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Sci-Fi Publisher Tor Ditches DRM For E-Books 280

Posted by timothy
from the thought-tor-was-some-kinda-darknet dept.
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?"
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Sci-Fi Publisher Tor Ditches DRM For E-Books

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  • Sure thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sandytaru (1158959) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @09:38AM (#39806071) Journal
    Going to go poking around the Tor archives and grab myself a couple books as soon as this comes to fruition. Reward good behavior.
  • by Dyinobal (1427207) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @09:42AM (#39806121)
    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.
  • by Ironhandx (1762146) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @09:49AM (#39806215)

    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:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by elsurexiste (1758620) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @09:52AM (#39806275) Journal

    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:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MickyTheIdiot (1032226) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @09:58AM (#39806359) Homepage Journal

    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:About Time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elsurexiste (1758620) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @10:29AM (#39806765) Journal

    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:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Defenestrar (1773808) on Thursday April 26, 2012 @01:33PM (#39809361)

    ... 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.

Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears. -- Roy Harper

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