Apple's iBooks EULA Drawing Ire 308
An anonymous reader writes in with one of many articles about the iBooks EULA, this time questioning whether it is even enforceable. Quoting: "The iBooks Author EULA plainly tries to create an exclusive license for Apple to be the sole distributor of any worked created with it, but under the Copyright Act an exclusive license is a 'transfer of copyright ownership,' and under 17 U.S.C. 204 such a transfer 'is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed.' When authors rebel and take their work elsewhere, Apple has, at most, a claim for breach-of-EULA — but their damages are the failure to pay $0 for the program."
Next step (Score:5, Funny)
Bic Pens Inc now claims exclusive distributorship rights for anything created with one of their writing implements.
Not to be outdone, Starbucks now claims exclusive distributorship rights for anything created while under the influence of their beverages.
Re:Next step (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why most real writers drink liquor, not coffee. Just ask Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London or Edgar Allan Poe,
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Those are bad examples. Hemingway had bipolar, Poe had all sorts of problems, Jack Kerouac seemed to be under the delusion that one can only write while in an altered state. I'm not familiar enough with Jack London to guess as to his motives, but apart from London the other writers had greatly shortened careers because of their alcohol and or drug use. Hemingway himself was only 62 when he killed himself and alcohol is known to make mood disorders worse.
Re:Next step (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the interesting authors are fucked up in one way or another. Normal people don't make compelling art, that's why they're normal.
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Tolkien and many many other authors would disagree with you there.
Ehhhhh, and? (Score:3)
He was talking about real writers, who drank and wrote fucking awesome novels... that they had mental disorders doesn't factor into this. That they suffered for the art doesn't factor into it. They were fucking great writers not artsy types sipping 5 dollar coffees waiting for inspiration. Inspiration comes from real life and any two bit drunk with severe mental issues will see more of it then any wannabe at Starbucks.
Normal people don't write great works of art. Normal people buy them and wish they had a f
Re:Ehhhhh, and? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that there isn't even a correlation there. That's 4 authors and how many other authors were largely sober? Neither William Shakespeare nor Agatha Christie are known for their drunken escapades and they're more published than anybody else.
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Who knows what other works he could have completed had he not drank himself to death.
For sure, it would have been more cheerful.
Re:Next step (Score:5, Funny)
Just ask Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London or Edgar Allan Poe,
I'd definitely need spirits to contact any of them.
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Poe?
I realize that laudum contains alcohol, but is not exactly what envision by "hard liquor."
Then again, I suppose its the "poppy" version of gin..... (gin also being medicinal in origin and commonly misused.)
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Re:Next step (Score:4, Interesting)
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I hate to ruin your argument by pointing out an obvious fallacy, but an iBooks "textbook" stretches the definition of "book" way past the breaking point. I also doubt there are going to be competing implementations of the iBook textbook reader or other bookstores from which to distribute them. You'd certainly miss out on the iBooks marketplace, which one can reasonably assume will be the only meaningful distributor of iBooks books and therefore iPad books.
Complaining about this note in the EULA while ignori
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I flush most of that.
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Now are you upset they want to help sell the result?
I think he's upset that they want to be the sole distributor of the work, no problem with them helping to sell it and taking a cut of the sales they get for you (well some people might, but i would say that's perfectly acceptable) but if they prevent you from distributing the work you created that's a bit much.
They DO NOT want to be sole distributor (Score:2)
I think he's upset that they want to be the sole distributor of the work
Apple does not want to be the sole distributor of your work. Only the output from the authoring tool.
You are free to author your same work in other tools and sell that.
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Apple does not want to be the sole distributor of your work. Only the output from the authoring tool.
That is your work. Would you say the output of the word processor should be owned by the creator of the word processor?
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That is your work. Would you say the output of the word processor should be owned by the creator of the word processor?
Sure. But the word processor produces very, very little output. Most is produced by the person on the keyboard.
It's quite simple really. You start iBooks Author, paste in your 300 pages textbook or novel, format it, and... everything up to this point is exclusively yours. Then you select "Export" from the file menu, and then choose the "iBook" option. This produces an output file. And that output file can according to the EULA only be sold through Apple, or given away for free. BUT everything else is sti
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Sure. But the word processor produces very, very little output. Most is produced by the person on the keyboard.
