You’ve written a book and you’re looking into eBook conversion sites. You know a lot of the basics that you need to look for, but have you considered whether or not you need DRM? Many people haven’t heard of Digital Rights Management, but it is highly important to safeguarding authors’ works in the realms of digital publishing.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a particular kind of technology that makes it possible to make sure your work is not copyable, printable, or alterable in any digital format. DRM is a way to protect your content to make sure that it cannot be stolen or altered by others. In the case of eBooks, it also prevents your work from being shared without a purchase. DRM helps to ensure that people will have to buy your book instead of getting a copied version from a friend. It helps do this partially by limiting the reading devices on which different eBooks are authorized. In essence, DRM technologies help prevent the pirating of your work so you are guaranteed your intellectual property rights.
DRM essentially protects your intellectual property and prevents copyright infringement on your work by preventing different kinds of digital access to your document. Many people have mixed feelings about DRM, however, most authors appreciate the protection that it provides. Because the systems prevent people from being to modify or alter your work, it also means that no one can copy your work and resell it without the rights.
Most eBook formats come with DRM protection of some type. The largest kinds of DRM protection are supported by Amazon, Adobe, and apple. Another common DRM was created by a partnership between Phillips, Intertrust, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. All of these different versions of DRM are supported on specific devices and formats. All of them work towards the same end, however, protecting the intellectual property, and by extension the earnings, of the authors. When considering eBook conversion it is always important to find a company that can offer you DRM as part of the conversion.
DRM will allow the eBook vendor to protect your work while deleting copies of your work, should any surface. The protection guarantees you rights to the publication and will delete verbatim or altered copies, even if readers download those copies. Vendors such as Amazon will delete copied works when they find out that the publishers don’t have the rights to the work itself. They make sure that the books they are selling are authorized versions either by the writer or their publisher.
When looking for an eBook conversion site, make sure that they offer DRM for your work if you want to make sure that it wouldn’t be copied, reused, or shared illegally. Making sure that your work can’t be shared does help guarantee a few more sales for you because people will have to buy your book to read it. So while DRM has often come under fire, in the end, it is protecting the rights of authors everywhere.