Removing DRM from Sony Store books

[thibaulthalpern]

I hope this isn't a sacrilege question!

How do I remove the DRM from ebooks bought from Sony store?

My situation:

I recently bought a PRS-700 and I'll be receiving it in about a week. It comes with 100 Sony free classics. I don't know what that means except that it's 100 ebooks that are likely DRM protected.

Because I'm on a Mac, I will run my Windows virtualisation program in order to get into the Sony bookstore. I can download the free books that way. However, I don't want to use Sony's book management software which is PC only because I use a Mac. I want to use Calibre or some other Mac program. Because of that, I want to know how I can remove the DRM protection so I can manage these 100 books plus future ebooks on my Sony PRS-700.

Thanks for the tips!

[AnemicOak]

At this point no one has made any stripping tools available for Sony LRX files.

AFAIK, you can use Calibre to manage the DRM'd files. You just can't change any meta data I don't think. Someone mentioned changing the extension from LRX to LRF, don't know if that's needed or not.

Also the 100 free classics are generally poorly formatted public domain titles and can be found elsewhere (like here on MR) for free, without DRM and with better formatting.

[vivaldirules]

First, you load the ebook on your Reader. Then you go to the kitchen and get a paper sack, a dead chicken, and big ass mallet. Put the chicken in the bag and then swing around your head three times while you beat the crap out of your Reader with the mallet. The DRM will be removed.

Sorry, I know of no way to remove DRM from Sony ebooks. However, you'll probably find all of the 100 Sony "classics" (which are nothing more than titles in the public domain) right here at MobileRead. Ours are free as well and probably of higher quality than the ones you got from Sony.

[daffy4u]

The 100 Free Classics that Sony is offering are Public Domain books which are readily available for free without DRM at many sites (MobileRead.com, Feedbooks.com and Manybooks.net to name a few). You will find the books are formatted much better at these other sites as well.

Books from the Sony Store with a .rx extension cannot be converted. No one has been able to break that encryption.

(Maybe there is time for a Sony Reader Myths and Partial Truths wiki as well)

[thibaulthalpern]

Ah! Thanks for the help. It's unfortunate that Sony uses this trickery to get people to think they have a good deal. I mean if the books are in the public domain they shouldn't be offering that as a great deal to have. Pfft...

[dhbailey]

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

Ah! Thanks for the help. It's unfortunate that Sony uses this trickery to get people to think they have a good deal. I mean if the books are in the public domain they shouldn't be offering that as a great deal to have. Pfft...

On the other hand, it does offer 100 books free for people to start reading, and it will get the new customers onto the Sony web-site where the company is hoping they will notice other books for sale and will buy them while also looking at the free books. It's not trickery -- it's marketing (well, I know, that's trickery of the worst sort!) and it costs Sony nothing to offer it.

I like that idea better than the sample chapters they ship installed on the reader -- I hate situations where "the first hit's free" and they get you hooked and then you have to pay $20 (or whatever) to read the rest of the book you just got hooked on.

We have to remember that a lot of the people who would buy a Sony Reader at Border's or wherever aren't lucky enough to have stumbled onto this terrific forum first. We who have found this site have no need for Sony's marketing ploys because we're smarter than that.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

First, you load the ebook on your Reader. Then you go to the kitchen and get a paper sack, a dead chicken, and big ass mallet. Put the chicken in the bag and then swing around your head three times while you beat the crap out of your Reader with the mallet. The DRM will be removed.

This was Brilliant and gave me quite a good laugh, thanks vivaldirules!
Kaz

[jbruce]

The way I'm dealing with the 100 classics is to find suitably formatted versions via FictionWise, Gutneburg, etc. Then the ones that are on my list - but not on my PRS 700 - get downloaded from the Sony store. Mainly because many of the Pro-am files (and some of the Sony's to be honest) are just not a pleasurable reading experience - the bad rendering/formatting (which is not just a hardware problem) gets in the way.

The DRM also allows for up to 6 devices to have the files; so, if it's the ethics of copyright that you're worried about - it's pretty slim that you will break it - (1) The Sony Software, (2) Calibre [just use your reader like a thumb drive], (3) The Reader.

And, if you're like most people, worried about the DRM saying, "Slow down there hoss. You can't do that." I did not receive any notifications saying that Calibre counted as one of my devices.

This technology is in its infancy. Songs from Napster used to be free. Then .99 cents + DRM (6 devices). Now, the entire iTunes library is DRM free (unless they lied during that Macworld keynote). In less than 20 years since inception. So, give it time with regard to DRM and Mac support (which I haven't found to be that annoying - otherwise I would've returned mine and stuck with print another year).

Hope that helped.

Cheers,
Josh

[dordale]

Originally Posted by jbruce

The way I'm dealing with the 100 classics is to find suitably formatted versions via FictionWise, Gutneburg, etc. Then the ones that are on my list - but not on my PRS 700 - get downloaded from the Sony store. Mainly because many of the Pro-am files (and some of the Sony's to be honest) are just not a pleasurable reading experience - the bad rendering/formatting (which is not just a hardware problem) gets in the way

Josh--Have you checked out the many public domain classics that have been uploaded here on mobiread? Tons of books already formatted for the Sony--and much better formatted than the books from the Sony Store.

dordale

[jbruce]

Have you checked out the many public domain classics that have been uploaded here on mobiread?

Yep - just got done going through the Harvard Classics DL.

I have about 200 titles within the classics Sony is offering - and can't find some here; so, they will most likely get downloaded from there. And, the formatting for many of the titles here is fantastic - especially actually using a TOC - who would have thought it (Sony is slippin' on that with some of their titles).

The, what I'm assuming are, volunteers here are doing an excellent job in converting and formatting.

Thanks again.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

First, you load the ebook on your Reader. Then you go to the kitchen and get a paper sack, a dead chicken, and big ass mallet. Put the chicken in the bag and then swing around your head three times while you beat the crap out of your Reader with the mallet. The DRM will be removed.

That won't work. The chicken has to be alive so you can sacrifice it to the DRM Gods. And you have to beat the crap out of the chicken until it's so dead it won't move. Then you go and find the person who came up with the idea of DRM and give that person a good beat down also sacrificing that person to the DRM Gods.