If you love Sci-Fi, you’ve probably at least heard of Tor Books, a Macmillan imprint catering to the geek crowd. But even if you don’t know what the Prime Directive is, Tor Books is interesting for a very important reason: they have a no-DRM policy on all of their books. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and it is (to be completely unbiased) a way for a publisher to deny you your fair-use rights. Want to read the book you purchased on multiple devices, or listen to that song on a device that doesn’t talk to iTunes? DRM aims to make that impossible, and at least succeeds in making it annoying.

Everyone – except publishers and some artists – hates DRM. Mostly because it makes it harder to do things you are legally allowed to do, but also because DRM makes the assumption that you, the person who bought a book or song, is a criminal. You can’t be trusted with this precious content, you see, so it has to be wrapped in chains. Because DRM is so universally loathed – and so universally useless – most industries are moving away from it. Apple no longer uses DRM on songs purchased through iTunes, and Amazon lets you download plain old MP3 files from their music store. And many eBooks – all of mine included – are DRM-free.

Tor was one of the first “major” publishers to take a stance against DRM. This was a smart move, because their audience tends to be more technical, and technical people hate DRM even more than most. Hachette UK, however, is somewhat less enlightened. They refuse to release any book without DRM. They have also announced that they will no longer acquire any books with any DRM-free edition, anywhere in the world. And now they’ve sent a letter to their authors, insisting that DRM be used to “protect” books … published by other houses.

In one letter, Hachette has stated that 1: they hate their customers, and 2: they believe in magic. It’s amazing to watch the publishing industry go through the exact same convulsions that the music industry experienced a decade ago. It’s like they haven’t learned anything.

(Publishers Weekly, via Boing Boing)

Slashdot brings us the story of LendInk, a completely legitimate site that was knocked off the internet due to authors’ and publishers’ fear of piracy.

LendInk’s business model was pretty simple: it connected readers who wanted to borrow a book with readers who had that book to lend. This is a built-in feature of Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s Nook: many books, once purchased, can be loaned out to a friend. You can only loan the book once, and only for two weeks, and you can’t read it while your friend is borrowing it. Aside from the fact that you can share the book with someone on the other side of the world, it’s actually much more restrictive than lending a physical paperback.

Sites like LendInk just make it easier to find someone with the book you want to read. It makes it easier for the person who bought the book to lend it out … a right they paid for when they bought the book. And authors/publishers agree to the lending program when they sign up. This is from Kindle Direct Publishing’s Terms of Service:

5.2.2 Kindle Book Lending Program. The Kindle Book Lending program enables customers who purchase a Digital Book to lend it subject to limitations we establish from time to time. All Digital Books made available through the Program are automatically included in the Kindle Book Lending program. However, for Digital Books that are in the 35% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page), you may choose to opt out of the Kindle Book Lending program. This will disable lending of the Digital Book by customers who purchase it after you have opted it out, but this will not affect the right of customers who purchased it when lending was enabled to continue to lend it. You may not choose to opt out a Digital Book if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. If we become aware that a Digital Book you have opted out is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel, we may enable it for lending. Digital Books that are in the 70% Royalty Option (as described in the Pricing Page) cannot be opted out of the lending feature.

Nothing nefarious is going on here. But for people in the entertainment industry – music, books, movies, whatever – piracy is the boogeyman their parent tell them about to get them to eat their vegetables. The thought of someone doing something with your work without your explicit permission, the idea that someone might enjoy your work without – gasp – paying for it, is terrifying to some people.

I can understand this. My own stories mean a lot to me, and the money I make of them helps me pay my bills. But I also understand that readers are my friends and my customers, and that making them jump through razor-lined, flaming hoops in order to get my books is only going to make them more likely to pirate, not less. That’s why my books are available on as many sites as I can manage, and are all DRM-free.

Anyway, LendInk was a completely legitimate service, helping readers use the rights they paid for. But that didn’t stop a swarm of authors from taking the site down. A torrent of complaints rolled in to the ISP who, under the DMCA, was required to shut down the service. The ISP has said that they’ll turn the site back on … if the owner responds to each and every complaint, personally.

As a reader, you should be outraged. And as authors, we should be embarrassed. There are pirates out there, and I’ve filed DMCA takedown requests with a few of them. But that doesn’t give us the right to go after legitimate readers … or the tools that help them.