You’ll hear in the news and in grumblings around the Internet that eBook DRM is a bad idea, that it sends the message that you don’t trust your readers, or that DRM restricts people from reading eBooks that they legally purchased. But those grumblings often come from the very industry that has been threatened by indie author proliferation: the big publishers.
If you don’t understand DRM and why you, as an indie author or small publisher need it, you’re not alone. Digital Rights Management is just what it says: a tool that allows you to control who has access to your work. It doesn’t mean you’re keeping people from reading your eBook who actually bought it; it doesn’t even mean you’re restricting where or how they read it. What it does do:
- DRM protects eBooks from unauthorized copying
- DRM protects eBooks from being sold by other publishers/websites without your consent
- DRM gives you, the indie author or publisher, control over who has access to your eBooks
