Every title is verified first
Before any book is published on OpenBookAudio, we verify that the work is in the public domain in the United States. For translated works, we verify the specific translation we use, not just the original — a public-domain novel can still have an in-copyright translation, and we don't publish those.
Where the texts come from
Our source texts come from Project Gutenberg, the volunteer-run library of public-domain literature. We record the source and edition for every title we publish.
The narrations are ours
While the books belong to everyone, the recordings do not: every narration on OpenBookAudio is an original AI-generated production, created with our own voice system (built on the open-weights Kokoro-82M model) and rendered by us. These are OpenBookAudio's own recordings — not recordings of human narrators, and not copies of anyone else's audiobooks.
Think we got something wrong?
If you believe a title in our catalog is not actually in the US public domain, or you have any question about our sources, reach out via the contact page. Takedown requests are reviewed by a human, promptly.
This page is provided for transparency and is not a substitute for legal advice; a lawyer has not reviewed it yet.