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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
In the case of e-books, you know what you are buying, and you are told the stipulations of that sale. No court would overturn that unless the stipulations were intentionally concealed in order to convince you to buy.
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In some cases, you believe you are buying a PDF, and you are instead buying an ePub. Or vice versa. Not all ebook sellers are at all clear about (1) what they sell or (2) your terms of use. DRM is mentioned as existing, but often not explained.
And aside from that--the terms of sale can't be illegal. A seller cannot say, "you may only read this book on Thursdays," nor "this book may only be read by natural-born US citizens," and sue you for violating those terms. The seller may attempt to put restrictions on the product that enforce those terms--software that checks your computer clock for the date, or can't be downloaded from non-US ISPs--but they can't require you to follow such terms if you find a way around them.
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Anyway, I don't want to argue the present legalities. I merely state that the laws as they stand should be amended to more accurately reflect the product in question, instead of being taken in whole cloth from another product type which is in fact not the same. The fact that there is so much legal ambiguity is a direct consequence of improperly applying laws from one product onto another inherently different product.
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THAT, I agree with 100%.
The laws regarding digital content of all sorts range from incoherent to psychotic, and come from trying to treat it all as physical objects.