Page last updated on March 11th, 2023.

Where do you stand?

I will never use DRM on my writing or other publications, as long as it is my choice.

That’s pretty blunt.

Yes, I wanted it to be clear. There are some nuances though, so please do read on for the fuller picture.

What do you mean by DRM?

Digital Rights Management (DRM) software exists to attempt to prevent copyright infringement. It limits or restricts your abilities as a customer in ways that may or may not be obvious.

I spell it out in more detail in this blog post , and you can also refer to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and their site Defective by Design .

It hurts you, as the reader, and doesn’t help me as the author. So I want nothing to do with it. That means you shouldn’t encounter any artificial restrictions on copying my books between devices that you own. (There might well be all sorts of technical problems involved in it, but there’s not a lot I can do about that.)

But you said there was nuance?

Not all sales platforms give me (or you) the freedom to reject DRM.

Direct Sales

Where I sell you a book directly (or give it away via my mailing list) it will never have DRM enabled.

Amazon (Kindle)

Amazon’s Kindle platform allows me to choose whether I put DRM on my books or not. As such, I choose not to.

Apple Books

Apple’s eBook platform allows me to choose whether I put DRM on my books or not. As such, I choose not to.

Google Books

Google’s eBook platform allows me to choose whether I put DRM on my books or not. As such, I choose not to.

Audiobooks

I do not currently sell audio versions of my books. When I do, I will update this page accordingly. At time of writing, neither Amazon (Audible), Apple nor Google allow disabling DRM on audiobooks.

What if this changes?

If anything changes, I’ll keep this page up to date.

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