License denied

[gonzus]

[edit: added screenshot]

Hello, and thank you for this great application. I could connect with my Audible account and download / convert some of my books. However, one of them shows up with a key having a red strike on top, and the state says "License denied", even though the book was purchased like all my other books that do work. Here is a screenshot; any suggestions?

Cheers!

[audiamus]

I would need the log file for this.

[gonzus]

I found these relevant lines. Please let me know if you need the whole file.

16:29:19.008 0001 [DownloadDecryptJob<ConversionContext>.getLicenseAndDownloadAsync] >>> Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied                                                                 
16:29:19.080 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAndSaveAsync] >>> Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied                                                                                        
16:29:19.081 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAndSaveAsync] Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied; desired quality: High                                                                     
16:29:19.083 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAsync] >>> asin=B005GFRMBE                                                                                                                                 
16:29:19.485 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAsync] asin=B005GFRMBE, file="LicenseResponse_B005GFRMBE-2022_08_01-16_29_19.json"                                                                         
16:29:19.523 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAsync] <<< asin=B005GFRMBE                                                                                                                                 
16:29:19.525 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAndSaveAsync] Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied; ArgumentNullException: "Value cannot be null. (Parameter 's')"                            
16:29:19.525 0001 [AudibleApi.GetDownloadLicenseAndSaveAsync] <<< Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied                                                                                        
16:29:19.655 0001 [DownloadDecryptJob<ConversionContext>.getLicenseAndDownloadAsync] <<< Id=2, "The Count of Monte Cristo": license_denied                                                                 
16:29:19.657 0001 [DownloadDecryptJob<ConversionContext>.DownloadDecryptAndConvertAsync] <<< #conv=1

[audiamus]

The license json response may reveal more info. Can you upload LicenseResponse_B005GFRMBE-2022_08_01-16_29_19.json? (The encrypted key within - if there is one - is of no use to anyone but you.)

[gonzus]

Here you go, hope this helps. I had to append a .txt to the name, otherwise github complained, but the file is valid json.

LicenseResponse_B005GFRMBE-2022_08_01-16_29_19.json.txt

[audiamus]

Well, apparently the Book Lib Connect summarizing state looks correct in this case. License has not been granted, according to that response. The response has quite a few messages why the license was denied, like
Asin [B005GFRMBE] is not eligible for AYCL (whatever AYCL may mean)
or
Customer [A2E9NDFXPILK1P] is not part of any plans.
Is there anything specific about this title and your purchases/subscription/plan?

[jschoen42]

AYCL are the free audiobooks from Audible (All You Can Listen) - not the purchased audiobooks

https://www.audible.com/about/newsroom/all-you-can-listen-membership-option-audible-plus-rolls-out-in-preview

for AYCL you need an active (paid) account for download, for the normal paid audiobooks not

[Sailfish]

Note: audiamus, yes, RightsOwner is a better term to use than author.

gonzus, if you've not recently downloaded that title (and the title had been updated) then the updated title should be available for you to re-download it. If you can, that should update your Audible title library, perhaps?

good luck

[gonzus]

I think what happened here is that this book was temporarily made available for download with a normal Audible subscription (instead of having to pay for the book), and now it was withdrawn.

This leads me to another question. I did download this book into my phone, and I can see the title there:

$ ls -l *MBE*
-rw-r--r--  1 gonzo  staff    41B Jul 31 22:26 B005GFRMBE.companion
-rw-r--r--  1 gonzo  staff   1.4G Jul 31 22:27 B005GFRMBE_ep6.aaxc

I would guess this file is encrypted, and now I am wondering: can I somehow process this AAXC file with Book Lib Connect? Or perhaps I could extract from the Book Lib Connect installation the activation code and manually enter that into AAX Audio Converter? If this is possible, how would I get the activation code from my already working installation of Book Lib Connect?

[audiamus]

I would guess this file is encrypted, and now I am wondering: can I somehow process this AAXC file with Book Lib Connect? Or perhaps I could extract from the Book Lib Connect installation the activation code and manually enter that into AAX Audio Converter?

In theory, it's possible, but in practice, it's rather difficult.

