[bookshare-discuss] Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books
- From: "Pat Price" <patlprice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 13:58:16 -0400
> Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books By BRAD STONE
>
> Reprinted from the New York Times
>
> Originally published: March 3, 2008
>
> SAN FRANCISCO - Some of the largest book publishers in the world are
> stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio
> books.
>
> The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely
> transfer these digital files between devices like their computers,
> iPods and cellphones - and conceivably share them with others.
> Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online
> retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.
>
> The publishers hope this openness could spark renewed growth in the
> audio book business, which generated $923 million in sales last year,
> according to the Audio Publishers Association.
>
> Random House was the first to announce it was backing away from
> D.R.M., or digital rights management software, the protective wrapping
> placed around digital files to make them difficult to copy. In a
> letter sent to its industry partners last month, Random House, the
> world's largest publisher, announced it would offer all of its audio
> books as unprotected MP3 files beginning this month, unless retail
> partners or authors specified otherwise.
>
> Penguin Group, the second-largest publisher in the United States
> behind Random House, now appears set to follow suit. Dick Heffernan,
> publisher of Penguin Audio, said the company would make all of its
> audio book titles available for download in the MP3 format on eMusic,
> the Web's second-largest digital music service after iTunes.
>
> Penguin was initially going to join the eMusic service last fall, when
> it introduced its audio books download store. But it backed off when
> executives at Pearson, the London-based media company that owns
> Penguin, became concerned that such a move could fuel piracy.
>
> Mr. Heffernan said the company changed its mind partly after watching
> the major music labels, like Warner Brothers and Sony BMG, abandon
> D.R.M. on the digital music they sell on Amazon.com. "I'm looking at
> this as a test," he said. "But I do believe the audio book market
> without D.R.M. is going to be the future."
>
> Other major book publishers seem to agree. Chris Lynch, executive vice
> president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, said the company
> would make 150 titles available for download in an unprotected digital
> format in "the next couple of months."
>
> An executive at HarperCollins said the publisher was watching these
> developments closely but was not yet ready to end D.R.M.
>
> If the major book publishers follow music labels in abandoning
> copyright protections, it could alter the balance of power in the
> rapidly growing world of digital media downloads. Currently there is
> only one significant provider of digital audio books: Audible, a
> company in Seattle that was bought by Amazon for $300 million in
> January. Audible provides Apple with the audio books on the iTunes store.
>
> Apple's popular iPod plays only audio books that are in Audible's
> format or unprotected formats like MP3. Book publishers do not want to
> make the same error originally made by the music labels and limit
> consumers to a single online store to buy digital files that will play
> on the iPod. Doing so would give that single store owner - Apple - too
much influence.
>
> Turning to the unprotected MP3 format, says Madeline McIntosh, a
> senior vice president at the Random House Audio Group, will enable a
> number of online retailers to begin selling audio books that will work
> on all digital devices.
>
> Some bookstores are already showing interest. The Borders Group, based
> in Ann Arbor, Mich., introduced an online audio book store in November
> using D.R.M. provided by Microsoft. Its books cannot be played on the
> iPod, a distinction that turns off many customers. But Pam Promer,
> audio book buyer for Borders, said the company welcomed moves by the
> publishers and planned to begin selling MP3 downloads by early spring.
>
> A spokesman for Barnes & Noble said the retailer had "no plans to
> enter the audio book market at this time."
>
> Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to D.R.M.
> out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House
> tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the
> D.R.M.-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 D.R.M.-encoded digital downloads whose
> anticopying protections were overridden.
>
> "Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent
> piracy," said Ms. McIntosh of Random House Audio.
>
> Amazon and Audible would not comment on whether they would preserve D.R.M.
> protections on their own audio books, citing Securities and Exchange
> Commission restrictions surrounding the recent acquisition.
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