Sony Partners With Google To Bring More Than 500,000 Books To The Reader

[susan_cassidy]

I'm confused. Weren't the vast majority of public domain books that most people would be interested in reading already available in formats for Sony at places like feedbooks.com, here at mobileread, manybooks.net, etc? How is getting a freshly OCRed version any better than a version already proofed and formatted?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

I'm confused. Weren't the vast majority of public domain books that most people would be interested in reading already available in formats for Sony at places like feedbooks.com, here at mobileread, manybooks.net, etc? How is getting a freshly OCRed version any better than a version already proofed and formatted?

Most ebook sites draw on Project Gutenberg, which has about 100k titles. Google just added about 500k.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Unfortunately, I don't think we can assume that non-public domain books would be offered in a DRM-free edition.

I agree, Elsi, that we can't make that assumption. But if you can get a powerhouse like Google to push for no DRM, it is likely to be a more effective push than you and I doing so.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

[idle musing]I'm simply amazed at what's going on. What will happen tomorrow?
[/idle musing]

Tomorrow Jeff Bezos will have an epiphany, realize that money is important but that once you have a gazillion dollars, the money itself becomes meaningless, and he will put an end to DRM and start selling ebooks for all devices.

Then again, perhaps tomorrow Jeff Bezos will decide that a gazillion dollars is trivial and have an epiphany that tells him how to squeeze more out of the consuming public while leading us down the primrose path.

Or, perhaps, tomorrow Sony will come out with a new Reader that is so far advanced that all other device makers, including Amazon, simply give up hardware manufacturing and adopt the Sony DRM as the standard.

Or, perhaps, tomorrow . . .

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by JenPen1

I for one am very happy at the start of something that hopefully will become bigger. I did notice that when you go to download the book, Google gives you the option of contacting them if you have a problem with the book. I haven't actually tried that because of time constraints, but for those who have noticed garbage in their downloaded book, do you think contacting Google would help toward rectifying this problem??

~Jen

I think it would be helpful. They have half a million books available, so it's a sure bet that nobody has proofread all of them. An email to alert them to garbage might move the book in question closer to the top of the proofread pile.

[khalleron]

I ordered a Sony PRS-505 on Monday. As I sit here waiting for it to arrive (and lurking in this forum was a great help as I decided what ebook reader I finally settled on), I have to say that between this and the Kindle DMCA debacle, I find I'm really glad I decided as I did.

I also hope that Google makes ePubs available to other devices, but this is a great start.

[igorsk]

You can use Google's EPUBs on other devices already, they don't have any DRM.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dragonbone

Oh, that is SO unfair for you!! So you can't access any of those 50'000 free books?

BTW, I see you are from Scotland! You don't have any hunky single Jamie's where you live, do you ?

I hope that's not a reference to Diana Gabaldon's rather awful books. I had a GF who loved them and she managed to get me to read the first one and it start off innocuous enough but nothing all that interesting and then came the time travel nonsense. And from there it went downhill from there quite fast. Outlander is a book that should remain lost in time. With LOST being the optimum word.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Curly

I can access the US site as I downloaded the US software before I bought my reader and before the 505 was even available in the UK.

Hunky single men?! In Scotland?! Just kidding guys!

Aye, there are a few around and they are lovely!

Well, I've taken away one single lass from Scotland. She's now living in America married to me and is an American citizen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mjh215

As far as a numbers game, this could impact the market a good deal. You -know- Sony will start marketing the reader as coming with access to over half a million free books courtesy of Google. As we are fond of pointing out, the average consumer doesn't do the same diligent research many of our users would so when they read that versus the Kindle it might make a huge difference...

(Again, I like the variety of multiple devices on the market, and don't want Sony to 'win', nor anyone else)

When I first started reading I thought perhaps Google was doing a clean OCR of their files for this project, apparently they are just importing the original OCR'd text they've been using which as others have pointed out is often quite horrid. That really is too bad as I think they are the one company capable of doing a good job at it...

-MJ

These eBooks show one thing that's quite important. It shows that Kindle users will be left behind someday when most of the other devices add ePub support and Amazon does not.

[Curly]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, I've taken away one single lass from Scotland. She's now living in America married to me and is an American citizen.

I'm an American lass who married a handsome Scotsman and we're now living in Scotland!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Curly

I'm an American lass who married a handsome Scotsman and we're now living in Scotland!

I would have moved to Scotland to be with her. But she decided that it would be better for her to move here and I gave in and now she's here and has a new life and it's working out very well.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

These eBooks show one thing that's quite important. It shows that Kindle users will be left behind someday when most of the other devices add ePub support and Amazon does not.

Until you have ePub with Adobe DRM, ePub with eReader DRM, etc. Hopefully it won't happen, but since the DRM isn't spec'd for ePub each of the current competing formats are free to add their own flavor of DRM from the way I understand things. So while the Sony does Adobe DRM, will it do whatever DRM Fictionwise/eReader is working on for their ePub efforts?


I'm all for ePub, but by the time ePub really takes over, if it does, most of the current devices will be long gone. It's going to take a fair amount of time for it to take over unless something new happens and people actually agree for once on DRM schemes, etc.

[gbatch]

Know what I'll be doing when I get off work tonight

[dreams]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I think it would be helpful. They have half a million books available, so it's a sure bet that nobody has proofread all of them. An email to alert them to garbage might move the book in question closer to the top of the proofread pile.

http://books.google.com/

At this site (not through the Sony store download now section) a book being viewed can be flagged as unreadable, view as HTML or download as PDF. It looks like they are asking for help in areas that need to be corrected.

After viewing all the beautiful color covers, I so want to have a color Reader