new Here Have Questions and am confused

[dreamhunter]

Hi I am new here and have some questions. I have been reading this forum for the last few days and have learned a bit about drm and the different ebook devices. I finally decided to buy a sony 300 and just came home with my new purchase today. Ok now here is where the problem and confusion starts. Right now I am sharing a computer with my roommate (it is her computer). I am buying a windows 7, 64 bit acer laptop but I wont have it for about a month. can I create an account on my roommates computer or will the reader only recognize her information and become registered to her. She has a sony reader as well, its a sony prs 600 I think but we each have our own user accounts on the computer. I am not very knowledgable about this whole authorizing thing or drm, and I don't want to end up with a reader that will not read my books or that I can't use with my own computer when I get it.

[erasure25]

You need to consider two accounts: Adobe Digital Editions and the Sony Reader software.

Many epub books have Adobe DRM. I believe all epub books sold by Sony use Adobe DRM. Other vendors, such as booksonboard.com also provide you with the option to purchase books in Adobe DRM. Accounts are handled via the Adobe Digital Editions software. It allows up to 6 devices to be registered to an account. Adobe increases the allowed number every year automatically to account for new PCs, reader, etc. They do not let you unregister a device to reclaim a spot (technically, you can unregister a device, but you don't get the number back). You will have to download ADE on your new computer and then it will register that one. So you will have 3 devices registered (your friend's PC, reader, and your new PC). You should be fine unless you plan on registering 3 more devices. At that point you will hit your limit until next year when Adobe adds more allowed devices to your account.

The Sony Reader software allows 6 PCs and 6 Readers, but you can unregister a device as needed. So I don't foresee any problems there.

If I've said anything wrong, someone please correct me.

[grooks]

The Sony Reader is registered to an account. You can use you roommate's computer but setup your own account in the Sony Library. Any books purchased from Sony will be tied to the account which in turn will on be readable on the Reader tied to that account (hopefully that wasn't too confusing).

Now, when you get your own computer, install the Reader Library and sign in using your original account. All purchased ebook will be available for re-download and it will automatically remember your Reader.

[mokeiko]

Make sure that what ever books you purchase is through your account and not hers and vice versa. For example, Say she purchases some books with her account to share or give you, when you get your new PC, you will not be able to download those books unless you use her account to download them again to you new PC. But, you can share books as long as each of your PC's authorizes each other's reader. Sony allows up to five (5) devices to be authorized to an account, this includes PC's and readers combined. Just remember, each book you purchase is tied to your account.

[grooks]

Originally Posted by mokeiko

Make sure that what ever books you purchase is through your account and not hers and vice versa. For example, Say she purchases some books with her account to share or give you, when you get your new PC, you will not be able to download those books unless you use her account to download them again to you new PC. But, you can share books as long as each of your PC's authorizes each other's reader. Sony allows up to five (5) devices to be authorized to an account, this includes PC's and readers combined. Just remember, each book you purchase is tied to your account.

Just wanted to clarify something in your statement. I believe a single Reader can only be registered to one account at a time. If you attempt to authorize the Reader to a new account, it must be de-registered from the old account first. You can only share books if two or more Readers are authroized to the same account.

[dreamhunter]

Thank You for the answers that clarifies things somewhat. I don't think we would want to share books our reading tastes are very different. Now I understand that I can just get my own Sony account but what about Adobe Digital Editions and Calibre? Do I need the Sony account installed and running before they will work? I like the old classics and Google seems to have a lot of free books but I would like to be able to add book covers and summarys etc and Calibre allows you to do that.

[Jim Lester]

Originally Posted by dreamhunter

Thank You for the answers that clarifies things somewhat. I don't think we would want to share books our reading tastes are very different. Now I understand that I can just get my own Sony account but what about Adobe Digital Editions and Calibre?

If you have the Sony Reader Library (and it works for you), then you don't need ADE installed. During account setup for Sony, if you do not have an AdobeID created for your email address, Sony will create one for you. If you do have an AdobeID for your email address already, make sure to give the Sony account the same password as your AdobeID. If you want to use a different email address as your Sony ID than the email address you use for your AdobeID then you will need to contact Sony technical support after you setup your account, to get the mapping correct on their side. Also the Sony Reader Library will "fulfill" books from other sources (such as Public Libraries).

Calibre will not deal with DRM protected books, other than to copy the files around.

Originally Posted by erasure25

You need to consider two accounts: Adobe Digital Editions and the Sony Reader software.
... It allows up to 6 devices to be registered to an account....

... The Sony Reader software allows 6 PCs and 6 Readers, but you can unregister a device as needed. So I don't foresee any problems there ...

If I've said anything wrong, someone please correct me.

Close, but some nits to get this exactly right:

Adobe Activation limits are 6 computers and 6 devices. The Sony limits were/are for reading LRX content, for the rest it is the Adobe limits that are controlling, since Sony is now using Adobe DRM for all their new content they sell.

Your discussion of the Adobe deactivation was correct (thank you!)