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?"

Comments

It's about time

[NabisOne]

Now we can hope the other publisher's will follow this trend.

Re:It's about time

[Junta]

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).

Re:It's about time

[allcar]

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.

Re:It's about time

[lxs]

Not really, but stripping the DRM from my Kindle ebooks just so I can convert them and put them on my epub reader is a hassle I could do without. Besides, DRM wouldn't stop me from getting pirated ebooks, if I were so inclined.

Re:It's about time

[Chris Burke]

Too stingy yo pay for your media?

What I find hilarious is that you apparently think people who are too stingy to pay for their media will grudgingly do so anyway when piracy is made slightly more inconvenient, rather than continuing to be stingy and finding a torrent, or just not acquiring the media in question in the first place.

This is like thinking you can cure a man of his heroin addiction by putting a "No Junkies!" sign on the front of your country club.

Re:It's about time

[MickyTheIdiot]

I will gladly pay when it's easier to buy your book than it is to get a torrent.

Torrents are *not* easy to deal with, especially for someone with average computer skills. Then half the time you end up getting a Portuguese translation or something so badly formatted you can't read it.

Good quality product at a FAIR price is what the "free market" wants... and the free market is ALWAYS good, right?

Re:It's about time

[Albanach]

Too stingy yo pay for your media?

Let me tell you about my first Kindle purchase. I paid $12 for a novel that retailed on Amazon at $13.

I read the book, thoroughly enjoyed it and told a friend a couple of days later. She responded by saying she'd love to borrow it. I had to explain that wasn't possible.

So, I saved a dollar.

The publisher saved the cost of printing a paperback book, physically transporting it to Amazon. Amazon saved having the physically store the book in a warehouse and didn't have to pay UPS to deliver it to me.

Once I had read the book, I couldn't lend it or sell it. The bits were used and might as werll be deleted. The publisher and Amazon win again, as there's no second hand market for that purchase.

I have made Kindle purchases since, but I'm much more selective. Typically I'll only do it where I need a book now, or I can be sure it's a book I won't want to share.

It's not because I'm too stingly - I'm still buying books. What I don't want is to lose the rights I have through the first sale doctrine simply because I purchased bits and bytes rather than tree pulp.

Re:It's about time

[fifedrum]

Anecdotal and all, but I certainly will gravitate towards their offerings. Immediately. The very reason I don't buy any ebooks for my wife's kindle is that we can't read them on anything else. I'm certainly not reading a 400 page tome on my phone.

So I say, "Good on them, and here's some money."

(posting to remove misplaced mod, because I'm an idiot and clicked the wrong text)

Re:It's about time

[gfxguy]

It's worse... I'm not too stingy to pay for my media, but when you add in the cost of DRM on top of that (the publisher doesn't pay for it with money it grows on trees, after all) to by media in a format that is inconvenient, when I could pay the same or less for media that is convenient, idiot's comment makes even less sense.

It's always been the case with copy protection - the people who legally buy copy protected materials are the ones who pay for the copy protection that reduces the versatility of whatever it is they bought. It's always been the people who "steal" who get unencumbered versions... it's like punishing the honest people and rewarding the ones who violate the copyright. Do they even understand basic psychology?

Honest people are honest; dishonest people are dishonest... adding DRM doesn't change that, it just hurts the honest people.

Re:It's about time

[gfxguy]

Good quality product at a FAIR price is what the "free market" wants... and the free market is ALWAYS good, right?

Overall the (largely) free market is better than anything else.

Of course, when businesses collude to make life more difficult for consumers or defeat the purpose of competing, then it's not really "free" and I have no problem with the government getting involved. In this case, I think the government is already coming down on publishers and retailers alike when it comes to e-books. Maybe not enough.

The beauty of the free market though, even when companies that create non-necessities collude, is that you don't have to buy it.

Re:It's about time

[hawguy]

Too stingy yo pay for your media?

Let me tell you about my first Kindle purchase. I paid $12 for a novel that retailed on Amazon at $13.

I read the book, thoroughly enjoyed it and told a friend a couple of days later. She responded by saying she'd love to borrow it. I had to explain that wasn't possible.

So, I saved a dollar.

The publisher saved the cost of printing a paperback book, physically transporting it to Amazon. Amazon saved having the physically store the book in a warehouse and didn't have to pay UPS to deliver it to me.

Once I had read the book, I couldn't lend it or sell it. The bits were used and might as werll be deleted. The publisher and Amazon win again, as there's no second hand market for that purchase.