So you do think they should own the output? (by 'own' of course it means you cannot sell it on your terms)
It's quite simple really. You start iBooks Author, paste in your 300 pages textbook or novel, format it, and... everything up to this point is exclusively yours. Then you select "Export" from the file menu, and then choose the "iBook" option. This produces an output file. And that output file can according to the EULA only be sold through Apple, or given away for free.
Yes i get it, but that's no different from the output of any other application or tool for that matter. For example LibreOffice, Photoshop, Final Cut, Keynote, Logic, etc... Should the output of those tools be effectively owned by the tool creators?
I don't know much about Amazon, i'll take your word that their license is worse.
There is the other point of view which would be looking at iBooks Author as
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It's irrelevant. Word processors are sold (or given away) as general purpose document creation applications. iBooks Author isn't.
Sure it is, it's given away as a general purpose document creation application (there was a topic on this the other day about how its format is epub3 and that almost all of it can be read and interpreted correctly by any epub3 reader), I can download it for free and view the output in whatever I want, they're just saying they basically own its output. So of course the question is what happens if i take that output and convert it to another format and sell it?
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Nowhere is Apple describing it as general purpose document creation application
When you're artificially tying products together you generally do avoid marketing them as such, but that's neither here nor there, the question is regarding ownership of the output.
And nowhere has Apple ever said that iBooks Author outputs epub. It doesn't output epub.
Actually it does, it just has some additional extensions, have a look at it. And that's the point, if someone interprets those extensions then you import that into another tool what happens to those distribution rights?
No. It has the wrong file extension and the wrong mime-type to be seen as epub by any other app. And even if you changed those, the other app isn't going to understand any Apple specific extensions.
Oh no, MIME type and file extensions, so prohibitive, the point is then what? What happens to that content then?
English anyone? (Score:2)
"of any worked created with it"? Really? Even the summary isn't in English now....
What they forgot that will make it binding... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it stipulates that you must sign a contract prior to consideration of your work being distributed through iBooks.
What this means. Don't attempt to get published through Apple or you will be beholden to them in perpetuity AND they don't even have to publish it.
Tricky, scheister-y Apple.
Worst part, there will be an endless stream of authors clambering to be first in line to give up their copyrights in exchange for a chance at being published.
That sucks.
Re:What they forgot that will make it binding... (Score:4, Insightful)
Publishing industry as usual.
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You can *export your work*. No one is going to author in the iBooks platform. They'll import their products first. But I agree Apple's EULA is still too much. If Apple rejects your submission, whatever time you spent constructing your book is wasted. That can't be legal.
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You can *export your work*. No one is going to author in the iBooks platform. They'll import their products first. But I agree Apple's EULA is still too much. If Apple rejects your submission, whatever time you spent constructing your book is wasted. That can't be legal.
Why can't it be legal? You can spend years toiling away at your electronic magnum opus only to have every other publisher reject your work. Apple is no different. Just because they give you a free bit of software to make the project does not require them to publish it. The US Constitution says nothing about guaranteed publishing rights on a specific platform.
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Worst part, there will be an endless stream of authors clambering to be first in line to give up their copyrights in exchange for a chance at being published.
Except the author doesn't give up their copyright in any way when they publish through the iBookstore, or iTunes Store, or the App Store.
Don't let facts get in the way of your your delusions, though.
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I don't think it makes sense, but they are just saying, hey Amazon, you can't sell a book created with our tool, since you aren't paying for it. If this new iBooks Editor becomes the defacto standard for eBook publishing, then thats worth a lot of money. But they are probably just trying to keep competitors from stealing the look and feel of their products too easily. I think that they will forget about it and let it loose when they realize its not a bad thing to let more people become experts in their software to publish in their channel
Emphasis mine... there is a lot of thinking in there. Are you one of Apple's lawyers? Apple didn't do this to share freely with the world- they see a market opportunity (eBooks on iPads since every school wants to get on the "iPad for every child!" bandwagon), they see a fanbase who unconditionally believes in them ("I think Apple will only do good with this eBook format!"), and they've identified a gap in the current tools (eBook publishing isn't as easy for Grandma yet).
Apple doesn't write EULAs for fun
Re:What they forgot that will make it binding... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're still missing the point.
If Apple doesn't publish you. GAME OVER. The only way to get your book out there after that is to give it away...for free!
At least with normal publishers, if they don't take your book, you can shop it around.
Once you sign that new contract, Apple has full control over you capitalising on your efforts.
That doesn't offend you? Also, it's now NOT evil to bully people just because they're already being bullied?
