Slashdot Mirror
Sci-Fi Publisher Tor Ditches DRM For E-Books
First time accepted submitter FBeans writes "'Science fiction publisher Tor UK is dropping digital rights management from its e-books alongside a similar move by its U.S. partners. ... Tor UK, Tor Books and Forge are divisions of Pan Macmillan, which said it viewed the move as an "experiment."' With experiments, come results. Now users can finally read their books across multiple devices such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony Reader, Kobo eReader and Apple's iBooks. Perhaps we will see the *increase* of sales, because the new unrestricted format outweighs the decrease caused by piracy?"
No, I buy media that is not DRM protected. I refrain from purchasing DRM encumbered content for the most part. I've passed on many a movie or ebook simply because of DRM.
The DRM mechanisms are frequently useless anyway. ePub drm can be stripped away instantly (I used some promotional credit to acquire a DRM encumbered epub and stripped the DRM in short order).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
That's not it at all. I'm not prepared to pay for content that is inconvenient to use. I am much more likely to buy content if it is DRM free. This is great publicity for Tor. More power to them.
Tor has Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge.
No true geek should pass them.
I'd also look at Steven Erikson myself.
I think a lot of Windling's crew are at Tor too, for the early urban fantasy.
That's off the top of my head, with no access to my dead-tree books right now.