I have made Kindle purchases since, but I'm much more selective. Typically I'll only do it where I need a book now, or I can be sure it's a book I won't want to share.

It's not because I'm too stingly - I'm still buying books. What I don't want is to lose the rights I have through the first sale doctrine simply because I purchased bits and bytes rather than tree pulp.

Just wait a month or two after the book's release and you can buy the book (including shipping) for half the price of the eBook. And after you and your friend are done reading it, you can sell it again for a dollar or two.

I own both a Kindle and Nook, but I still buy most of my books on paper because they are cheaper.

Re:It's about time

[Quiet_Desperation]

This is the beginning of the end of quality writing.

Awesome! Now is my chance to get published!

Re:It's about time

[cpu6502]

For those saying you would now buy ebooks from Tor..... do you buy the Sci-Fi magazines? That is where most young authors get their start. If they die out (they lose about 1000 subscribers/year), so too does the paid outlet for future talent. And most of the mags are DRM free too:

http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/dellmagazineauthorseBooks.htm?cache

.

Re:It's about time

[gfxguy]

Completely agree, Albanach.

We do buy many e-books, although I'm not thrilled about it. If the physical book is anywhere close to the e-book price, it's a no-brainer.

One benefit for the family (at least) is that all of our e-readers are registered to the same accounts, which gives all of us access to all of our books.

On the subject of printing costs, I have forever heard publishers whine about printing (especially setting up a run) and shipping being a significant part of the cost of the book. Now they are claiming that's not the case at all, that those costs are minimal, that it costs nearly just as much to sell an 'e' version of the book as it does to sell a physical copy. I'm not even going to type the expletive that comes to mind, you can figure it out or come up with your own, but here's a hint: it has to do with a certain type of livestock and a certain by-product of their existence.

As for the claim that the quality of books will go down... repeat the last sentence in the above paragraph. There will still be high quality books - they will just have to start competing with self-publishers. If they have the value, people will pay.

Re:It's about time

[Pope]

I doubt your 8 bit monitor was 3.5" across.

Re:It's about time

[Tastecicles]

well, no... as I said in a previous post on another thread, I purchase digital content from unencumbered sources. To justify: I donate on a regular basis to Project Gutenberg and the eTree audio archive (and the Moving Image Archive, both part of the whole that is the Internet Archive). Because their content is not DRM encumbered, donations are voluntary (and tax deductible), and their licensing is practically open (you can redistribute freely, as long as you nod the source), it's a trio of sources I've found far better value than the DRM-crippled stuff.

As physical media goes, for years since I found out that some CDs and DVDs wouldn't play in my computers, as to why: the standard for audio CDs is Redbook; any CD not compliant with Redbook is not an audio CD and has no business being advertised as such - this was settled in court some years ago although I am having trouble finding a link. For a DVD to carry the DVD Video logo it must be compliant with one of three standards: Books 3, Book B or DVD Video Recording Book. In no other circumstances can it be advertised or sold as a DVD video. They preempted any potential suits over standards and playability there by establishing the standards, logo and conditions before the media went mainstream.

I take a netbook with an optical drive to ensure I'm getting what I pay for with audio CDs because there are still some publishers that print non-standard discs (Sony!). Needless to say, with current tech that's a rare thing these days. Usually when I take a netbook out it doesn't have an optical drive rattailed to it and it's already loaded with music.

Re:It's about time

[Chris Burke]

Well that's the irony, isn't it? DRM is supposed to make piracy inconvenient so people will buy, but what it really does is make piracy more convenient than paying for the product.

Re:It's about time

[Defenestrar]

... 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).

Which is illegal under DMCA (even though there is plenty of court precedence to probably favor a ruling of fair use (IANAL)). I applaud you for your willingness to be a court test case (why don't you forward the above post to the publisher of the DRM content along with your name, address, and lawyer's contact info). As for me, I'll back you up by continuing financial support for the EFF (I'm willing to bet they'd help you out with lawyers if you don't already have one, or if you already do, there will be some briefs coming in on your side), and continuing my boycott of DRM books. I don't suppose you could initiate a kickstarter program for a lawsuit not yet brought can you?

I also am thrilled by the news that Tor has joined up with the Baen philosophy, and I hope their corporate overlords allow it to progress. The fact that it is yet another sci-fi publisher which has adopted this strategy should not be lost on anyone.