Wow, just wow.
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You're still missing the point.
If Apple doesn't publish you. GAME OVER. The only way to get your book out there after that is to give it away...for free!
That's really scary!
Thankfully, it's not true. You're free to publish it on any other format, or with any other tool chain. You just can't try to sell the output of iBooks outside of Apple's ecosystem. Of course, I'm not sure why you'd want to, it uses a format that's close to ePub, but not close enough for other eBook stores.
Re:What they forgot that will make it binding... (Score:5, Informative)
You're still missing the point.
If Apple doesn't publish you. GAME OVER. The only way to get your book out there after that is to give it away...for free!
Nonsense. You only can't publish the very file created by iBooks Author elsewhere. The content you wrote is still yours.
This is even spelled out in the EULA later on. Of course this is desperately ignored in that article and everywhere else.
Re:What they forgot that will make it binding... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're still missing the point.
If Apple doesn't publish you. GAME OVER. The only way to get your book out there after that is to give it away...for free!
At least with normal publishers, if they don't take your book, you can shop it around.
Once you sign that new contract, Apple has full control over you capitalising on your efforts.
That doesn't offend you?
What offends me is people being so dumb that they can't understand the actual situation, which is this:
Most of the work involved in creating a book goes into the content -- text, pictures, research, etc etc etc. Some (not a trivial amount, it is real work) goes into formatting the content in an attractive manner for publication.
Apple's new app covers only the formatting part. It's basically a tool intended to make it easy to create nice looking, featureful e-book files in a format which is exclusive to Apple's platform.
If you use Apple's app to put your content into an iBook format file, Apple isn't claiming ownership of the content. Just that you can't publish the iBooks-formatted version any way except through them. You're perfectly free to use other tools to create an ebook from the same copyrighted source material -- text, pictures, everything -- in some other format, with no restrictions whatsoever. In fact, you could use ePub, which Apple's own viewing app supports, and supports very well, and you can distribute ePubs in literally any way you want, completely independent of Apple.
I don't pretend to know if what Apple's trying to do with this new iBooks format is based on sound legal theory. It doesn't seem like it fits with what I know about copyright law etc., but I am far from a lawyer. However, it's a damn sight short of Apple actually trying to own exclusive rights to book content, the way you're trying to spin it. They only want to own exclusive rights to publish files generated by their tool.
Lots of the outrage about this on the web seems to be about a desire for Apple to give away everything. That is, right now they're giving away a "free" high quality ebook formatting tool, where the real price of the software is that it makes Apple money in the end, either by getting a cut of the sales, or just promoting a format which only works on Apple's devices. People instead want Apple to give away a high quality ebook tool which generates generic, open format ebook files with no hooks.
Guess what, they're never going to do that. You could maybe convince them to generate open format files with no hooks, but I guarantee you the tool wouldn't have a price of $0 any more. They probably sunk a substantial amount of engineering budget into that app and the new book format it generates, and they're going to try to make a profit off it one way or another.
You... realise it's just a proprietary html editor (Score:5, Informative)
First entry up on google for self publishing epubs:
http://www.lulu.com/ [lulu.com]
They even do paper versions.
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If it was just about the format it wouldn't be an issue. It's about the EULA. It's about Apple seducing (iEverything looks damn sexy, easy to use, etc...) authors into a walled garden. It's about limiting the rights of authors by hiding the nitty-gritty in a document that doesn't get to be seen until after you've spent all that effort to make a shiny new iBook. You're options at that point amount to: export it to severely format deprived pdf or (by changing the extension from ibook to epub, and again, losin
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple makes great products, and I was their customer for almost twenty years, but a few years ago I gave them up. I could no longer stand the bullshit and shenanigans which come with all their products. For me, the breaking point came when my next-gen iPod couldn't use the $1 cables I'd had with my previous-gen iPod, and now I was expected to buy Apple-branded chip-locked cables for $50. FIFTY DOLLARS!
No. No, no, no. Fuck you, no. I still own and like my MacBook Pro (from 2007), but it is starting to get a little long in the tooth, and in the next couple years I'll replace it with something other than a Mac. I replaced my iPod with an Android pod. I bought an Android tablet instead of an iPad. I'm a programmer who might write apps, but I don't even consider the iOS platform.
iBooks? Sounds great! The world desperately needs to shake up the textbook industry, and I'm happy that a large company is doing something about it. But no, I won't consider it. Since I gave up Apple, they have continued to release products which look great and reportedly work great, but no, I'm not willing to put up with the bullshit to use them, because that would make me feel like a chump.
