LibriVox: A Cloudeight Site Pick
Charles Dickens
If you like to read, but don’t have the time, or you can’t see well enough to read, or if you’re just too lazy to read, then this site’s for you. It’s like a rummage sale of free audio books — mostly classics. The best part of this site is the hundreds of free audio books you can download and listen to. The second best part is that LibriVox is like a bag of Jelly Bellies – you never know what you’re gonna get.
You see, LibriVox exists to make all public domain literature available in audio format to everyone. The fun part is you never know who’s going to be reading to you or what they’re going to sound like. That’s because LibriVox doesn’t care what its volunteer readers sound like – perhaps that’s why there may more than on version of an audio book. Lucky for us all that neither EB nor I have volunteered to read for LibriVox, thus sparing you that horrid experience.
All the audio books on LibriVox are free and available in several formats. Most of you will like the audio books in zip format for PCs – just unzip the file, click on audio book and listen to your heart’s content. If you are rich and have an iPad or iPhone you can get the audio books from iTunes. There are several other formats available, so choose the one that’s right for you.
LibriVox makes it easy for you to find what you’re looking for .For instance, being the dummy that I am, I typed in Edgar Allen Poe and got zero results. But when I search for Edgar Allan Poe I got 16 audio books, not surprisingly, all those books were written by Poe. Who is reading them, I have no clue although the one I downloaded had a lady with a nice-sounding voice reading it. No drawl!
Now, because I’ve run out of witty and humorous things to say about this site, I will turn it over to the site’s keepers to fill you in on some other important goodies about LibriVox:
“About LibriVox
LibriVox Objective:
To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.
Our Fundamental Principles:
LibriVox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
LibriVox donates its recordings to the public domain
LibriVox is powered by volunteers
LibriVox maintains a loose and open structure
LibriVox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languagesWhat We Do
LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net for free. All our audio is in the public domain, so you may use it for whatever purpose you wish.
Volunteering for LibriVox is easy and does not require any experience with recording or audio engineering or acting or public speaking. All you need is a computer, a microphone, some free recording software, and your own voice. We accept all volunteers in all languages, with all kinds of accents. You’re welcome to volunteer to read any language you speak, as long as you can make yourself understood in it. You don’t need to audition, but we do suggest a 1-Minute Test recording just to check your setup. We’ll accept you no matter what you sound like.
We operate almost exclusively through Internet communications on our forum, where all your questions will be answered by our friendly community…”
Legal Stuff! Yum! Yum!
LibriVox makes a point that all of the available audio books are public domain and copyright free in the good, ol’ USA. However, LibriVox says, they may not be copyright free in your country, so you’re supposed to check with your country to see if they are copyrighted there. If your country has a toll-free “is it copyrighted?” line, then by all means call to see if “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, for example, is under copyright restrictions in your country. I would be shocked if it were since Poe was born in the USA, lived in the USA, died in the USA and, still, I think, buried in the USA unless he is now walking among the cast of the erstwhile zombie thriller series “The Walking Dead”.
We are putting this in here so your country can’t come back and sue us for not telling you to call your local copyright police and check to make sure the audio books you download are not going to expose you to copyright infringement lawsuits from people like Edgar Allan Poe (who died in 1849), Daniel Defoe (who died in 1731) and Charles Dickens (who died in 1870 and whose hair I love). Heaven knows we have no money and no lawyers. We are perfect targets for the copyright police who roam the streets in Lower Slobovia and Eastern Morosiva. One good foreign (or domestic) lawsuit and we’ll be among the lying dead – and we won’t be getting back up.
So, now that you’ve been warned about copyrights and copyright police and lawyers and lawsuits and troubles which may come to you through ghosts and ghouls in countries other than the USA, we hereby send you off in pursuit of free audio books – mostly classics – read by anonymous people whose voices are not screened by anyone to make sure they sound OK – which sounds really interesting to me. I love a good drawl.
Good news (and there’s not much good news these days): If you live in the USA, you don’t have to check with the copyright police since all the audio books on LibriVox are 100% guaranteed to be in the public domain, thus free from from the earthly bonds of copyright restrictions. In a nutshell this means no one will come bangin’ on your door to serve you papers, or ever order you to court to sue you for copyright infringement, not even, dare I say… Edgar Allan Poe.
Please visit LibriVox and open your ears – it’s time for some free audio books!
Be sure to have your friends subscribe to our newsletter, because they won’t find reviews like this anywhere else! The New York Times review of LibriVox pales in comparison to ours! I’m available should the Times want to make me an offer!
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