Sony e-book reader gets 500,000 books from Google

Why was Sony unable to convert these books from PDF to their reader without google's help? The content is in the public domain. Write a program and convert the files. Am I missing something here?

Why doesn't google just pair up with Amazon..they have tons more books than Sony... hmm.. maybe there is a bit of political drama goin on here...

Wow what a waste of money! A Library card was $2 or free, can't remember. I have access to millions of books from the library system that I can order online to my local branch. I usually read quite often. I don't think the average American reads a book a year, so forget USA as a market! Donate the money for this to your local library instead, that would be better.

Used to read on my palm pilot but that gets old pretty quickly. A book is a book. Textbooks online/laptop are also terrible. Love reading curled up in bed. This just isn't the same. Also you can recycle the book to make another book.

Lol with $100-$200 more, you could get a deccent travel laptop that doubles as an ebook reader. Why anyone would spend money on an e-book reader is beyond me...