I do have a sliver of hope that all the bullshit was due to Steve Jobs' personal hatred for his customers, and now that he is dead perhaps Apple will slowly shed that hatred. There are no signs of that yet, but I would expect it to take a while.
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I'm completely with you there. Probably bought my last Apple product.
Free and open source is important, but even more important is open data and file formats.
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I'm completely with you there. Probably bought my last Apple product.
Free and open source is important, but even more important is open data and file formats.
I suspect the only way you can support the rather expensive hardware Apple offers is by assuring it isn't available anywhere else, same goes with media. If you can only get certain school textbooks through Apple, because they have an exclusivity clause in the contract you either lug dead tree or ante-up.
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When I went to uni, I was required to have a Windows PC as the required software was only made available as EXEs. This would be no different.
However, there's no reason that a textbook need only be available on iBooks. There is nothing stopping publishers putting out the same taxtbook on iBooks and other stores. And in print too. They just use a different formatting tool for the non-iBooks version.
The non-iBooks version will be missing the interactivity. But no reason why it wouldn't be enough for the esse
Re:Cutting off your nose... (Score:4, Insightful)
You want your education to be based on older inferior technology, just to spite Apple? Insane.
What? iBooks are just ePub files. They're far from superior to anything we have already -- they ARE what we have already, though without the free and open standards part.
While electronic textbooks are a bit insane to begin with (and in many ways inferior to printed books), why make that worse by locking yourself to a single vendor for hardware, software, and the books? Who in their right mind would want that?
This has nothing to do with spite. It's just common sense.
Summary is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Apple isn't demanding to be sole distributor of your works, just of the format it's tool creates. Go ahead and distribute your works elsewhere, as long as you don't distribute it using their modified ePub3 format. Or distribute your works in their format gratis. That's also okay.
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"Its" for you grammar nazis. I blame autocorrect. I'm posting from an iPhone.
Here's the source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1310926 [macrumors.com]
They don't want to own your books, just their file format.
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My bad for using the word "work". The work is the file, not the content. That's also in the eula. The point is this is nothing more than what every content publishing program says, and no more than base scaremongering by the submitter.
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
And since their format is a variation of epub, which is both an industry standard AND based upon HTML which is itself based upon plain text, I expect iBook->epub conversion tools to be available in a matter of days. I'd almost bet money that Calibre will be able to import, read, convert, and export iBooks within a couple of weeks.
So to get around Apple's EULA:
1. Create iBook with Apple's tool.
2. Convert to your favorite format.
3. Distribute.
4. There's no need for a "?" here.
5. Profit!
In other news... (Score:2)
YA.NEWS.SERVICE February 1; Cupertino, California - Apple Incorporated, formerly Apple Computer will again be changing the company name to Apple Syndicate. Anyone who doesn't like it will find themselves in the Baylands wearing concrete Birkenstocks at low tide and sea water at high tide.
Nonsensical (Score:4, Informative)
Apple makes no claims on copyright, or on your work - ONLY on output of the software. You are totally free to format the same work in some other tool and sell that.
Again, to put it another way, It's not exclusive as to your content but ONLY TO OUTPUT FROM THE TOOL.
The free tool, that Apple gave you for free. And they ask to make money if you want to sell something produced with it? How dare they!
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...and they say the GPL is viral.
RMS has nothing on Apple Corp.
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The two ideas are *exactly* alike, Mr Apple fanboy! There's nobody putting a gun to your head and *forcing* you to use GPL.
You really don't have to write an application using GPL software, it's just that if you do then you have a vast audience of people who may elect to use it, and also probably a better looking application with a faster development cycle.
BTW, what does really force you is copyright law. It forces you to obey intellectual property rules under threat of legal reprisals.
Re:Different forms of viral (Score:5, Insightful)
the GPL is viral by force. When you get something GPL, the output WILL be GPL. It's required.
I don't know what you intended, but what you wrote is patently false.
The output of a GPL program is not affected by the license in any way, shape or form.
If you take someone else's GPL software and you make changes to it, and you distribute those changes, then and only then does the GPL come into play.
Apple's software, on the other hand, is insidious because it does infect the output. You are forbidden from selling the output of that software on any service other than Apple's.
