This Audible thing is turning into a nightmare.

As previously mentioned I cannot download this stuff at work due to the firewall so I'm stuck with downloading it at home at 64k. At the weekend it's not a big deal as it's cheap enough to be online but I'm currently on attempt number three to get the first book.

I'm doing some DIY -- grouting the tiles in the bathroom -- so I'm leaving it unattended. Twice when I've checked on it, the line has been dropped for no apparent reason and maybe 9MBs of the 44MBs are in the download directory.

So I'm sitting here typing this and keeping an eye on it so I can see what goes wrong. Hopefully nothing this time, but since I don't know what happened the other two times, this is just blind faith.

I bought a couple of CDs the other day and I should have checked, but I didn't, and one of them is copy protected.

Fuck you Bertlesman Music Group.

I have to return it. There is no way I'm going to shell out twenty two euro for a CD and then not be able to play it on my computer or copy it for my car. I'm just not. It's my CD and I don't P2P in any form so why should I be inconvenienced?

Which brings me back to Audible. I haven't worked out how their copy protection scheme works. I gather they have a proprietary format of some kind, but it's the device registration that makes me a bit nervous. I primarily want to listen to this stuff in the car and I understand that they do allow you to burn CDs, but not with MP3s on them. This means that I have to use ten times as many CDs and it can't stop me subsequently ripping them to MP3 (can it?), so why bother. I guess they reckon the intermediate step will discourage the casual copier.

Audible Manager is reporting 30% completed with one hour seven minutes remaining. Thank god I only get two books a month!