Re:It's about time

[Man Eating Duck]

E-book layout and structure is trivial compared to print if you have even minimal computer skills

I work in a publishing company, and have done the layout for countless [literally, I have no idea how many :) ] paper books, and made a heap of epubs from those Indesign sources. There are some unique challenges with ebooks, making a file that ends in .epub is easy, making a quality ebook is surprisingly hard. In one instance, a book with French grammar examples which was crossreferenced from here to next Sunday, I ended up with about 3200 links. I scripted parts of it, but still...

I would say that print and digital is about the same degree of difficulty, which is "not very difficult" if you take your time and know what you're doing. Digital just requires some additional skills, and better knowledge of the structural tools you have.

Re:It's about time

[Moryath]

What "decrease caused by piracy"? Cracking the DRM on ebooks was trivial. There are more ebooks in open formats or PDF floating around than anyone could possibly want. All DRM did was piss off the paying customers.

The ugly truth of every industry that has bitched and moaned about "piracy" is that all the money wasted on DRM has not gotten them any money in return. The people who are going to "pirate" do it for lots of reasons. Some want a more functional copy that can be moved to other devices, or that they're sure will still work in 5 years if they upgrade to a newer model device. Some just want to not deal with this kind of bullshit - the unskippable ads/previews, annoying nag screens, and other nuisances. Some are the kind of OCD person that archives anything they can get their hands on, which is actually really fucking useful to society when it comes to preserving missing/lost episodes of TV shows or presumed-destroyed literary or computer works from a few decades ago.

Some are never going to be your customers merely because the prices are so goddamn high that they could never afford to purchase. And a decade ago, certain companies (*cough*microsoft*cough*adobe*cough*) used to have a "well we don't really care too much" attitude, because they saw the numbers: putting up with so-called "piracy" led to a lot of self-taught people using their product and then buying it legit at offices or other small business environments. When Adobe started cracking down on "piracy", all of a sudden you saw the rise of the open source movement handing out programs like Paint.Net to compensate. Only the staggering incompetence of the GUI designers and lack of foresight and marketing competence in the discordant linux community have prevented a similar situation on the desktop OS level.

About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

and for some reason this makes me want to purchase every Tor book they offer,

Re:About Time

[Junta]

The implication being that DRM somehow encumbers piracy. The simple fact is it is completely ineffectual at slowing piracy down. You can find pirated copies of every piece of music, video, and publication you want despite the draconian DRM that is so prevalent in the industry.

Re:About Time

[elsurexiste]

The implication being that DRM somehow encumbers piracy. The simple fact is it is completely ineffectual at slowing piracy down.

That's actually wrong. It indeed slows initial piracy spreading. Numbers, sadly, are in the industry and not in academia.

You can find pirated copies of every piece of music, video, and publication you want despite the draconian DRM that is so prevalent in the industry.

That's a popular confusion about the purpose of DRM schemes. Here's the real deal: the purpose is to slow down initial piracy enough to make a profit from people who would choose the pirated, free version if they can find it. People willing to pay only $0 will pay exactly that. Fans will pay you nicely regardless of DRM. The group that DRM targets is the big crowd that can pay your price, but won't give you a dime if they can get it for free.

I recall the people behind "The Witcher" put DRM on their files and removed it after the product was delivered. Other people won't bother, but they can do it with exactly the same results in their profits. Because, indeed, DRM is not a piracy-stopper but an initial-piracy-slower.

Re:About Time

[Joehonkie]

That's actually wrong. It indeed slows initial piracy spreading. Numbers, sadly, are in the industry and not in academia.

So, where is a valid source of these numbers, specifically as it pertains to eBooks? In the case of eBook piracy, the DRM used in ePubs is so easy to break that anyone can download an app an break it. Much easier than for DRM encumbered video and audio, which are usually broken during or before their release periods. The only person that ePub DRM inconveniences is a legitimate buyer who wants to swap his books around to new devices.

Re:About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. You are wrong.

The major purpose of DRM (and I work in this industry, hence the anonymity) is to protect entrenched players from competition by new business models. All this talk about “slowing initial piracy” is hogwash, and everybody in the industry knows it. What you are quoting is marketing-speak, which is a euphemism for blatant lies—the statistics behind these have been debunked by industry veterans again and again, yet the fool public continues to drink the marketeers' cool-aid.

Re:About Time

[julesh]

Second. Baen have been selling DRM-free ebooks for years. In fact, Tor *used* to sell their books through Baen's system, but had to withdraw then, due (I'm led to believe) by pressure from their parent company.