So if what you really meant to say is that GPL has no effect whatsoever on how you use the software (as opposed to how you distribute it), and that Apple's software does... then yes, I couldn't agree more.
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the GPL is viral by force. When you get something GPL, the output WILL be GPL. It's required.
Apple's form of viral only works by choice (people buying the products, using the authoring tools). You don't have to write an eBook using Apple's tool, it's just that if you do you have a vast audience of people who may purchase it and also probably a better looking eBook.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, but they are different approaches to making something viral.
This viral example is silly, I've seen it repeated far too many times, most recently in an old copy of "The Pragmatic Programmer", which is a very sharp book otherwise.
*Every* license that requires you to license a copy of a work in a certain way, if you distribute it, is "viral". Many licenses don't allow you to distribute at all. There's no such thing as "viral by force". The GPL actually allows you to do whatever you want on your own system, completely ignoring the license (making it much freer and
You all misunderstand my use of "output" (Score:2)
Obviously everyone was confused what I meant by "output" in my message, rightfully so from the context...
I didn't mean that a GPL authoring tool would yield GPL covered text. I meant "output" really as "derivative", as in other products made from it must also be licensed under the GPL.
When I talk about Apple I'm talking about Apple products, not "output" as in eBooks.
Sorry for the confusion and all of the misplaced indignation from the GPL proponents (I am one myself).
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Exactly. You can take your content and publish via the (presumably) up and coming Android format and put that into the Android store.
Or even publish via any of the normal epub formats via any channel you like.
The ONLY restriction is that IFF you create an iBook version you can only distribute THAT version via Apple (or for free.)
Think of it like an app... You can only sell your Angry Birds IOS app via Apple. But you can sell your Angry Birds Android app anyway you like.
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That would be a bit of a problem since Adobe made the PDF format open standard [wikipedia.org] a while ago.
Work == File == Document != Content (Score:5, Informative)
Really. It's even in the fscking EULA:
"Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed by or accessed through the Apple Software belongs to the respective content owner."
Note the "content". Software (as iBooks Author) creates files or documents or "works", but not content. Authors create content. This content is yours.
If you think this is word-wanking, try the following gedankenexperiment:
You write a book using MS Word for the text, Photoshop for the illustrations and you even buy some high-quality photos for it. Then you import all of that into iBooks Author to create a book for the iBook Store. You also import all of that into InDesign (or whatever software you bought for creating ePubs) to sell elsewhere.
How should the book you created from *your* content be affected by the iBook Author EULA? It isn't. Apple even spells this out in the EULA. The content of course is yours to sell.
I'm not an Apple fanboi and I don't like Apple very much but I think iBook Author and the iBook store is a good idea. I also don't like the EULA terms very much but they are not what some people would like you to think they are. If you want to sell the file created with iBooks Author you can sell it only via Apple. But if you want to sell your content in that book elsewhere you can still do that.
Meanwhile I just hate that kind of sensational journalism that ignores facts and just wants to drive page-views by fueling hate and fury. Really, I'm sick of it. Be rational and READ THE FUCKING EULA.
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Apple claims some rights over what you make using their software. I know of no other software that does this, and the very idea strikes me as objectionable and worthy of ridicule, regardless of practical effect.
I've not used the software, but your description suggests it's a stupidly trivial program that does almost nothing, so maybe it doesn't matter in practical terms. Then again, Apple bothered to add this clause to their EULA, so Apple thinks it matters.
Great, but not what people are crying over (Score:2)
I agree that Apple claiming they own the actual output is unprecedented, odd and disturbing.
But it has no practical effect on the author. Everyone is up in arms because they are claiming is has the huge effect of being unable to sell your work through anyone else, which is simply not true.
Actually though there is a real-world president. If you write a book for a traditional publisher you own the copyright but have NO ability to sell it elsewhere, or any control at all over it really. Far more heinous tha
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Apple claims some rights over what you make using their software. I know of no other software that does this, and the very idea strikes me as objectionable and worthy of ridicule, regardless of practical effect.
I've not used the software, but your description suggests it's a stupidly trivial program that does almost nothing, so maybe it doesn't matter in practical terms. Then again, Apple bothered to add this clause to their EULA, so Apple thinks it matters.
It's a fully integrated one-stop book writing, formatting and publishing app, from text to bookshelf in one app. I don't know if this counts as "trivial" in your book, but nobody else, especially Amazon, offers anything like it. Which is strange enough, actually, but there you are.
