credit Amsador.com

I’ve been hoping (and I’m not alone) that Kindle’s DRM-crippled content is the fault of backward publishers, and that Amazon is leaning on those publishers to lift their digital restriction measures early and circumvent the headaches the recording industry went through. I’m starting to fear that’s not the case.

We saw mp3 retailers fight with music distributors, to a certain extent, when Yahoo tried to free itself and its customer from DRM’s shackles. But that chapter ended when Yahoo Music closed and proved, almost vindictively, how bad DRM could be for consumers.

As for the Kindle, we already know that Amazon is not allowing a single DRMed format, other than its own, into the new Kindle. This prohibits Kindlers from borrowing library ebooks, or buying almost anything not from Amazon, and shows a substantive lack of consideration for current and future Kindlers.

Now comes a report (via TeleRead via Twitter) that, at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference this week, Cory Doctorow mentioned his troubles selling the DRM-free mp3 of his novel Little Brother through Amazon:

“Random House audio wanted to sell mp3 of Little Brother, Amazon said only through Audible, which requires DRM – Doctorow” —@sljournal on Twitter

This could be merely a continuation of Doctorow’s disagreement with Audible over their DRM-only rules. But I can tell you that there are only two Doctorow ebooks available at the Kindle store, which is odd, because there are ten Doctorow ebooks available for free at Doctorow’s website.

This means, at the very least, that we can’t assume Amazon is striving to abolish DRM on ebooks. At worst, they’re actively encouraging, and possibly even requiring DRM on most or all ebooks they sell.

I’m facing a small DRM nightmare myself. My Sony Reader recently went belly-up, and I stand to lose five books if I return it and switch brands. Five books, acquired in less than a month, by someone who hates DRM. Imagine a Kindler having no choice but to buy Kindle books, and eventually wanting to switch brands after years. You could lose hundreds and hundreds of books, easily.

The moral of the story is that DRM books are not yours to keep. Do not buy them if you want to keep them forever, and do not buy a Kindle if you intend to read anything on it that you’d be upset if you lost.

Oh, and the answer is no, Amazon is not fighting DRM nearly as hard as they could be. Which is a shame, because they could be fighting very, very hard.

[Tweet-coverage of the Tools of Change Conference on TeleRead]