O'Reilly To Release DRM-free Ebooks In July

andrewsavikas writes "Starting in July, O'Reilly Media will pilot select books as DRM-free ebook bundles (PDF, EPUB, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket) priced at or below the cover price of the book. David Pogue comments on the pilot in the wake of his own recent dustup about ebooks and piracy, covered previously on Slashdot."

Comments

Re:Well

[repetty]

> If I am to get only the raw information without the physical thing

Somehow, that's a peculiar point of view to encounter on Slashdot... the value of a book is its physical instantiation, not the information it contains.

I see it the other way around.

A couple years ago, I bought the PDF rights to a Ruby on Rails book during its development -- I needed the info immediately and couldn't wait for it to go to print.

I had a copy center print it up, spiral-bound, and I also used it in soft form on my computer. Later, when the book actually went to print, I bought it again. (It was a good book.)

I realized that I didn't like the officially printed book as much. My spiral-bound version was larger and easier to read and laid flat on my desk. Since I knew that I could print another if necessary, I didn't hesitate to write notations in it. Finally, the searchability of the PDF actually changed the way I read: I didn't have to refer to a table of contents, I didn't have to refer to an index, and I didn't have to thumb through pages looking for pertinent information.