Sony Electronics Inc. is pairing with Google Inc. to battle Amazon.com Inc. in the growing digital books market.
In a strike against Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader, Sony and Google plan to launch a partnership Thursday that will give users of the Sony Reader device access to more than half-a-million public domain books from Google's ambitious book digitization project. The books will be offered to Sony Reader users free via the online Sony eBook store. The companies wouldn't reveal financial terms of the deal.
"We aren't set on just having books purchased from our store," said Steve Haber, Sony Electronics' president of the Digital Reading Business Division. "We believe the more content that is allowed access to the device, the better value it is to our customers."
The partnership is a new salvo in the increasingly competitive
digital-books industry. Sony and Amazon are jockeying to lead a new generation of reading devices that could do for publishing what Apple Inc.'s iPod did for music, enabling the companies to make money as gadget makers and distributors of digital media. Last month, Amazon launched a new version of its $359 Kindle device, which has access to more than 245,000 electronic books.
To date, Sony has sold more than 400,000 of its $300 to $350 Readers. While Amazon hasn't said how many Kindles it has sold, Citigroup estimates 500,000 of the devices sold last year and Barclays Capital projects the Kindle could bring $3.7 billion in annual revenue by 2012.
Amazon declined to comment on the Sony-Google partnership.
For Google, the Sony partnership is an attempt to expand the reach of its online books service, from which it hopes to earn new advertising and subscription revenue. It also underscores how the Mountain View, Calif., technology giant, whose roots are in searching digital content, is now playing a greater role in distributing it -- a move some publishers find unsettling.
Some publishers and authors remain concerned about a $125 million settlement that Google struck with two industry trade organizations that had fought to stop its efforts to scan books in order to make them searchable. The titles currently covered by the Sony deal are outside the scope of that settlement, which would allow Google to offer expanded access to millions of titles under copyright pending court approval this summer. Still, among the publishers' worries is that Google will take advantage of new distribution technologies, like digital book readers, to put them out of business.
"As soon as e-book readers become a mass market, then of course it wouldn't be too difficult for Google to act as a publisher," said Christian Sprang, head of the legal department for the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers.
Google spokeswoman Jennie Johnson said Google doesn't plan to create content. "Our goal is to promote access to books," she said. Google has previously made some titles available for reading on computers as well as on Apple's iPhone and Android smart phones. Google -- which includes a limited amount of advertising alongside some titles online -- won't currently sell ads on the Sony Reader.
The Sony and Google partnership isn't exclusive. Ms. Johnson said Google isn't in talks with Amazon about a similar deal for the Kindle, but was open to the idea. Books that now will be available free on the Sony Reader include classics such as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Black Beauty," both of which Sony already sells in its e-book store for $1 to $2.
The Sony Reader accepts multiple e-book formats, including ePub files containing digital rights management encryption. The Kindle also accepts other formats, but currently charges users a small fee to wirelessly download their own Acrobat files and only reads encrypted files from its own store.
source : online.wsj.com/article/SB123741774747277821.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
In a strike against Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader, Sony and Google plan to launch a partnership Thursday that will give users of the Sony Reader device access to more than half-a-million public domain books from Google's ambitious book digitization project. The books will be offered to Sony Reader users free via the online Sony eBook store. The companies wouldn't reveal financial terms of the deal.
"We aren't set on just having books purchased from our store," said Steve Haber, Sony Electronics' president of the Digital Reading Business Division. "We believe the more content that is allowed access to the device, the better value it is to our customers."
The partnership is a new salvo in the increasingly competitive
digital-books industry. Sony and Amazon are jockeying to lead a new generation of reading devices that could do for publishing what Apple Inc.'s iPod did for music, enabling the companies to make money as gadget makers and distributors of digital media. Last month, Amazon launched a new version of its $359 Kindle device, which has access to more than 245,000 electronic books.To date, Sony has sold more than 400,000 of its $300 to $350 Readers. While Amazon hasn't said how many Kindles it has sold, Citigroup estimates 500,000 of the devices sold last year and Barclays Capital projects the Kindle could bring $3.7 billion in annual revenue by 2012.
Amazon declined to comment on the Sony-Google partnership.
For Google, the Sony partnership is an attempt to expand the reach of its online books service, from which it hopes to earn new advertising and subscription revenue. It also underscores how the Mountain View, Calif., technology giant, whose roots are in searching digital content, is now playing a greater role in distributing it -- a move some publishers find unsettling.
Some publishers and authors remain concerned about a $125 million settlement that Google struck with two industry trade organizations that had fought to stop its efforts to scan books in order to make them searchable. The titles currently covered by the Sony deal are outside the scope of that settlement, which would allow Google to offer expanded access to millions of titles under copyright pending court approval this summer. Still, among the publishers' worries is that Google will take advantage of new distribution technologies, like digital book readers, to put them out of business.
"As soon as e-book readers become a mass market, then of course it wouldn't be too difficult for Google to act as a publisher," said Christian Sprang, head of the legal department for the German Association of Publishers and Booksellers.
Google spokeswoman Jennie Johnson said Google doesn't plan to create content. "Our goal is to promote access to books," she said. Google has previously made some titles available for reading on computers as well as on Apple's iPhone and Android smart phones. Google -- which includes a limited amount of advertising alongside some titles online -- won't currently sell ads on the Sony Reader.
The Sony and Google partnership isn't exclusive. Ms. Johnson said Google isn't in talks with Amazon about a similar deal for the Kindle, but was open to the idea. Books that now will be available free on the Sony Reader include classics such as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Black Beauty," both of which Sony already sells in its e-book store for $1 to $2.
The Sony Reader accepts multiple e-book formats, including ePub files containing digital rights management encryption. The Kindle also accepts other formats, but currently charges users a small fee to wirelessly download their own Acrobat files and only reads encrypted files from its own store.
source : online.wsj.com/article/SB123741774747277821.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
