Education & Numérique

We've never quite understood the purpose behind DRM, and have said so many times. It doesn't stop infringement, because the DRM is always cracked, and the crack always leads to a clean version. And once you have a clean version, it's available everywhere. Those who want to infringe will do so. So, in the end, the only thing DRM does is (1) annoy legitimate buyers and (2) lock in certain platforms such that the ebook platform providers (hello Amazon!) have much more power than the publishers.

Given that, I've been amazed for years that the ebook world hasn't moved more strongly towards a DRM-free world, which the music industry was eventually forced to embrace (with little corresponding harm). A number of smaller publishers have embraced the promise of DRM-free ebooks, and a year ago, Tor, publishers of lots of popular sci-fi works, made plenty of news for going DRM-free in both the US and the UK.

Zac Morris was the first of a few of you to point us to a blog post from Tor UK talking about the impact one year later with the key line being:

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