LibriVox

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LibriVox

URL = http://librivox.org/

"LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain."


Description

NYT:

"LibriVox is the largest of several emerging collectives that offer free or inexpensive audiobooks of works whose copyrights have expired, from Plato to “The Wind in the Willows.” (In the United States, this generally means anything published or registered for copyright before 1923.) The results range from solo readings done by amateurs in makeshift home studios to high-quality recordings read by actors or professional voice talent.

At its worst a free audiobook can sound like a teenager reading aloud in high school English class. At its best it can offer excellent sound quality and skilled narration infused with a passion for the text. In between is a world of competent readings, sometimes spiced with affected accents, mumbled words and distant car horns and reflecting all manner of literary interpretations.

LibriVox celebrated its anniversary on Aug. 10, around the same time it surpassed the 100-book mark. It also offers more than 200 recordings of short stories, plays, speeches, poems and documents like the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. By comparison the audiobook industry, which typically sells recordings for $15 to $30, released 3,430 titles, taking in $832 million, in 2004, the last year for which figures are available.

LibriVox’s founder, Hugh McGuire, 32, a software developer and writer in Montreal, said there were another 100 works in development, all of which would be recorded, edited and uploaded by volunteers.

“The principles of the project are to be totally noncommercial, totally ad free, totally volunteer and totally public domain,” he said. Readers can volunteer at the Web site, librivox.org." (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/books/25audi.html?)


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