Audible serves up Rice testimony free

Streaming-audio company Audible made Condoleeza Rice's testimony on the background to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks free for download on Thursday.

The U.S. national security adviser's testimony expands the collection of free audio files from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States hearings Audible has made available to the public on its Web site.

Also available for download is the testimony of former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Files from the 9/11 hearings had generated more than 50,000 downloads at Audible's site as of Wednesday afternoon, Audible spokesman Jonathan Korzen said.

The Wayne, N.J., company has a partnership with C-SPAN, which provided it with audio content from the hearings. Audible also has agreements with numerous newspapers and book publishers, under which it sells books, radio programs, and magazine and newspaper stories in audio format for a fee.

Customers download the content over the Web and can listen to it at their leisure on a Macintosh or PC desktop computer, on a CD player or on a number of mobile computing devices, including an Apple Computer iPod, a Palm handheld and a PocketPC.