Apple offers publishers anti-piracy software

Apple plans to offer publishers use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software for all titles sold through its as-yet unveiled e-bookstore.

It's a deal aimed at tempting publishers into using a technology previously applied to music files sold through iTunes. Apple stopped using 'Fairplay' on its iTunes store last year after users complained they could not port music collections from one device to another. It was also widely cracked.

Despite being seen as consumer unfriendly, Fairplay still protects paid content such as Movies, TV Shows and Audio books sold through iTunes.

When Apple introduced the iPad, they announced that five major publishers were already planning to produce titles for the device. They made no mention at the launch of DRM, but it is known that some publishers are worried that a digital book trade might suffer similar problems with piracy as those which hit the music industry.

Despite this, not all publishers are comfortable with using DRM. O’Reilly Media – a technical publisher - has vociferously argued that digital locks are harmful to sales.