Sony opens e-book reader to outside publishers

Sony announced on Thursday that its Reader Digital Book will be able to read electronic books published using the .epub format that many of the largest book publishers are using.

Until now, Sony's e-book reader could only read books available from the Sony e-book store, PDF documents, and DRM-free text. Starting next month, the new PRS-505 Sony Reader model will be able to access secure DRM- and non-DRM-protected content in the .epub format, formerly called the Open eBook format. (Here's a review of the device.)

The Sony Reader Digital Book is the first e-book reading device to support the .epub format, which is the XML-based standard format proposed by the International Digital Publishing Forum. It allows publishers to convert books to different formats, protect the copy using DRM (digital rights management) and has the ability to resize PDF e-books and other text to better fit the reader's screen size.

Publishers including Harper Collins, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin are offering texts in the .epub format. (Simon & Schuster is owned by CBS. CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.)

"This upgrade opens the door to a whole host of paid and free content from third-party eBook stores, Web sites, and even public libraries," Steve Haber, senior vice president of consumer product marketing for Sony Electronics, said in a statement.

The announcement is the latest move in a standards war over e-book formats pitting Sony against Amazon. Amazon's Kindle e-book reader and e-books it sells support the proprietary .azw format. Amazon also acquired Mobipocket, which offers a format for texts read on PDAs and BlackBerrys and its Kindle can read DRM-free .mobi files.

Amazon has a much larger selection of e-book titles than Sony's store has. Meanwhile, Sony's reader is priced less ($360 versus $300) than the Kindle.

Sony also offers a BBeB (BroadBand eBook) proprietary DRM-encrypted format for the Sony Reader and PRS-505 Readers will continue to support BBeB formatted e-books.

[DENOBIN]

Proving yet again that content, not technology, is king. If you can't control the content, you had better be open to it.

[InklingBooks]

Bravo Sony. Perhaps they're finally learning to go with open standards.

From the publisher's perspective, ePub is far better than Amazon's proprietary format. InDesign will create ePub files directly from existing print-book files. Amazon's Mobipocket is not only less versatile, it requires starting over from scratch and klutzing with their software which, the last time I checked, was Windows only. Given the still-limited sale of ebooks, that means creating one is often not worth the hassle or expense.

You might want to do an article about commercial ePub distribution, looking particularly at whether Lightning Source or Ingram is planning to get into distributing ePub books wholesale, sparing publishers that hassle. I don't want to get caught up in running a ebook website or distributing these books to every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

It'd also be interesting to hear more about whether university or public libraries are interested in distributing ePub books, perhaps with a time-limited, per-reader fee instead of a flat price.

[xwaver]

Lack of .epub support is the ONLY thing that stops me from getting a Kindle.

[bsstrickland]

It would be nice if they could update the firmware of the ones already bought so we don't have to go out and buy another.

[cheezr]

Actually several months at the Adobe "epub" announcement, Sony announced support for the format, now they are announcing that the software will be available next month. And my understanding is that existing readers will be easily updated to the new firmware (they have had firmware updates before).
I am very much looking forward to this and thank Amazon because without Kindle, Sony would never have cooperated with Adobe on the open format.

Competition is good for everyone!

CZR

[cheezr]

Good News!
The new software was actually released on Thursday and is available here:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=PRS505

CZR

[drewk35]

hey people,
just a a quick question on what books sony is allowing to be used on the ereader. My wife has one, and i dont use it at all. i just purchase to books for her fron sony library and download. I guess i was curious as to which books are compatiblie. I know these .epub's have been mentioned. where would one find those books? would we be able to purchase books from say amazon and use them on the ereader? Im sorry if this is a silly question or if sony hasnt even released any infor yet. if anyone out there could take the time to help me out i would appreciate it. thanks
drewK

[J-T-M]

It is great that Sony is starting to put consumer needs first when it comes to ereading and its about time. However, the Sony ereader upgrade (2.2) has glitches! Having donwloaded the upgrade, I now can't access the Sony bookstore via the Sony elibrary which means I can't download books. And I am not the only one...

According to Sony, they are aware that the upgrade is causing problems with their consumers and have been aware of the problem for weeks now. There is no timeline on when the problem is going to be fixed and the answer, if you have the problem, seems to be 'tough luck.' (To give the service team their due - they do try but their solutions aren't working).

Please please Sony... remember that the consumers are important and giving them software that stops them from using the hardware is not the best idea in the world.

Long and the short of it is that even with the ereader, I am still having to travel with a pile of paperback books because downloading is impossible until Sony have fixed the glitch in the upgrade program. Be careful when you download the upgrade!