Book Publishers Abandoning DRM

tmalone writes "The New York Times is reporting that book publishers are beginning to phase out DRM-protected audio books. This month the world's largest publisher, Random House, started offering DRM-free mp3s; Penguin has announced that it will follow suit. Their logic? DRM just doesn't work. 'Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to DRM out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the DRM-less concept with eMusic last fall. It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or DRM-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden.'"

Comments

duh.

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

the blindingly obvious usually will win out in time.

Re:duh.

[IBBoard]

I think this is needed as a tag for this article - suddenoutbreakofcommonsense.

Isn't this all based on something we try to teach children? If you give someone trust then they will do the right thing, but if you're instantly distrustful then they're never going to do the right thing.

Hurrah for non-DRM! It's good to see they put some effort in to this rather than just going "we must put digital restricting management on the files because of 'teh leet haxxorz' who will cost us trillions of dollars and destroy the world economy by being selfish enough to want to do what they wish with the file they've paid for".

If only I had the cabling to format-shift my two Discworld audio book tapes.

Re:Audible.com not allowing non DRM books

[allcar]

Audible insists on DRM, so I won't use audible.
Whenever the free, pirated version is technically superior to the costly commercial version, the business case is on pretty rocky ground.
There are an increasing number of examples showing that people will pay real money for products that can easily be obtained for nothing, but it must be worth their while. Well presented, high quality, DRM free recording, perhaps accompanied by supporting extras, such as maps and illustrations will sell. The recent experiment by the Nine Inch Nails is an excellent example of people being prepared to pay for a premium product.

Re:abandon ebooks too

[Archtech]

One of the big lessons we all need to learn is this: People are different!

Some get addicted to drugs; others don't.
Some have their health ruined by alcohol; others drink like fish yet remain fairly healthy.
Some get sick when they eat certain foods; others thrive on them.
Some lose weight by exercising; others don't (true; look it up).
And some will never give up paper books, while others will be happy to do so.

It makes life more complicated, but also more fun.

Re:Is it not ironic...

[sm62704]

Who would have thought that poor transportation and urban sprawl lead to appreciation for literacy?

Er, what? My idea of "literate" isn't having someone read to you.

You normal people should pity the poor hyperlex. There is no way that someone like us could enjoy a book while driving a car. When we read a novel by a good author, we become totally immersed. We are there.

When the literate drive we must unfortunately concentrate on piloting thousands of pounds of steel and avoidiong the fucktards that are paying attention to the machine that's reading to them instead of the task at hand, which SHOULD BE driving the damned car.

-mcgrew