Audible has a huge library of digital audiobooks, lectures, radio programs, newspapers and magazines - some abridged, some unabridged. Once I saw that a fair portion of their titles were available as unabridged audiobooks, I committed to the package that lets me download two audiobook titles a month for a year for a set price. Suddenly my Rio was a wonderful thing. While it could only handle one hour of music, it would miraculously fit over twenty hours of spoken word content. I've listened to six audiobooks on my Rio already, and I know I will never go back to listening to audiobooks on cassettes, or even CDs.
Digital audio solves that problem wonderfully.
But if the rights management system were too restrictive, all these benefits wouldn't have been quite as enticing. Fortunately, Audible hasn't shackled its users with restrictions and copyright protections. You can download it as many times as you want, and use it on as many devices as you want. The files do download in a proprietary format, which probably restricts Napster-like sharing, but as long as you're not trying to pirate the files, you'll never notice those restrictions. Since rediscovering my Rio, I've also stumbled upon the Voquette Media Manager .