Digital Rights Management is a hot button issue and many companies employ it to discourage illegal file sharing on the internet. It also ensures that people are not taking the books and reselling them to other people. There are plenty of reasons why DRM is adopted by the big six publishers, but others see it as hindering the ebook experience. When you buy a book it is often complicated to transfer it to your other devices and sometimes you are locked into a particular ecosystem. The Harvard Business Review joins the ranks of TOR by announcing today that they are offering digital content without encryption.
The Harvard Business Review recently launched its own online bookstore and is now offering books with no DRM. “We make our ebooks available to you DRM-free so you can read them on the device of your choice,” the digital publishing house said in a statement. “We trust that our customers will abide by copyright law and refrain from distributing ebook files illegally.”
It is important to note that the non-encrypted books come at a higher cost. One book, for example, currently costs $17.99 when purchased directly from the Harvard Business Reviews website, but costs only $10 on Amazon. Keep in mind, however, the books that cost more are able to be read on any e-reader or tablet, while Amazon books are only available on the Kindle or Kindle supported apps.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