Re:About Time

[tlhIngan]

Very laudable, and this is a great move that I hope more publishers adopt, but one side-effect of this kind of enthusiasm is that the Tor experiment will be hailed as a resounding success because of people exuberantly rushing to support the first major mover in this direction.

Actually, the cynic in me has it that Tor simply wants to keep the money for itself. I've been annoyed at times to find some sci-fi books are unavailable on Kindle/Nook/iBookstore, then I remember that they're published through Baen.

Great, since they're DRM-free and all that (and really quite generous - they often include a CD of tons of ebooks with their deadtree with permission to share them). Their CEO has denounced DRM for many years now so it's not completely unusual.

Tor's move though could be to simply avoid leaving money on the table. Why put up with the agency model of ebooks, when you can sell them yourself and keep the 30%? Of course, there'll be higher expenses (that 30% covers a lot - payment (credit card/gift cards - stores don't stock gift cards out of goodness of heart - they often buy them 20+% off face value), servers, bandwidth, support (being now a user has to get the ebook from their computer to their reader - something Amazon realized which is why the Kindle was the first autonomous ebook reader)).

It's just like how the music industry went DRM-free in order to break out from the tough Apple contracts being imposed in order to sell music on iTunes. With a competitive marketplace, the music industry can dictate the terms to their customers (Apple, Amazon) rather than Apple calling the shots. Same thing here - rather than having to be beholden to Apple, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, etc., they can do it themselves and keep the cash they would've spent managing all those customers and pocket the 30% as well.

All the benefits of the agency model, without having to deal with middlemen. Apple won't care (do people buy books from the iBookstore?) since iTunes is but a secondary business that happens to do a little more than break even. Amazon, B&N, and Kobo will be affected most since they sell content.

As for can the experiment be repeated? It's hard to say. I'd say sci-fi enthusiasts probably are among the more technically inclined part of the population, so beying direct from Tor and loading your ebook reader is a minor inconvenience (unless you're stuck without your computer - though tablets (iPad, Android) both let you download e-books and import them autonomously). For someone who prefers romance novels or other reading public, it might be a foreign concept.

And hey, the Halo books were surprisingly good. I just wish Tor didn't hold back e-book releases at times, especially on the reprints.

Sure thing

[sandytaru]

Going to go poking around the Tor archives and grab myself a couple books as soon as this comes to fruition. Reward good behavior.

Re:Sure thing

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

What about the price?

[Dyinobal]

Okay now lets do something about the price. I'm so tired of seeing ebooks that are as expensive as regular books or more expensive. There is no reason for it other than 'I want to' or 'I'm afraid of cannibalizing my own paper back sales'. They really should do some experiments lke Valve did with Steam so they can determine the proper pricing for an Ebook. As it is I don't buy stuff for my nook simple touch I got for Christmas simply because any book I want to buy it cheaper than the Ebook version 99% of the time. This is because I tend to buy used over new when I buy a book. The publishers pricing of their Ebooks isn't protecting their profits it's negating them yet no one seems to get it.

Re:What about the price?

[crafty.munchkin]

The printing costs of a book are negligible in comparison with the editorial, typesetting, proof-reading and other costs associatd with releasing a book. Go and read Charlie Stross's essays on common misconceptions about publishing to discover WHY it's impractical.

As an aside - games on Steam are almost always more expensive than the copy I buy with a disk from a store, with the exception of when the steam sales are on.

Re:What about the price?

[Dyinobal]

Even if the actual making from the book isn't the bulk of the cost, an actual book has the same associated costs for editorial, typesetting, proof-ready and any other costs as an Ebook would. There is no excuse for them being priced more expensive than the actual paper copy of the book when they cost less to produce.

Re:What about the price?

[julesh]

Actually, once you have a typeset paper book, typically either in quark or indesign, the cost to convert it to an ebook would be trivial.

Maybe it should be, but that simply doesn't happen a lot of the time. Ebooks are frequently re-typeset, sometimes even retyped (or at least OCR'd and re-copyedited). It's ironic that Stross has come up in this context, because it was when reading one of his Laundry books on Kindle a couple of years ago that I first noticed that it had typos that aren't in the original.

