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What Book Publishers Should Learn From Harry Potter

New submitter Volanin writes "The e-book versions of the Harry Potter series are being released through Pottermore, and J.K. Rowling has chosen to do a number of interesting things with them, including releasing them without DRM restrictions. 'One of the encouraging things about the Pottermore launch is that the books will be available on virtually every platform simultaneously, including the Sony Reader, the Nook, the Kindle and Google's e-book service. ... even Amazon has bowed to the power of the series and done what would previously have seemed unthinkable: it sends users who come to the titles on Amazon to Pottermore to finish the transaction.'"

6 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Only sort of DRM free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/03/27/harry-potter-ebooks-are-not-drm-free-in-kindle-format/

    1. Re:Only sort of DRM free? by Bradmont · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, it can convert bewteen just about any ebook format you can imagine. There are also plugins to strip DRM, but amazon recently changed its DRM scheme, so YMMV.

  2. Who needs DRM by StatureOfLiberty · · Score: 5, Funny

    Each book is a Horcrux. Who needs DRM restrictions? :-)

  3. A) Nothing by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What Book Publishers Should Learn From Harry Potter

    They should learn form this that we wanted these 5+ years ago, preferably released simultaneously with the print version, and ideally the print versions should have included one free e-Version each.

    What will they learn from this? They'll learn that they can fake it and promote themselves as "DRM-Free" by releasing material that everyone already owns in another form (and therefore piracy doesn't much matter), which continuing to burden new releases and reference material under as onerous of a lock as they can clamp on.

  4. Re:Price still too high by epedersen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, it costs them $0.80 to print and send you a papterback version. The cost of the content is what you are paying $7.99 for.

  5. Re:No DRM but has tracking by Hogwash+McFly · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I don't understand potions", said Ron gloomily.
    "You don't understand anything!" said Hermione snootily.
    "Cut it out, you two. I'm trying to watch the Quidditch", said John Thompson, the twenty eight year old living at 17 Acacia Avenue, Surrey, credit card number 5753100085692323.

    --
    Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?