the pre-installed audio, and you have a printed book-like distribution device with the only option to replicate and redistribute being connecting the audio output to an audio recording device (no different to the equivalent passing of a printed book through a scanner or photocopier).

I am convinced this is a model that will both appease the publishers while providing a viable, stand-alone means of acquiring audiobooks for the consumer.