I think, basically, what happens is that the publisher subcontracts the production of the book, and doesn't get the digital files back (I suspect they get a format that isn't readily converted back to a text-like format, such as a list of x/y offsets for characters). It then has to go back to the original source and get somebody else to produce the ebook, requiring a duplication of effort. I imagine some publishers have started moving over to combined producers who do both, but it certainly isn't universal yet.

Re:hmm

[Junta]

Profitability is driven by two directions, revenue and cost.

For revenue, there is more confidence even in a theoretical single-device market that the media will endure.

For cost, the infrastructure to support DRM is a non-trivial expense contributing to erosion of margin. It also serves an additional limiter in terms of scale, per-copy costs have a not-quite-zero incremental cost on the publisher due to DRM.

DRM wasn't my sticking point

[Richard_at_work]

Pricing is - eBooks should be lower priced (although not to the pennies on the pound level, I find that argument ridiculous) and currently they rarely are.

Neal Asher books - Gridlinked as an example, his earliest Agent Cormac book, first published in 2001, now published by Tor: £7.99 on the iPad, £5.11 paperback on Amazon, £4.75 Kindle edition.

Will the removal of DRM flatten out those pricing peaks and troughs? Will the eBook version go up or down? That will determine if piracy goes up or down.

Re:DRM wasn't my sticking point

[Ironhandx]

It will likely mean that certain proprietary formats will slowly disappear and the pricing will get down to the 4.75 kindle edition as no one buys the iPad editions etc.

Right now some of the pricing peaks and valleys are due to the fact that some devices have fees attached to publish for them at all.

As we go further into DRM-Free, most books will probably just start coming in PDF or something similar and fancy PDF reading apps will be more abundant than they currently are, and available on more devices.

Re:DRM wasn't my sticking point

[GiMP]

PDF is to preserve presentation. This is precisely what you do NOT want on an e-reader. ePub, which is really just HTML, is designed to provide reflow for e-readers. It can be used with or without DRM.

Re:hmm

[FBeans]

Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?

Yes, if *you* are only going to read it on one platform, you won't care. For those people who would like the opputnity to read an e-book on multiple platforms, this is very useful. Or to phrase it a different way: yes, your choices are made based on your needs, woopty do!

Will Kindel versions be DRM Free?

[allcar]

From TFA:

Now users can finally read their books across multiple devices such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony Reader, Kobo eReader and Apple's iBooks.

It will be interesting to see if the likes of Amazon honour the publishers wishes, or whether they still insist on using DRM. This might finally damage the Kindle business model. In a similar situation, I recently purchased the new Stephen King audio book directlty from Simon & Schuster, as it is in a DRM free MP3 format. Who would buy from Audible if the same material was available elsewhere in a better format?

Re:hmm

[elsurexiste]

I expect some karma flak now...

Hi! I program DRMs for a living, among other things. buddyglass is correct: the extra sales are going to be from the extra platforms that now can use those eBooks. The "DRM Infrastructure" is trivial for authors and publishers, I'd not dare to call it "Infrastructure" at all. Also, costs are usually insignificant: you usually protect an entire work, not individual copies.

Re:A Move in the Right Direction!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Again, kudos to the publisher for not using DRM, and for setting a positive example for the rest of the publishing world to follow...

Might be better to say "kudos to the publisher for following Baen's lead and not using DRM".

Do keep in mind that Baen's ebooks have NEVER had DRM.

Now if we could get a decent version of Asimov's

[crazyjj]

Being an e-book reader and science fiction fan, I've been very disappointed in recent years with how weakly science fiction publishers have been supporting the e-formats. Of all fields, you would think science fiction would be on the CUTTING EDGE of technology. But, alas, it was only recently that Asimov's even launched a e-book version of the magazine--and it's been plagued by poor formatting, missing illustrations, etc. Very sad when science fiction's leading magazine can featuring writing about the future, but can't seem to actually *embrace* the future.

Glad to see at least one major science fiction publisher is trying to do something with the format.

Some degree of "piracy" helps marketing

[Lonewolf666]

Several years ago, Baen Books (ahref=http://www.baen.com/rel=url2html-25847http://www.baen.com/>) started to make some of their books available as e-books for free, with approval from the respective authors.

Reportedly, those authors actually saw an increase in sales of their paper books as a result. Maybe TOR is betting on a similar outcome (besides saving the trouble of supporting a DRM system).

Re:hmm

[Asic Eng]

Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?

Are you absolutely certain you will only use one platform, and will only buy books from one supplier for the next twenty years? You don't think within this time frame some new device will come out - similar to e.g. the iPad did - and you'll get this device and will want to have the content you already paid for available on it?

