AAXtoMP3

The purpose of this software is to convert AAX files to a more common MP3 format through a basic perl script frontend to FFMPEG.

Audible uses this file format to maintain DRM restrictions on their audio books and if you download your book through your library it will be stored in this format.

The purpose of this software is not to circumvent the DRM restrictions for audio books that you do not own in that you do not have them on your personal Audible account. The purpose of this software is to create a method for you to download and store your books just in case Audible fails for some reason.

Setup

You will need your four byte authitication code that comes from Audible's servers. This will be used by ffmpeg to perform the initial audio convert. You can obtain this string from a tool like audible-activator.

Requirements

• perl version 5.22.0 or later
• ffmpeg version 2.8.3 or later

You will also require the following perl modules:

• autodie
• Getopt::Long
• File::Basename
• IO::CaptureOutput

I would suggest installing cpanminus either through CPAN or (preferably) through your distro's repositories. Take note that many perl modules can be packaged in your repos as well so take a look there before resorting to cpan/cpanminus.

Usage

perl AAXtoMP3.pl -a AUTHCODE -i AAXFILE -v -c

• -a: your Audible auth code (it won't correctly decode otherwise) (required)
• -i: the input AAX file to be converted (required)
• -v: verbose (optional)
• -c: Convert to chapters based on input file's metadata information

Known issues

Currently the chapters mode (activated by the -c flag) does not work correctly. Parsing the metadata works fine but when the timestamps are converted to HH:MM:SS.xxx format there is some sort of hickup. It could be that Audible has some delay in the file to prevent this, but starting from Chapter 2 of the book it will no longer sync. I don't know if I will ever fix this, so avoid using the -c flag for now to produce one large MP3 file for the audiobook.

Also this was tested on Linux with the above requirements. No effort will be made to port this work to any other operating system, though it may work fine. Want a Windows/ OSX port? You'll have to fork the work.

Anti-Piracy Notice

Note that this project does NOT ‘crack’ the DRM. It simplys allows the user to use their own encryption key (fetched from Audible servers) to decrypt the audiobook in the same manner that the official audiobook playing software does.

Please only use this application for gaining full access to your own audiobooks for archiving/converson/convenience. DeDRMed audiobooks should not be uploaded to open servers, torrents, or other methods of mass distribution. No help will be given to people doing such things. Authors, retailers, and publishers all need to make a living, so that they can continue to produce audiobooks for us to hear, and enjoy. Don’t be a parasite.

This blurb is borrowed from the https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/ page.

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2015 KrumpetPirate

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.