{"id":208636,"date":"2010-01-21T12:50:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T17:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.readwriteweb.com\/archives\/amazon_now_lets_some_publishers_and_authors_opt_ou.php"},"modified":"2010-01-21T12:50:37","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T17:50:37","slug":"amazon-allows-some-publishers-and-authors-to-opt-out-of-e-book-drm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/208636","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Allows Some Publishers and Authors to Opt Out of E-Book DRM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kindle_logo_mar09.jpg\"Amazon quietly made a major change<\/a> to its Digital Text Platform last week that went largely unnoticed: Small publishers and individual authors who use the Digital Text Platform<\/a> can now opt out of the Kindle’s digital rights management (DRM) program. While this change only affects a relatively small number of publishers and authors for now, this move could hint at a larger change in Amazon’s DRM policy. Right now, Amazon’s DRM policy means that its customers can’t transfer their books to a non-Kindle e-reader.<\/p>\n

Sponsor<\/em>
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Update<\/strong>: Amazon just contacted us to let us know that a DRM-free option always existed for publishers using the Digital Text Platform. Amazon just added new functionality that makes it easier for publishers to set these options.<\/em><\/p>\n

For Amazon, it makes sense to experiment with this new option on the Digital Text Platform. Given that this is a self-publishing tool, the company doesn’t have to explain this change to its partners in the publishing industry while allowing the company to experiment with a DRM-free solution. Most publishing houses tend to be very conservative when it comes to DRM-free e-book solutions. In the self-publishing world, however, DRM-free books are very common. Self-publishing platform Smashwords<\/a>, for example, doesn’t even offer<\/a> a DRM solution.<\/p>\n

\"kindle_drm_on_off.png\"Right now, you can’t take your Kindle e-books to a Sony Reader, for example. While the Kindle is a huge success for Amazon, the current DRM solution is surely holding quite a few potential customers back from making the jump to e-books.<\/p>\n

The Beginning of the End for E-Book DRM?<\/h2>\n

If the e-book world follows the same path<\/a> as the music industry, however, chances are that restrictive DRM solutions will disappear over the next few years. At least for Amazon, giving its self-published authors and small publishing houses this option is a first step in the right direction. For O’Reilly, publishing a DRM-free e-book has turned out to be an advantage<\/a>. Hopefully, other publishing houses will also realize that DRMed e-books do very little.<\/p>\n

Tip of the hat to Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton <\/a>for noticing this change first.<\/em><\/p>\n

Image Credit: Nieman Journalism Lab.<\/em><\/p>\n

Discuss<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Amazon quietly made a major change to its Digital Text Platform last week that went largely unnoticed: Small publishers and individual authors who use the Digital Text Platform can now opt out of the Kindle’s digital rights management (DRM) program. While this change only affects a relatively small number of publishers and authors for now, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":592,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}