Random House Germany drops hard DRM

German publishers are speedily bidding goodbye to Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) on their e-books. What started as a trickle earlier this year has now become an unstoppable torrent with Random House Germany the latest (and largest) of the major publishing groups to exit hard-DRM.

Citing an ever growing consensus in the industry for its decision, Munich-based Verlagsgruppe Random House will make all its digital books available with soft digital watermarking from October 1st.

Random House is the latest German trade publisher to opt for soft DRM, following hot on the heels of Verlagsgruppe von Holtzbrinck which made the switch earlier this month for publishers Droemer Knaur, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt und S Fischer Verlage. But it was Swedish book and media Bonnier that really set the swing in motion, when it announced the move to the soft format at the end of June for its German publishing operation Verlagsgruppe Bonnier (with Piper, Ullstein, Carlsen, arsEdition, Thienemann, Esslinger und Berlin Verlag). Among those who switched earlier this year were trade publishers Bastei Lübbe, Hoffmann und Campe and dtv.

While Verlagsgruppe Random House c.e.o. Frank Sambeth is convinced that soft DRM will efficiently safeguard e-books against fraudulent use because they can be traced back through the watermarking, he also stated that the publisher will vigorously take actions against any copyright violations. As for the reasons of moving to soft DRM, it is all down to the consumer.  “Not only do we want to further encourage digital reading, we want to make it as easy as possible for readers to access e-books," Sambeth said. "Abandoning hard DRM will increase customer satisfaction and reduce complexity.”

It will also satisfy retailers because Random House can now make its e-books also available to those booksellers and platforms which do not offer hard DRM. While e-book sales are still small in Germany, many booksellers have been lobbying for the soft format for quite some time, arguing that restrictions imposed by hard DRM will only drive customers to Amazon.