Category Archives: DRM Free

DRM Free Please

I try to be a voracious reader and just over a year ago, I purchased a nook touch. There were three primary drivers for that decision.

First was I wanted to have an e-ink display after sitting and looking at a computer monitor all day, the e-ink is easier on my eyes, especially late at night in bed before I go to sleep.

Second was from the recommendation about epub being better support from publishing perspective from the Pragmatic Programmers when I asked over twitter whether to go with the Kindle or KindleDX. Their reply was that epub is a more open and extensible format to work with and software books tend to come out better in that format.

Third one was that the epub is a more open format than the others I had encountered and the nook supports that format.

On the down side though, the Barnes and Noble store has all of their books with DRM on them.

For using my nook, I will always try and buy from publishers and stores that give DRM free books, and if not, I would rather buy a print version. I could give a number of reasons that I am against DRM, from being free to share books with another person, being free to read my books on whatever device I decide without being losing any content I paid for, lack of trust in major publishers or booksellers being able to survive the shift into digital publishing and taking away my content if they don’t.

I want to give thanks to the following publishers for their support of DRM free publishing, and these publishers will always get my support: The Pragmatic Bookshelf, O’Reilly Media, Manning Publications, and Apress.

As part of this I would also like share the Readers Bill of Rights for Digital Books.

I will gladly support any additional publishers and sellers who put their support behind DRM free digital books.

–Proctor