Are Kindle and Sony PRS-505 ebooks compatible?

[ericthelobster]

I have a PRS-505 which admittedly I don't use very much - main reason being that most of the books I read are while travelling with my family, and everyone passes the books round: ie it's not ideal when 5 or 6 different books are stuck on one machine only!

My wife therefore wants a reader of her own, which will get round this problem, and has her heart set on a new 3G Kindle for Xmas. She'll not be happy with anything else, I fear.

However, it's unclear to me whether this will help our situation. As far as I can see, if we buy commercial e-books for either platform, they won't run on the other: am I right?

Note that we're only really read current-ish novels, ie not interested in public domain material in PDF format etc.

Thanks for any advice!

[fjtorres]

Sony and Kindle readers are inherently incompatible by design and intent.
Amazon copied Sony's business model of using a proprietary ebook format to lock customers in to their product line. The just did it way better and when Sony caught "ePub religion" and switched to Adobe's proprietary ePub DRM scheme the iissue got more complex.

First of all, you need to decide if you want the new reader to access your old ebooks or if you're only terested in compatibility for future purchases.

Then you need to determine which format your Sony readers are using. If they are in DRM'ed LRF format there is no way that I know of to get them onto kindle. You choice then becomes to accept that those books are only readable on the Sony reader or to buy another Sony reader as nothing but Sony supports DRM'ed LRF format. (That *was* the intent behind the design, after all.)

If they are in Adobe ADEPT-DRM'ed ePub, you will need to learn to strip the DRM and then run the ebooks through Calibre to convert them into Kindle format. If you are unwilling to do this, the effect is the same as if they were in DRM'ed LRF: you need to buy only readers that support Adobe DRM. That means pretty much anything *but* Kindle.

If you don't care about your existing books (and since you said the reader sees little use they may not be many) and you are willing to learn to DeDRM books (it is not hard, really) you can then buy from Amazon and convert to ePub or buy ePub and convert to Amazon-compatible mobipocket format.

Otherwise the dueling DRM schemes will mean you will have books only readable on the Sony and books only readable on Kindle.

It all comes down to dueling DRM's and you are caught in the crossfire; either learn to strip it and convert or learn to live with incompatible readers.

Sorry, but *that* is the reason DRM is generally reviled. It brings nothing but grief.

[NickBuzz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sorry, but *that* is the reason DRM is generally reviled. It brings nothing but grief.

But this is something that will never change, IMO, no matter how much we want...

[neilmarr]

Good to have your new company, Eric. FJTorres' advice above is spot on. Do bear in mind, though, that no matter how morally justified it might be, stripping DRM from an ebook file is illegal and considered copyright piracy. Nobody's gonna jail you if it's for personal use, but you should know. Best wishes. Neil

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sony and Kindle readers are inherently incompatible by design and intent.
Amazon copied Sony's business model of using a proprietary ebook format to lock customers in to their product line. The just did it way better and when Sony caught "ePub religion" and switched to Adobe's proprietary ePub DRM scheme the iissue got more complex.

First of all, you need to decide if you want the new reader to access your old ebooks or if you're only terested in compatibility for future purchases.

Then you need to determine which format your Sony readers are using. If they are in DRM'ed LRF format there is no way that I know of to get them onto kindle. You choice then becomes to accept that those books are only readable on the Sony reader or to buy another Sony reader as nothing but Sony supports DRM'ed LRF format. (That *was* the intent behind the design, after all.)

If they are in Adobe ADEPT-DRM'ed ePub, you will need to learn to strip the DRM and then run the ebooks through Calibre to convert them into Kindle format. If you are unwilling to do this, the effect is the same as if they were in DRM'ed LRF: you need to buy only readers that support Adobe DRM. That means pretty much anything *but* Kindle.

If you don't care about your existing books (and since you said the reader sees little use they may not be many) and you are willing to learn to DeDRM books (it is not hard, really) you can then buy from Amazon and convert to ePub or buy ePub and convert to Amazon-compatible mobipocket format.

Otherwise the dueling DRM schemes will mean you will have books only readable on the Sony and books only readable on Kindle.

It all comes down to dueling DRM's and you are caught in the crossfire; either learn to strip it and convert or learn to live with incompatible readers.

Sorry, but *that* is the reason DRM is generally reviled. It brings nothing but grief.

Just a clarification. I believe that LRF formatted books with DRM are LRX format books (i.e. if it's .LRX it's DRM infested, if it's .LRF it's not). I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong on that. Also, if you have purchased LRX books from Sony, you can now download for free the ePub version of these books direct fron Sony (with DRM, I presume).