Publishers Lunch
As you may know already, on Tuesday afternoon
Macmillan division Tom Doherty Associates--comprising the Tor, Forge, Orb,
Starscape, and Tor Teen imprints--announced on their blog that their entire
list of ebooks will be available DRM-free "by early July." In a
separate, following notice, Tor UK said that it will do the same. They added
that "we are consulting with our authors at the moment and we will
announce our plans in more detail in due course."
President and publisher Tom Doherty writes:
"Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time.
They're a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to
them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly
legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another." The company
says that as part of the move, they "expect to begin selling titles
through retailers that sell only DRM-free books."
Executive editor Beth Meacham notes in the
comments section that they continue to work on expanding their ebook list as
well: "We've been working for more than a year to get our backlist
converted to ebook format, which is more complicated than just file conversion.
Sometimes we need to acquire rights, often we need to create files from
archived hard copies. But it's happening. It's just that there are a lot of
books."
Author John Scalzi asks
Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden "what going DRM-free will mean for the
publisher's efforts regarding online misappropriation of author copyrights,
because I know that this is a very real concern for many writers." Hayden
writes back, "Just in case anyone is worried: I can tell you with complete
confidence that Macmillan and Tor/Forge have no intention of scaling back our
anti-piracy efforts in the e-book realm. We expect to continue working to
minimize this problem with all the tools at our disposal."
Forsaking DRM, and/or experimenting with
"lighter" DRM schemes that allow more customer freedom, has been
under discussion at a number of houses recently, intensified in the wake of the
agency pricing lawsuits and settlements. Tor/Forge are the first "Big Six"
imprints to make this move, though Pottermore's recent release of DRM-free
Harry Potter ebooks (watermarked in some versions; still encrypted if purchased
for the Kindle or Nook platforms) remains the most prominent. The Tor move
raises the likelihood that other big publishers will head in the same
direction, and also increases the chance that they may do so by division or
imprint rather than companywide.
Among other DRM-free programs are
Harlequin's Carina Press and other genre publishers such as Samhain, Ellora's
Cave, Baen, Angry Robot and eReads. O'Reilly and F+W Media are among other
publishers who are DRM-free. Sourcebooks is among those experimenting with
DRM-free books, through their recently-launched Discover A New Love ebook
subscription club. (The company has invited other publishers to participate,
while acknowledging that the DRM-free might prevent some publishers from
joining them.)
There has been debate online about whether
lifting DRM will expand the retail marketplace for ebooks or actually
strengthens the hand of the largest ebookstores and platforms (and those
willing or able to discount the most on non-agency books). For readers with
large ebook collections on one particular platform, lifting DRM on new titles
without liberating their already-purchased books may have little or no effect
(and it will produce some grousing in comments fields, as well)--plus it's hard
to imagine significant market effects unless and until the change is adopted by
a wide swath of publishers. It's certainly customer-friendly, and enhances the
value of ebook purchases for some customers. And it makes business-model
experimentation and direct selling by publishers much easier to execute.
The implications and possibilities will be
widely discussed in coming days; this was already on our agenda for one
publisher at the Publishers Launch BEA Conference on Monday, June 4, and we've
just added a focused discussion session on the topic as well which will include
Macmillan svp of strategic technology Fritz Foy. You can still register
for our event at the early bird price for another week or so (and save $75) via
the regular BEA registration form (and you can view the current program here.)
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