Burning A Downloadable Audio Book To CD

You can only burn (or copy/write) a downloadable audio book to a CD if either it is for your own use, or you have copyright over the contents.

Any audio book purchased for your own entertainment or enjoyment is normally subject to copyright and cannot be copied other than for your own use. Violating this law can get you into serious copyright infringement problems and potentially subject to very substantial fines or even imprisonment.

Downloadable audio books are still under copyright, even after paying to download them.

The only instance where audio books (or other publications) are no longer under copyright is when the authors or translators have died over 70 years ago. There are also certain publications by government that are not under copyright.

The rule of "only for personal use" is however still ultimate when it comes to burning any downloadable audio book to CD or any other such formats.

There are even a small number of audio book publishers that won't allow their audio books to be copied to CD. Audio book publishers can and sometimes do disable the ability to burn the files to CD.

Be sure that your audio book publishers allow copying for personal use: do check it out before going ahead to buy.

Some audio books last for several hours so if you wish to burning your audio books to CD, you will often need more than one CD per audio book. For example, an audio book of about 10 hours can take as many as 7 CDs.

That being said below are the steps you need to take to burn (or copy) any downloadable audio book into CD:

NOTE: The below instructions are based on Windows Media Player Version 10. If you are using an older version, you can download the latest version from Microsoft's website. Here's the exact link -

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download

First, the computer you want to use to burn the audio book to CD must be equipped with a recordable CD drive and CD-burning software.

It is this CD-burning software that burns the audio book to the CD using the recordable CD drive.

Second, play the audio book on Windows Media Player. Ensure that you choose "Full Mode" when doing this, not "Skin Mode".

Third, you will notice the "now playing" information displayed on the right-hand side of your Windows Media Player. If it isn't displayed, you should click the "Restore the Video and Visualization Pane" button to display it.

Fourth, you can now click the "Library" tab. You will notice the "Start Burn" button displayed.

Fifth, at this point, insert the blank CD into the recordable CD drive.

Sixth, click the "Start Burn" button. Your Windows Media Player will begin burning the audio book to the CD you have inserted.

Lastly, if the audio book is larger than the CD (most always are), Windows Media Player will prompt you that it requires a new CD. You can remove the one inside and insert another blank CD.

When the entire burning process is finished, it will display the status as "Complete".

Take your newly copied and try it in your CD player. Then you can play it in your car CD player when on your way to work or, more likely, when sat in traffic. Or, in your portable CD player where ever you are. You can even download it to your iPod (you can download it to your MP3 player without having to burn it to a CD first). You are then free to enjoy you audio book wherever you choose.