The way aaxc files work, slightly simplified:

• When you register your device with Audible, i.e. your phone or a pseudo device like Book Lib Connect, Audible will give you a token. This token is specific to your device and your Amazon account. A different device, even under the same Amazon/Audible account, will result in a different token.
• That token will be used for all Audible API communication, to digitally sign every API request, as a means of authentication.
• When you request a license for a particular book and if that license is granted, Audible sends you a download link for an aaxc file and also a voucher. The voucher will hold the key for the aaxc file. The key will be specific to book, account and device.
• The voucher is encrypted. The device token is the the key to decrypt that voucher and obtain the aaxc key.
• The aaxc key will then be used to decrypt the aaxc file.

The open source community has figured out this process a couple of years ago and published it on GitHub and other places. For Book Lib Connect I simply followed those specs and implemented the necessary processing steps. The last step, aaxc decryption, is carried out by AAXClean, a C# port from the relevant section of FFmpeg.

So, for decrypting an aaxc file downloaded to your phone, you would need the token Audible issued for that phone and the voucher for that particular aaxc file in addition to the aaxc file itself. (I have read somewhere that one of the Chinese payware tools claims to be able to handle this, but I wouldn't trust any of those.)

Other than with the older aax format, the cipher key for aaxc is a fairly long one, additionally protected with a seed, and can be regarded as very secure. Those methods floating around the Web for guessing/enumerating an aax key from the file itself will all fail miserably with aaxc.

By the way, Audible encryption is always common AES, for aaxc, aax or the voucher. Nothing proprietary there. Most CPUs, Intel/AMD or ARM, offer hardware acceleration for AES decryption. That makes it so fast.

[gonzus]

Ah, ok. I will just listen to that book on the phone for now.

Thanks again for all the information shared in this discussion!

[jfburrows]

Hi, fantastic program, huge thank you!! I managed to download about half of my library but the rest had the locked key I have had Audile for 15 years so it is more than 75 books, is there another way or downloading them>

[jfburrows]

LicenseResponse_B002V8L7KQ-2022_10_22-22_23_24.txt

[audiamus]

Are those books with the license denied reply regular purchases?

This is the relevant section of the json response:

        "license_denial_reasons": [
            {
                "message": "Asin [B002V8L7KQ] is not eligible for AYCL",
                "rejectionReason": "ContentEligibility",
                "validationType": "AYCL"
            },
            {
                "message": "Ownership: User [A1CDQ9ZI81S16D] has [Purchase] rights.",
                "validationType": "Ownership"
            },
            {
                "message": "Since ClientId is null, skipping client rights validation.AAAClientId[ApolloEnv:AudibleApiExternalRouterService/NA/ACLS/Prod], does not has access to asin[B002V8L7KQ].",
                "rejectionReason": "RequesterEligibility",
                "validationType": "Client"
            },
            {
                "message": "Customer [A1CDQ9ZI81S16D] is not part of any plans.",
                "rejectionReason": "RequesterEligibility",
                "validationType": "Membership"
            }
        ],
        "message": "License not granted to customer [A1CDQ9ZI81S16D] for asin [B002V8L7KQ]",

[jfburrows]

HI yes they were all purchased using the credits that I had in my account.

[audiamus]

If I understand the rejection message correctly, it says they cannot find a match between the customer ID and the book ID (ASIN).

So, if, for instance, you returned a book, or the book is shared in a family plan and a family plan member returned the book, it will trigger such a rejection message. That's what has been reported here and for some of the other Audible client projects.

Can you download the book with the Android or IOS app?

[4NowInBerlin]

Hi, Thank you for the good work !
Since Audible pulled their Windows player, I have been left unable to download the books I purchased.
BookLibConnect has been a light in the dark !

I am in the process of rescuing my library and downloading every book with BookLibConnect. I have noticed that the books that I bought some years ago, which are now available as part of the "all you can listen" package, cannot be downloaded because of "license denied".
Same with the many children's books I bought with the 2-for-1 credit offer : "license denied".
Is there anything I can do ?
I should add that I am not very computer literate.
Thank you ! E.

[audiamus]

The log file may give a hint, and the json response file. It could be similar to #65 (comment).

[4NowInBerlin]

thank you !

[ozsmac]

UPDATE: I tried to re-add the book a few times in BookLibConnect and it ended up working.

Original message:
I've just had this occur for the first time. Purchased a book about 40 minutes ago with a credit (no special deals), was able to download to my iPhone and play it.

My preference is to use Prologue client from my Plex setup, hence I zoomed to the amazing BookLibConnect to help me to use the audio book the way I wanted, however getting the red padlock also.