As of today, Tor UK, Pan Macmillan’s science fiction and fantasy imprint, has made its ebooks DRM-free and available to purchase from the Tor UK Ebookstore. In a move announced earlier this year, Tor UK has joined sister company Tor Books in New York in removing Digital Rights Management from all its titles so that once you purchase a Tor UK book, you can download it as many times as you like, on as many ereaders as you like.
“We believe that making our Tor ebooks DRM-free is the best for our readers, allowing you to use legitimately-purchased ebooks in perfectly legal ways, like moving your library from one ereader to another,” says Jeremy Trevathan, Publisher at Pan Macmillan. “We understand that DRM can make your ebooks less easy to read. It also makes building and maintaining your digital library more complicated. For these reasons, we are committed to remaining DRM-free.”
Tor UK has made its DRM-free ebooks available to purchase directly from the newly launched Tor UK Ebookstore on Torbooks.co.uk & the Pan Macmillan site, as well as through other retailers. An announcement is expected later this summer regarding the stateside Tor Books Ebookstore.
The news that Tor UK ebooks are now DRM-free has been met by readers, authors, bloggers and journalists with lots of enthusiasm and support:
China Miéville called the decision “a game changer.”
‘The decision by Tor Books to ditch digital rights management signals the beginning of the end of the ebook format wars,” Cory Doctorow writing in the Guardian.
“DRM hasn’t stopped my books from being out there on the dark side of the internet. Meanwhile, the people who do spend money to support me and my writing have been penalised for playing by the rules. The books of mine they have bought have been chained to a single e-reader, which means if that e-reader becomes obsolete or the retailer goes under (or otherwise arbitrarily changes their user agreement), my readers risk losing the works of mine they’ve bought. I don’t like that. So the idea that my readers will ‘buy once, keep anywhere,’ makes me happy,” John Scalzi responded.
About Tor UK
Tor UK is a Pan Macmillan imprint specialising in science fiction, fantasy and horror. We also publish YA crossover fiction and novels based on internationally bestselling computer games franchises. Our team is fully committed to bringing the best imaginative fiction, in its many forms, to the reading community’s bookshelves and ereaders. More news and views from Tor can be found on twitter and torbooks.co.uk