Don't you think at the speed new devices are developed these days, some company will introduce something to the market with an entirely new display technology - much better than e-ink, super-amoled and retina display together? Are you sure it will be your currently preferred vendor who'll pioneer that new device?

Re:Probably No significant change in sales

[Toze]

Disagree for two reasons. First, because of personal experience; I hit Baen's free library one day and encountered John Ringo's work. I have since bought about $200 worth of Baen books, mostly Ringo but frequently other stuff I found on their free library. A friend passed me a pirated copy of Jim Butcher's entire Dresden series; I now have the whole run purchased and sitting on my shelf. The specific method I've seen work is this;
1) DRM-free
2) Pirated/shared
3) Lands in the hands of someone who was never going to buy the books
4) Turns them into a trufan who buys some or all of the books.

On the one hand this may not be the precise method Tor is hoping for, and I agree that the /direct/ impact of being DRM-free isn't going to be worth much, but the long-term effect is of more people reading Tor books, and in my experience that means more people buying books. The second reason I disagree is that experiment after experiment shows that "piracy is not the problem, obscurity is the problem." Releasing stuff for free almost never decreases profits, and usually increases profits. Doctorow and Lessig have both explained this at length.

Re:hmm

[Brucelet]

I agree! Also, my glorious vhs movie collection will never be made obsolete by the introduction of new media formats, because why would the industry ever change away from such a dominant format?

Re:hmm

[MickyTheIdiot]

This is typical for me to use them all for ALL my Kindle reads, but I often read kindle in a combination of these:

- My Kindle touch reader.
- Kindle app on my new Android Tablet
- Kindle app on my Nexus S (especially if I get caught waiting somewhere without my reader)
- Kindle cloud on my Work desktop (I use and support Linux for a living)
- Kindle cloud on my laptop (also Linux)
- Kindle app on my work Mac

This is what the digital revolution is about. I haven't hurt the author one iota and I am using the content in the way that fits my needs. Also, the Kindle "ecosystem" is great for purchased books (not so great, however, for content from other places which is a problem IMHO). There is no reason that all books should drop the DRM crap and even more accessible (include full Linux accessibility... HELLO AMAZON! wake up on this).

DRM works!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using the ultimate DRM for my latest book - I keep it all in my head and I've never even thought the whole thing through.

And it works perfectly! Not one person has an unpaid copy of it.

Success? Indeed!

Re:DRM works!

[ProbablyJoe]

The question is, does anyone have a paid copy of it? Maybe if you removed your DRM, you'd have more paying customers!

Re:DRM works!

[Dinghy]

The question is, does anyone have a paid copy of it? Maybe if you removed your DRM, you'd have more paying customers!

This is not the first time I've seen beheadings suggested as a way to respond to DRM.

Re:A Move in the Right Direction!

[TheRaven64]

Or of publishers like Pearson and O'Reilly, who also don't use DRM in their eBooks (if you buy them via Amazon you may get Kindle DRM, but not if you buy them directly), but also have a sufficiently large turnover that the example they set is relevant.

Re:Probably No significant change in sales

[MickyTheIdiot]

It's there because most of the people in the suits are idiots. Period.

Re:hmm

[gnasher719]

Note that if the profitability of removing DRM is dependent on eBooks being more attractive because they're able to be read on multiple devices then that profitability will disappear if one device begins to dominate the market. Why should I care if my eBook is multi-platform if I'm only ever going to read it on one platform?

You would care very much if in three years time, there are much better readers for a different platform.

Recommendable Tor Authors

[ryzvonusef]

Amongst the ones I can personally recommend, Tor has:
1-Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
2-Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time)
3-Steve Erikson (Malazan)
4-Orson Scott Card (Ender)
5- George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire)

Brandonson has been itching for DRM free ebooks, and even offers a totally free ebook on his website (Warbreaker). Good to see his nagging has had some effect.

Ebook pricing

[Firethorn]

Indeed. I like to say that if I'm not paying less than 2/3rds the cover price, I'm not trying. My local stores(not B&N) START at 25-30% off the cover price.

As such, ebook versions are typically $2-3 MORE than what I'd pay for the paperback. As such, I only buy books that I know I'll want to keep and reread.

The publishers need to take a page from Steam's game sale model - offer sales and deals just like the brick and mortar stores do on physical product. Declare 30% off everything every so often. You'll get loads and loads of purchases then.