[LINK] Publishing ditching DRM

[Jan Whitaker]

from: Publishers Lunch, 26/02/08

>Random Audio to Go DRM-Free
>Random House Audio told agents in a letter last Thursday that after 
>testing DRM-free distribution of audiobooks on eMusic.com, "we're 
>now comfortable broadening this type of distribution." As of March 
>1, the house "will no longer require that our retail partners use 
>DRM when selling audiobooks via digital download. We believe that 
>this move will allow for healthy competition among retailers 
>targeting the iPod consumer without posing any substantive increase 
>in risk of piracy."
>
>Random says they have not detected "a single instance of the eMusic 
>watermarked titles being distributed illegally." Any pirated files 
>they found online came from ripped CDs or protected electronic files 
>that had been hacked.
>
>Selling DRM-free opens the door to significant expansion of the 
>market--more than enough to outweigh any potential loss to piracy.
>
>RH Audio head Madeline McIntosh told agents that "this is not an 
>all-or nothing proposition: we will still have the ability to 
>maintain DRM restrictions for those authors who still feel it is 
>necessary." Agents should note that this flexibility requires 
>opting-out. She also points that expanding sales of downloaded books 
>yields more royalties for authors, who get 15 percent of list on 
>digital files, versus 10 percent of net receipt on CDs.
><http://click.email-publisher.com/maakcfdabFeSdaBS04DeaeQxXH/>RH letter






Semi-finalist - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2008: The Truck - A 
baby-boomer nostalgia murder mystery
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00121WDVA

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