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Old 12-26-2009, 05:18 PM   #55
Steven Lyle Jordan
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Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Steven Lyle Jordan ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
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There's rights... and there's rights. In the U.S., you are free to buy land with a home on it, and you will probably feel secure living on it. On the other hand, if the federal, state or even local government decides they need your land, they can unilaterally condemn it, force you off of it (with a compensation decided by them, not you), and use it as they see fit. So how "secure" is that homeowner, really?

The "rights" involved with digital products still need to be clearly defined, established and accepted. We can't assume we will end up with the same rights as familiar print-based products... e-books are unique digital products, and may need a new definition of rights that apply to them--maybe more like the rights you have to watch a TV program, say, but not to rebroadcast or duplicate and sell it--or the right to use an internet account, but not to give away a wifi signal without compensation to the internet provider--etc.

A consumer's rights in terms of what choice of devices they can use to read an e-book still needs to be established, and without this being decided, the usage rights won't mean much. It matters little to me what Amazon's licensing says, or what the government's laws say, if I can't read their e-books on my iPaq.
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