What happens to the books on my reader if I de-authorize the reader on line at the Sony bookstore? Are the books I bought from Sony still readable on the reader?

Mitch

You have to plug in the Reader to deauthorize it, so any DRMed ebooks on it at the time will no longer be readable.

But if you have the ebooks on an SD card, and insert the card after deauthorizing the Reader, I o not know if hey will still work. I never tried it.

I think what happens is that when you deauthorize the reader, something inside the reader is changed so it won't work with DRm eBooks. And when you authroize it then it allows those same eBooks to be read.

I think what happens is that when you deauthorize the reader, something inside the reader is changed so it won't work with DRm eBooks. And when you authroize it then it allows those same eBooks to be read.

I don't have any insider knowledge on the way this works, but assuming it uses encryption keys, a fairly logical way would be to encode the decryption key as a file based on the device's electronic serial number. This would prevent the key being readable, prevent copying of the key to another device (since the electronic serial number would be different) and would not be affected by the location (card or internal memory) of the book file.

Just an educated guess based on how similar schemes work however.

Regards,
Marcus