Interesting article over at the New York Times about book publishers doing away with DRM on their audiobooks. Out of all the digital distribution methods, they found that the audiobooks WITHOUT DRM were the ones NOT getting pirated. Funny that CD audiobooks and DRM-decoded audiobooks were the greater source of piracy. Who knows what the numbers are, but I have to wonder if the audience for audiobooks are ones to engage in piracy in the first place.

Naturally, Apple and their dominance in online music is wrongly characterized as a hazard in the direction that book publishers might take. The reason music labels went with Apple in the first place is that they had a system that worked. Up to that point, purchasing music online was an abysmal experience. They forced Apple to use DRM and are now using it against them to bolster the position of other stores such as Amazon’s.

Nevertheless, I’m glad that book publishers are seeing the light when it comes to DRM.

written by JM