Will the Sony Reader reach France in September? Check out Le Monde (French here, Google translation here).
According to the machine translation—I won’t change a single word—"Fnac should put on sale in September of e-papers. Fnac has signed a partnership with Sony." I invite native French speakers to help us pick up the Fnac-related nuances here.
Could this indeed involve the Sony Reader, not another product? If so, it would be in line with Hachette Livre’s preparations for a Reader-related format, as well as a rumor I’ve heard that an Fnac store this year will offer the Sony PRS-505 and sell books in Adobe-DRMed ePUB.
The ePUB angle: Does the above, if true, mean that the ePUB-capable Adobe Digital Editions will be available in English on the Sony PRS-505 by September? Or will the Sony hit France with only BBeB reading capabilities at first and use existing firmware—or what about other possibilities? Oh, the fun of living with the complexities of the Tower of eBabel!
The DRM angle: In a music context, French politicians at times have been more sensitive to DRM’s harm to consumers than U.S. politicians have been. Will this apply to books?
Fnac is one (the?) largest “media” retailler, think Virgin or something the like: almost every book or movie released, and emphasis on mainstream.
They already offer some sort of digital library where you can checkout books to read on your computer.
And they LOVE drm… so they ebook will have some sort of it, I bet on the original Sony format.