We reported that it was coming, and now it is here: Tor announces, via Tor.com, that all Tor e-books currently being sold anywhere are now DRM-free. Any Tor e-books bought from now on from any retailer that sells them will have no DRM. (Whether previously-purchased Tor e-books include DRM is up to the individual retailer. I tried downloading a previously-bought version of Kitty Goes to War from Amazon and it showed up as still protected.)

Separately, John Scalzi discusses the effects going DRM-free has had on sales of his latest novel Redshirts. While he can’t attribute the improvement entirely to the lack of DRM, he does note that he’s sold significantly more copies in the first few weeks than he did of any of his prior books, but has not noticed any increased incidences of piracy. As far as he has found, selling DRM-free as yet has had “no visible downside”.

Good for Tor that they’ve done what they set out to do and unlocked all their e-books. Now if only they could stop all this agency pricing foolishness…

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TeleRead Editor Chris Meadows has been writing for us--except for a brief interruption--since 2006. Son of two librarians, he has worked on a third-party help line for Best Buy and holds degrees in computer science and communications. He clearly personifies TeleRead's motto: "For geeks who love books--and book-lovers who love gadgets." Chris lives in Indianapolis and is active in the gamer community.

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