On FutureBook, Philip Jones posts a summary of the first episode of his new podcast, The Naked Book. This episode had to do with DRM, and featured talks with people including Anobii chief executive Matteo Berlucchi (who I’ve previously covered for his presentation stating that publishers should bite the bullet and drop DRM so they stop helping Amazon build its walled garden) and author Nick Harkaway on the matter.

Kobo director of merchandising Nathan Maharaj pointed out that DRM that restricts books to one particular class of device runs up against the mom problem: non-tech-savvy moms are an important e-book market, and making it possible for them to read e-books easily on any device they have will help to capture that market.

But at the moment, Maharaj noted, evidence is thin on the ground as to whether DRM-free e-books really do sell better. More data may be needed, and it may have to wait for the launch of the extremely popular DRM-free Harry Potter series to provide that evidence.

The podcast itself can be heard here.

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