photo courtesy of THE VERGE
“In a break with industry practices, the [Harry Potter]books aren’t locked down by encryption, which means consumers can move them between devices and read them anywhere they like.” - JK Rowling’s Pottermore Breaks eBook Lockdown, Might Change eBooks Forever
This week the Harry Potter ebooks went on sale. To our surprise we learned that these ebooks are DRM free, meaning they can be loaded on any type of ereader device.
Doesn’t this resemble what happened with the universal conversion to the mp3? Are we going to react to what is inevitable ebooks becoming DRM free or will we learn from the digitization of the music industry? It’s going to happen. How will it affect author’s compensation? How can epublishers monetize DRM free content? Will publishers change their relationship with Amazon.com? Will publishers spend more on relationship building with their core readership and create their own epublishing hub similar to Harlequin’s Carina Press?
