Amazon gives publishers easier control over DRM in Kindle ebooks

By Joshua Benton / Jan. 21  /  10:38 a.m.  

Without a formal announcement, Amazon.com has started allowing authors made it easier for authors to publish their ebooks for the Kindle with or without digital rights management (DRM), the technology that limits how consumers can use the ebooks they’ve bought. [See update below.]

The change appears to have gone in effect around Jan. 15, when a few Kindle publishers spotted changes in Amazon’s Digital Text Platform. A new option gave publishers the choice to “not enable digital rights management.” A science-fiction author named Joseph Rhea appears to have been the first to notice the change. On Jan. 15, Amazon announced an expansion of its Digital Text Platform to non-U.S. authors, but made no mention of DRM changes.

Amazon’s brief explanation of the new feature inside the DTP:

You may choose, on a per title basis, to have us apply DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology which is intended to inhibit unauthorized access to or copying of digital content files for titles. Once your title is published, this setting cannot be changed.

The Digital Text Platform is aimed at small publishers and authors; it’s gained a foothold in short fiction, but it’s a platform with potential for both independent journalists and small news organizations. It’s unclear whether similar changes are afoot for newspapers, magazines, or large publishers, who use a different system to publish to the Kindle. I’ve asked Amazon for explanation of what exactly this new choice entails and haven’t heard back. I’ll update this post if I do. [See update below.]

Many book publishers (with a few notable exceptions) have been hesitant to offer their works digitally without DRM, fearing a “napsterization” of their industry — a free supply of all books available for download via file-sharing networks.

But eliminating DRM could also increase customers’ comfort level with buying ebooks. Right now, someone who buys lots of Kindle ebooks is out of luck if, six months from now, some better non-Kindle ereader comes along. The books can’t be moved over. Without DRM — and with the knowledge that their ebook investment can have long-term returns — readers might be willing to shift their buying to digital. That may or may not be good news for publishers — their margins are higher for hardcover books than for ebooks — but it would be good news for Amazon, the dominant ebook vendor and one that has shown willingness to expand the Kindle platform beyond the Kindle device.

It’s hard to ignore that Amazon is making these changes shortly before Apple is expected to unveil its long-anticipated tablet computer on Jan. 27, which could be the most potent challenge to the Kindle ebook ecosystem yet. Amazon also announced yesterday it would radically improve the revenue share it offers Kindle publishers, handing over 70 percent of the list price — a level that matches what Apple offers software publishers in its App Store.

We won’t find out until next week what DRM restrictions the notional Apple tablet would offer. Last year, Apple removed DRM from the music it sells via iTunes, but it remains on iTunes’ movies and TV shows.

While most big publishers seem unlikely to step away from DRM anytime soon, some of the independent authors who have used Amazon’s DTP to self-publish were more excited about the move. As research scientist/”hobby” writer Joseph Rhea put it:

I can only speak for myself, but I know I would be happy with someone buying my book and sharing it on 2 Kindles, or a Kindle and a PC (with the Kindle reader), or your iPhone. It’s yours, so why shouldn’t you be able to read it anywhere you want? I am also not that worried about people “stealing” it and making thousands of copies that are spread all over the web — I should be so popular!

UPDATE, 5:18 p.m.: Amazon just got in touch to say the change is not about allowing DTP users to publish without DRM — it’s about making it easier for publishers to choose DRM or no DRM. The choice has always existed for DTP publishers, a spokesman said, and the default state was no DRM. (That’s different from the situation with larger publishing houses, where anti-DRM publishers have complained about the difficulty of removing “Kindle’s ‘compulsory DRM.’”) I updated the headline and lead to reflect that.

This entry was written by Joshua Benton, posted on January 21, 2010 at 10:38 am, and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback.


29 comments:

  1. Kirk Biglione at 12:43 pm, January 21, 2010

    DRM has always been optional for DTP publishers. When a publisher submits a mobi file with DRM enabled, DTP will generate a DRM’d Kindle file. If the mobi file has no DRM, the corresponding Kindle file is also DRM-free.

    The real story here is that Amazon has given DTP publishers explicit control over DRM. I think the net result is that more DTP publishers will choose the DRM option, where previously they may have wrongly assumed that their books would automatically have DRM added.

     
  2. Michael Scott at 2:09 pm, January 21, 2010

    You act as if Amazon forced DRM on publishers. Quite the contrary. It is publishers that refused to allow their content to be sold in digital form without DRM. Allowing a user to read a book on multiple media can only increase the desirability of a platform. Amazon knows that. The more DRM-free content it can offer, the more competitive it will be.

     
  3. Joshua Benton at 2:10 pm, January 21, 2010

    Hey Michael: I certainly don’t think Amazon is forcing publishers into DRM. That’s why I said big publishers have tended to be pro-DRM and Amazon stands to gain a lot if less DRM encourages people to buy more ebooks.

     
  4. Stephen Cochran at 6:31 pm, January 21, 2010

    Contrary to prior poster’s impressions, Amazon has indeed been forcing DRM on publishers. There are some who have fought to get their works published without DRM, both on the Kindle and on Audible.com (owned by Amazon), only to be told it wasn’t possible. If you require an example, Cory Doctrow is the one that most easily comes to mind.

     
  5. Kirk Biglione at 8:23 pm, January 21, 2010

    Stephen, larger publishers don’t submit their books to Amazon through the DTP system. Those publishers have had some issues with Amazon re: DRM. However, at least one high profile publisher (O’Reilly Media) has been selling DRM-free Kindle books for almost a year.

    The DTP system has always been DRM-optional. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that Amazon makes no effort to disclose which Kindle books have DRM and which do not. As a result, there has been a grass roots effort on the part of consumers to tag DRM-free Kindle books. This goes back to last spring (further proving that DRM-free books have been available in the Kindle marketplace for some time).

    More here: http://www.teleread.org/2009/04/11/drmfree-tag-campaign-starts-on-amazon-help-identify-safer-to-own-books-and-other-items/

     

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