The E-Book Piracy Debate, Revisited

The other day, I saw an interesting announcement from Tor Books UK, a publisher of science fiction and fantasy.

One year ago, the company tried a remarkable experiment: it dropped copy protection from its e-books.

Now, there are two batches of common wisdom. Most publishers, of course, think that strategy is insane. If you’re a publisher, copy protection is all that stops the pirates from freely circulating your goods. Your revenue will crash. Maybe you’ll go out of business.