iPad and publishing

Can you copy and paste text liberally (related — is there even a clipboard)? I’ve been looking at ePub standards, which are basically some janky CSS3 and fairly limited XML (a Word file has more robust structure, near as I can tell). So in theory, the output is selectable (quotable) text, provided you have clipboard, or clipping functionality — scenario: you are a blogger writing a book review, or commenting on a Wired editorial, and want to do the whole thing from an iPad — or at least drop quotes from an iBook to an existing post. I guess this is a question for eReaders in general too, and a question of DRM as much as technical.

If the magazine apps or iBooks are read only, how is the iPad any different from a Flash 4 file? I know you have some search capabilities, but so many people have legitimate uses for quoting text, and it’s an essential part of the web experience. Have we just taken a big step back here?