E-Book readers forum: any ebook readers allow copy and paste

dont have a clue as to what a DRM is? so I can't figure out if it is the issue or not.

Digital rights management is a way of controlling where you read and what you can do with your ebooks.

Not to put too fine a point on this but most content is not "ours." That is, when I buy a book, I own that book but can't duplicate it in whole. But if it was "my book" in that I was the author and hadn't given away my rights, then I can do what I want.
Bob

I didnt mention anything about copying an entire ebook. I did say that like with a printed book, I am allowed to use quotes from that book as long as i cite the author, publisher, etc. With scanners today, I do not have to retype the sentence or paragraph. With the ebook readers I have used this is not possible. Even with the free ebooks, including those in the public domain whose copyrights have expired long ago, the ebook readers do not allow the user to copy a passage and paste it into another document. One of the bible programs I use, even allows enhanced copy, it copies the passage I select and then when it is pasted into a document, it includes the passage, cites the books, chapter and verse and which version of the bible I copied from and then also cites the bible program that it was copied from--when there is still a copyright on that particular version of the Bible, it cites the publisher of that version of the Bible.

Usage rights are often enforced with DRM. Since it's just a passage, why not use the old fashioned way?
Bob

Bob, if you are doing regular research, it's a massive time saver to be able to copy/paste/etc. A very welcome convenience. Few people I know have time to hand write everything unfortunately. It's also a powerful tool later on since it's inherently searchable by keyword.

There is no trouble at all on a lot of content. But there is no ereader I know that would assure us that all content was not protected. This is why we have to keep up our skills.

Since most papers only allow 1 to 3 sentences from the source this is not much time lost.
Bob

Not sure when you did your time in college, but that may have been the rule a hundred years ago, but no longer. You simply have to properly cite your sources using quotes and give proper credit to the original author. We aren't referring to anyone plagarizing here, merely grabbing text to save time instead of having to slow down. Some passages in certain disciplines are quite lengthy and need to be included as a whole for proper reference, greater than three sentences sometimes.

Plus, if you are regularly sharing info with colleagues, being able to cut and paste on the fly from various electronic documents (think, email discussion group listservs on very lengthy, technical topics) allows everyone to be on the same page. Oh, you have no idea how much this helps some of us .

And will share when I can. What was asked for is at odds with the industry.

The industry is in disarray as content is set free. We can go over that story if folk want.

Here's the crux of the problem. If you make a "reader" that purposely ignored the DRM of content by the suppliers then your reader would never make it into mass production as the devils in suits came after you.

This is not to say it's all possible but you seem to dismiss "how things work."
Bob

...from time to time you tend to 'share' some bizarre statements like the odd 'one to three sentences' "rule".
You are obviously preaching to the choir regarding DRM though.

To the OP, if you are still listening to this thread, an iPad makes things really easy with the following app, when working with PDFs. Link:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-reader-pro-edition-for/id364502063?mt=8

That app still blocks copy of text if the author blocked the copy feature. This is why a PDF reader is not going to fulfill the original request.

This is why some want to use the open source formats but let's start with Microsoft Reader. That one should be removed from everyone's list. It's one of the heavies when it comes to DRM.
Bob