NEW YORK (Kyodo) Sony Corp. said Wednesday users of its e-book readers can now access 1 million titles free of charge through Google Inc.'s public domain.
Sony said e-books digitized under Google's Book project and made available to Sony Reader users are classic titles whose copyrights have expired.
With the addition of Google's library, Sony claims it has become the largest source for e-books.
The race to offer e-books has intensified in the United States. Sony launched the world's first e-reader in 2006.
Last week, bookstore chain Barnes & Noble said it has made more than 700,000 e-book titles available, including half a million from Google's public domain.
Amazon.com Inc. offers more than 300,000 titles through its Kindle store.