One of the big criticisms of Amazon's Kindle is that it wraps electronic books in DRM, digital rights management software that prevents its from being read or copied outside the Kindle and its associated apps. Now comes a report that the company is letting users of its Kindle self-publishing platform decide themselves whether or not to activate DRM on e-books (if there's no DRM, the books can presumably be read across multiple devices).

Amazon, however, says this is nothing new. "We’ve always given publishers the option on DRM. We just added functionality that made it easier to choose," said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener.

Nieman Journalism Lab spotted the DRM on-off option buried in the FAQ page of Amazon's Kindle Digital Text Platform:

You may choose, on a per title basis, to have us apply DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology which is intended to inhibit unauthorized access to or copying of digital content files for titles. DRM is a one-time option. This setting cannot be changed once selected.

The Kinde Digital Text Platform is aimed at small publishing houses and self-publishing authors, and doesn't represent all of Kindle's electronic book selection. But Amazon has been pushing the platform in recent days, opening it up to authors and publishers outside the U.S. and offering a bigger cut of e-book sales (70 percent) to those who publish through the platform.

Amazon, which just opened Kindle to outside app developers, is seeking to expand the Kindle ecosystem as rival Apple prepares to unveil its much-rumored tablet computer next week. Sony, Google, and others active in the electronic book space have embraced ePub, an open format for e-books that allows for reading on a range of readers and devices.

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