Now that all four major record labels have started selling music without DRM, some of the world's largest book publishers are considering doing the same with digital audio books.  Up until now, the majority of audio books sold online are protected in the Audible DRM format, with a few publishers using Windows Media DRM. 

Like the problem with online music stores, the iPod cannot play Windows Media audio books and many Windows Media DRM compatible players do not support the audible DRM format.  Audible is currently the only significant digital audio book provider and was bought by Amazon for $300 million in January.  Audible currently sells its audio books via the iTunes store.

By turning to the popular MP3 format, this will allow consumers to play their audio books on any MP3 player, including mobile phones.  It would also allow a wider range of online retailers to take on these audio books since they would no longer need to deal with copy protection issues.  According to the Audio Publishers association, the audio book business generated $923 million in sales last year and would like the MP3 format’s openness to help grow the business.

Random House, the world's largest publisher, has announced that it would do away with DRM on all its audio books starting this month, delivering them as MP3 files, except where retail partners or authors have asked to retain the copy protection.  Penguin Group, the second largest US publisher said it would also make all of its audio books available in the MP3 format on eMusic, a DRM-free music store which is currently the 2nd largest digital music service after iTunes.  Originally Penguin held off last year in fear that this would boost piracy, but reconsidered after watching the major music labels all going DRM free on Amazon.

According to Random House, they watermarked their DRM protected audio books to monitor how they would be pirated and it turned out that its audio books have ended up on file sharing networks sourced from both physical CDs and from DRM versions with DRM removed.  As a result, the publisher feels that DRM actually does nothing to prevent piracy.  So far Amazon and Audible have not mentioned whether they would continue using DRM on their own audio books.

Thanks to Feslmogh for letting us know about this news.  Further info can be read in this source New York Times article.