Adobe Ebooks on Sony PRS-500 - doesnt import to Sony

Not that I would do this myself of course ........... because of copyright issues. But I live in Ireland and cannot access ebook library or load books from other vendors which have DRM
What can be done (and of course I would not condone this) is to buy books from eg fictionwise.com in Secure Microsoft Reader format
It is possible to remove DRM using ConvertLIT (Graphical Interface version)
and then convert this (.lit) file to the Sony LRF format using LibPrs500.
Both of these little programs are free to download and the whole process would take 5 minutes (i believe)

So until Sony give access to their download library to those of us outside the US or allow the Sony Reader to accept other book formats.....

My wife bought me a sony prs-505 while in Washington. We live in Ireland. The ebook library will only allow US residents to download books. How crazy is this? They donn't want the business?

Sean Kelly

Jim and Steve,

Thank you very much for the great lists of places to get ebooks. Steve, can your ebooks have the DRM removed by using the convertlit?

Leigh Teichman

Hi, It's Stephen Cole here from eBooks.com. Just to clarify this issue form our end, here's a support message that we send to customers enquiring about Sony compatibility. I hope this helps:

=====================

Many of the books that are released by publishers as ebooks are "copy protected" with digital rights management (DRM) controls. This is true of almost all the ebooks available from eBooks.com.

As we understand it, the only copy-protected ebooks that can be read on a Sony Reader are books that are issued in Sony's own proprietary format. At the present time, you can only get these books from Sony's own online ebookstore and from Borders Books. At the present time, Sony has announced no plans to make it possible for owners of other copy-protected ebooks to get their ebooks onto the Sony device.

There may be some confusion caused by the fact that Sony states that Adobe PDF ebooks can be read using the Sony Reader. This is strictly true, in the sense that un-protected PDF files can be opened. However, the Sony Reader is definitely not compatible with commercially produced copy-protected Adobe ebooks.

There are however many thousands of ebooks that you can read on your Sony Reader in other formats that don't have DRM. You can find a wide range of great ebooks at these sites:

"Project Gutenberg" - http://www.gutenberg.org

Baen - http://www.baen.com/

Fictionwise - http://www.fictionwise.com

MobileRead - http://www.mobileread.com

Steve Jordan - http://www.stevejordanbooks.com/

Leigh
Fictionwise is probably the best place for contemporary fiction, the other places I've come across are a bit more specialized. Here's a list (in no particular order and definitely non comprehensive) of place's I've come across:

• Wowio, http://www.wowio.com , offers Ad supported PDF files - mostly comics/graphic novels and classics, a smattering of everything else. Books are free but you are limited to 3 downloads per day.
• 
  
• Baen, http://www.webscription.net, is a major SciFi publisher. Although Baen doesn't produce BBeB or PDF files, the books themselves are not DRM protected and the RTF format should work in the Sony Conversion tool quite nicely. Baen also offers a Free Library at http://www.baen.com/library which usually offers the first book or two of a series to get you hooked.
• 
  
• Feedbooks http://www.feedbooks.com does public domain books as well as self publishing, but formats for eBook readers.
• 
  
• Manybooks, http://www.manybooks.net is similar to Feedbooks in offering mostly public domain titles formatted for eReaders for free.
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• Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org ,is the original source of most public domain books, but has them mainly in Text and HTML formats which should also be fairly easy to use the Sony tools to convert to BBeB
• 
  

I would love to see people adding to this list.

Jim Lester
Adobe Systems

Edit: For some reason links were working so I placed them in the text. Sorry about that

I just received my Sony 505 and was wondering if there are any other websites besides Fictionwise that has ebooks supported by this ereader. Thanks in advance for responses.

Leigh Teichman

Greg

Sorry there's been no new announcements recently (see my messages #17 and #19), so there's not much I can say other than we are working on it. When Sony does make an announcement I will post it in this forum

Jim Lester
Adobe Systems

Hi Jim (Lester):

Do you know when we can expect to have compatability with the Sony Reader so we can read DRM protected books (currently only readable with Digital Editions). Also, will we be able to transfer books already authorized on Digital Editions to the Sony Reader or will there be some other methodology. Thanks...

Greg Pai

Stu,
While wanting to get the next version out and trying to help end some of the eBabel madness would both be sufficient motivation, my wife who now has a 505 (after accidently executing her 500 with the car door - shattering the screen ) is starting to make increasingly not so subtle hints about wanting to read her DRM protected PDF files on her Reader :)

Jim Lester
Adobe Systems

Stuart,

I, too, got the 505 for Xmas but am quite happy with it. Of course, I knew its limitations in advance because I specifically asked for the 505 after having checked out the competition. Check out MobileRead (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php) for free books and conversion tools, as well as lots of advice on all of the e-book readers. There is a special forum dedicated to Sony (as well as dedicated forums for each of the major readers).

Rich Adin