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Tor has made a few statements in the past about going DRM Free.
Does that carry through to downstream retailers?

If I buy a Tor book on Amazon (marketed as a Kindle book) or on Barnes and Noble (marketed it as a Nook book), can I be confident that it will have no DRM?
I know that I can use it on any device (in my case Sony Reader).

Does it depend on country? Is there anything else I should consider?

I am having real trouble finding sites that clearly state: We are selling a DRM free Epub. Most use terms like Nook book and Kindle book etc. I found one site that was clear, and they don't sell to my country.

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4 Answers 4

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Go to the original statement. This includes

Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor and Forge, is pleased to announce that all of their ebooks are now available DRM-free from Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, Google, and most other major ebook retailers.

and

The new DRM-free editions are available from the same retailers that have sold Tor e-books in the past. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.

I think I have seen comments on web sites etc where a book was not DRM-free and Tor then contacted the supplier to change it.

So, yes, they are DRM-free.

As for shop websites telling whether books have DRM see other questions here.

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  • Even if the file does not contain explicit DRM, do Amazon's ToS not effect "implicit" DRM?
    – Raphael
    Apr 13, 2014 at 15:46
  • What do you mean by implicit DRM?
    – mmmmmm
    Apr 13, 2014 at 22:36
  • You technically can copy the file but you are not allowed to.
    – Raphael
    Apr 14, 2014 at 7:07
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Yes, Amazon (and other retailers) generally do carry Tor books DRM-free. On Amazon, you can tell from the book description; see this for Redshirts (relevant text highlighted in blue):

Screenshot of Redshirts Book Description

Tor is not the only publisher carried DRM-free; Baen Books also publishes DRM-free on Amazon and other retailers.

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  • Hoever as noted in other questions not all DRM free books are marked that way
    – mmmmmm
    Mar 4, 2014 at 11:45
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I have purchased several Tor books on Google Play that are DRM-free and they work perfectly. Before buying, look for the "This content is DRM free" label in the book details. Then, after purchase, visit your book library on a computer (https://play.google.com/books/purchases), click the dots on the book to get a menu that includes "Download EPUB", which you can read directly using your reader of choice!

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  • Currently you can click "Read more" in the description, scroll down to "ADDITIONAL INFORMATION" and it says "Content protection: This content is DRM free".
    – sourcejedi
    Jan 2, 2021 at 20:29
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TOR says their books are DRM-free, but I just bought three TOR books via Amazon.com and downloaded them from Amazon's "Your Content" page. They came down as .azw files, which Calibre says are DRM-locked. I can't find anything about how to get my DRM-free TOR ebooks in a format I can read on a non-proprietary reader.

EDIT: I recently (early 2022) took another crack at this. I'm not sure what else (if anything) may have changed, but I managed to get my ebooks converted using Calibre and the DeDRM plugin. The two key issues were:

First, I now have an eink kindle and it's set up in my Amazon.com account. I don't actually use it, ever, but it's there and it has a serial number, which I entered into the DeDRM plugin config. I'm not certain this step is absolutely necessary, but it's part of the Calibre set up I used. But this alone wasn't sufficient, I also needed...

Second, I used amazon.com and selected "Download & transfer via USB", and for the device I selected the eink kindle, not my Kindle Fire, which I had selected previously. When I had selected the Kindle Fire, it didn't work. When I copied the eink kindle's serial number into DeDRM, it didn't work. But when I also downloaded on my desktop for transfer via USB and selected the eink kindle as the destination device, that worked.

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  • For a non proprietary you want pub so either convert from Amazon in Calibre or buy from nearly another bookstore (except Apple) as they do epic and they will be non DRM for TOR
    – mmmmmm
    Jul 3, 2016 at 20:40
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    As I said above, when I tried to convert in Calibre, it says they're DRM-locked. I've already bought the books from Amazon. I found a DeDRM plugin for Calibre, but it wants my kindle serial number to use to access the book. I don't have a kindle, I have a kindle app on my android.
    – Steven J Owens
    Jul 7, 2016 at 23:26
  • There are Kindle apps for PCs and Macs
    – mmmmmm
    Jul 8, 2016 at 9:13
  • Yes, and my local supermarket carries both Fuji and Red Delicious apples. What does either of those have to do with the subject at hand?
    – Steven J Owens
    Jul 9, 2016 at 10:17
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    @StevenJOwens Yes that Download via USB is probably only the current way to work. Amazon have made it harder to break in later Kindle.apps
    – mmmmmm
    Mar 9, 2022 at 14:00

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