Open Media Review

No Starch Experiments with BitTorrent, DRM-free Release

No Starch is a fun, smaller, technology oriented publisher. As such, it is hardly surprising they would be willing to experiment with direct distribution through BitTorrent. They are releasing two titles, both by Leander Kahney noted Wired.com columnist; Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod. The books are being made available in DRM-free PDF format.

The candid thoughts of the publisher are encouraging that they understand the larger issues at stake.

But there’s a political issue here as well. I think that publishers (music and book) are spending too much time circling the wagons and not enough time thinking of ways that they can use technology to advantage. Certainly, our move here is a bit unusual, but someone has to take the plunge. May as well be us. After all, we were the first publishers in the United States to come out publicly against the DMCA. Time to put our money where our mouth is, as they say.

Using technology to advantage resonates well with the the NRKbeta doctrine, a coinage deriving from an interview with folks at the Norwegian broadcaster, NRK, after their own experimentation with BitTorrent and DRM-free downloads.

The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it.

Like other publishers they are taking a wait and see approach to the experiment. While they are optimistic that the torrents will have a positive effect on sales, they will condition future such releases on the success of this effort.