Thursday, December 31, 2009

Sony Reader Mac incompatibility WARNING!

The DRM module for the Sony Reader product is incompatible with the 64-bit Mac kernel. The symptom is that the reader shows up as 'Error' in the Sony Library application rather than as 'Reader', and if you attempt to go to the Sony store and manage your authorized systems, the application will crash as it attempts to load a 32-bit DRM module into a 64-bit kernel. If you have 8 gigabytes of memory in your Mac and therefore aren't willing to boot into a 32-bit kernel (and lose access to half that memory), either use VMware and a 32-bit Windows installation, or use the free Calibre program to manage your Reader.

Note that Calibre will not allow you to authorize/deauthorize devices with the Sony store for reading DRM-"protected" content but then DRM is for fools anyhow because if Sony decided tomorrow to quit creating Reader devices and close the Sony store (with its authorization/deauthorization mechanisms), all your DRM-"protected" content would become worthless as soon as your current Reader device wore out. There are a million books available via Google Books that are *not* DRM-protected, and there are vendors like Baen Books whose books are similarly not DRM-protected. If someone wants to sell you a DRM-protected book, just say no and go borrow the book from your local public library -- f*** the bastards who want to ass-rape you with that DRM bullshit, they get $0 from you if you borrow it from the library instead and that's exactly what they should get from you -- $0. Books that can vanish into thin air tomorrow just because some asshole vendor decided to leave the eBook business are worthless. Just ask all those people whose copy of George Orwell's 1984 disappeared from their Kindle.

-- Badtux the ePenguin

2 comments:

  1. I'm the oldest sibling in my family, but big brothers are everyfuckingwhere.

    Shit!
    JzB

    ReplyDelete

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