audiobook DRM on the way out

Some of the largest book publishers in the world are stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio books.

...

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.

...

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.”

New York Times - Publishers Phase Out [AntiCopying] - March 3, 2008

(The actual NYT headline "publishers phase out piracy protection", while alliterative, is stupid.  Copying is not piracy.)

I think it's a shame that more libraries didn't push back harder on publishers about DRM, but it appears that it is dying a well-deserved death anyway.