BoingBoing is reporting that Random House Audio is now allowing its audiobooks to be sold without DRM. Why are they doing this, you ask?
Random House notes that they’ve been running a DRM-free audiobook program with eMusic for months, and that none of the pirate editions of their audiobooks online came from those DRM-free editions; rather, they’ve come from DRM’ed editions that were cracked, and from ripped CDs.
It goes on to say that Audible (recently purchased by Amazon) may also drop its DRM. Considering that Amazon is very successfully selling non-DRM music, I think non-DRM audiobooks are likely in the future.
It looks like the anti-DRM music movement may now be moving to include audiobooks. Are ebooks next? What about video? How will this affect libraries and library vendors? I’m not ready to say that DRM is dying, but it’s certainly not in good health right now. 2008 is sure to bring more changes.
Update: Penguin and Simon & Schuster Audio have also announced that they are going to try out DRM-free audio books.
One Comment
Audio books are here to stay . I am in love with them . Not only its interesting to hear voices , you can enjoy them while moving. I hear audio books all the time in my car . One of my friend is so crazy about audio books . He takes long routes to get back to his home . You can find some cheaper audio book library online .
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