Simply Audiobooks to Offer RH Titles DRM-free

By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 7/3/2008 5:23:00 AM

Simply Audiobooks has announced plans to make a full range of Random House audiobook titles available for purchase and download in a DRM-free format. The deal with the Toronto audiobook outfit covers more than 5,000 RH audio titles. Downloads will initially be limited to Simply Audiobooks Download Club members, but a la carte download sales will be available later in the summer.

The audiobook downloads can be played on a wide variety of MP3 players, thanks to the lack of Digital Rights Managment security software designed to limit usage. Simply Audiobooks will make about 1,000 titles available immediately and plans to add more than 4,000 titles by the end of the summer. Among the Random House DRM-free titles available are Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, James Rollins’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

Consumers have long complained that DRM embeded in CDs, discs and downloads restrict the use of and devices that can play their content. Last fall Simply Audiobooks joined the digital entertainment retailer eMusic in announcing that it would make its audiobook downloads DRM-free, and has since been in negotiations with publishers fearful that their content will be unprotected and freely distributed after purchase.

Vitaly Petritchkovitch, director of digital technology at Simply Audiobooks, said,  “Consumers should have the choice of whatever audiobook title they prefer, as well as their choice of a playback device that suits their listening pleasure.”