McNally Jackson Bookmongers

April 6, 2012

Given the industry’s fears about Amazon’s increasing monopoly on talent and market share, coupled with its ability to drive prices, you’d think publishers would be hesitant to do anything that would make it easier for Amazon to maintain its dominance. Instead, by insisting that e-booksellers implement DRM, publishers are essentially handcuffing themselves to the train tracks and giving Amazon the key.

Emily Books has gotten around this problem, so far, by selling great books published by smaller companies who either agree with us about DRM’s uselessness or can’t afford to care about it. And we’ve experienced exactly zero problems with piracy so far. We still dream of rescuing neglected books from major publishers’ backlists and using our unique platform to introduce these books to a new audience of eager readers. That major publishers currently can’t allow a small bookstore to do something that’s in their own and in their authors’ best interests means the system is broken.

— Ruth wrote a great op-ed about how publishers are sabotaging themselves by requiring booksellers to apply digital rights management to the books they sell. You might think you don’t care about this issue, but if you like books, writing or reading, you care about this issue. (via emilygould)

(via 57thstreetbooks)

6:09pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZDtOFyJCfXwn

(Notes: 86)