A year after removing digital rights management from its books sci-fi publisher Tor made a surprising announcement.
This industry-first means that for the past year, readers who purchased Tor books could share them between any e-reader, whether they have a Kindle, Nook or Kobo.
Apart from the rejoicing of readers who want to do basic tasks, like load an e-book onto two e-readers, Tor says the experiment has exposed ‘no discernable increase in piracy’ once DRM is removed. Currently, many publishers, distributors and retailers have justified restrictive DRM in e-book files and readers as a way to protect copyright but many readers just find it annoying they can’t move their books between devices or lend them to friends, as they would with a paperback.