The developer of the the Amazon Kindle, one of the most selling e-book readers in the market has reportedly removed the restrictions of the Digital Rights Management (DRM) off of the e-books that are available for the Kindle. The DRM essentially controls the way users have access to their e-books and as per numerous publishers on Amazon’s Digital Text Platform, the company it seems has allowed allowed the authors exclude the previously mandatory DRM protocols on their e-books. The changes are believed to have occurred on January 15th, 2010.

The publishers are in a fix with this latest move form Amazon, as the DRM is one of the few concrete methods that are aimed at preventing piracy of the digital media. The DRM has so far been widely used by large publishers and news organizations. However, one of the major drawbacks of the of Digital Rights Management especially in the e-books platform is inability of the e-book to be read on any other device. Meaning, that if a user plans to read a DRM protected e-book on any other e-reader, he would not be able to do so, as the that particular digital edition can only be viewed on Kindle.

But then again, the lifting of the DRM protocols off Kindle, could in turn be a boon fro Amazon, as the users might begin to change their reading trends, that of from hardbacks to e-books, knowing that their digital books can be read just about anywhere they like to, regardless of the presence of Kindle and this could start a buying frenzy from the Amazon digital store.

Via Nieman Journalism Lab