Tor Ditching DRM
I was going to write a long, involved post about Tor going DRM-free, but really, do you want to read my thoughts on it when John Scalzi and Charlie Stross have weighed in on it? But because it is my blog, I’ll make an effort: Lord, DRM sucks. It does a lot more harm to legitimate consumers than pirates, who laugh sardonically as the crack it (because let’s face it: the sad, pathetic souls who get jobs making things DRM-complient are not exactly the cream of the crop, skilz-wise, and almost by definition don’t really care about their jobs), whether it’s messing up a computer game or an e-book. It doesn’t seem to do the creators of content much good, as near as I can tell, and it doesn’t even seem to help massive, soulless computer game manufacturers and so on (ask the makers of Spore, once destined to be the best-selling game evar, how DRM worked out for them).
The only people who benefit, as near as I can tell, are companies like Amazon, who can use it to lock normal, law-abiding consumers (who don’t have the time and/or inclination to crack their DRM) into a single platform, so they stop buying content from anyone else (who wants to buy 6 or 7 devices just so they can buy from different stores, after all?) Frankly, I think Amazon will get along without that little boost, so I’d just as soon be able to actually buy an e-book and have a shot at still owning it in ten years.
So I think it’s good news, but go read Scalzi and Stross, because they have more intelligent things to say about it anyway.