I think basically Apple wants to make sure that nobody (like Amazon) tries to ride on Apple's back by just supporting the same format and features on a cheaper ebook reader and offering a slightly better cut for the author.
You don
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Apple claims some rights over what you make using their software. I know of no other software that does this, and the very idea strikes me as objectionable and worthy of ridicule, regardless of practical effect.
Two examples: Metrowerks Codewarrior Compiler with Student license. You were not allowed to sell any software made with this compiler. Microsoft Office Home Edition. You are not allowed to use their software with this license for commercial use.
It's *common*, not unheard of. (Score:2)
Either way its wrong (Score:2)
I don't care if its enforceable or not, as if they are really trying to force you to transfer ownership just for using their 'distribution channel' then shame on them.
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It's not this complicated (Score:4, Informative)
Apple can't acquire your copyright except through written contract. To paint this as an attempt to 'steal' your copyright in the books you write is simply incorrect.
Apple is merely trying to control how you distribute the files outputted by iBooks Author. This is done to try and keep up Apple's walled-garden approach.
Apple's EULA clearly indicates that copyright in the work is retained by the owner. (Section 2.d of the license.)
Apple's EULA still might not be cool, but it does not try and create an exclusive license. (And even if it did try, it fails.)
A lengthier analysis can be found here: The iBooks Author EULA: What does it really mean? [lextechnologiae.com]
Re:Sole commercial distributor, not sole distribut (Score:4, Informative)
Not really, people distributing their works for money aren't typically going to also distribute them for free. That would undermine sales. Some people will distribute works under a pay what you can, pay what you want or pay what you think it's worth model, but in any of those cases it's going to be a commercial distribution.
It might be technically a misstatement, but it's correct in virtually all cases.
Re:Sole commercial distributor, not sole distribut (Score:4, Informative)
Uhhhh - a lot of people distribute their work both free, and for a fee. http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp [baen.com]
In fact, the idea that free copies of your work will "undermine sales" is so terribly misguided - I wonder if you've been studying economics at RIAA University.
Re:Sole commercial distributor, not sole distribut (Score:4, Interesting)
people distributing their works for money aren't typically going to also distribute them for free. That would undermine sales.
Sorry, but you're 100% incorrect. Very often what seems to be obvious is shown by scientific research to be completely false*. One book publisher thought the same thing as you a couple of years ago, so he commissioned a study to see how much revenue he was losing to piracy. With a book, it takes a few weeks for it to hit the net because it has to be scanned and OCRed, so they looked at how much sales dropped when the pirate edition was availabe. Both the researchers and publisher were amazed when it was shown that rather than a sales dip, there was actually a sales SPIKE. People read the book, liked it, and bought it.
I'll bet you think libraries cost publishers money, but you're wrong there, too. I have a dozen or more Asimov books on my shelf. Were I unable to read library books for free (I've read a few hundred of Asimov's) I would have never bought a single one. Only the rich or foolish would buy a book from an authout he hadn't read before unless it was highly praised by people he admired. BTW, you can get music CDs and movie DVDs at the library as well -- completely free. No charge. Walk in broke, walk out with an armload of books, CDs, and DVDs.
Most musicians give their music away. Of course, most musicians aren't RIAA's musicians. Professional musicians I know wouldn't touch an RIAA contract with a ten foot pole; they know the RIAA is made up of nothing but thieving parasites that suck the lifeblood from artists.
Want some free sci-fi ebooks? Go to boing boing, Doctorow credits his status as a New York Times best seller to the fact that he gives his books away for free on there. As he says, nobody ever lost a dime from piracy, but many artists have starved from obscurity.
They're not going to read your book if they've never heard of you. BTW, my old Paxil Diaries on K5 half a deceade ago will be in print soon, at the request of readers. Had I not put them on the net, there's no way I could turn them into a book and have anyone read it.
* another example, although not on topic, is marijuana research. Since all smoke contains carcinogens, it was thought that marijuana cased cancer, so they did a statistical study to back up the hypothesis. They had 4 groups of geezers: nonsmokers, long term cigarette smokers, long term pot smokers, and long term smokers of both substances. They were amazed to find that there was no statistically signifigant differences between long term pot smokers and nonsmokers, and the potsmokers actually had fewer cancers (again, statistically insignifigant). What blew them away was the finding that those who smoked both pot and tobacco had half the cancer rates of those who only smoked tobacco! Rather than causing cancer, it appears to prevent it.
That's what science is for -- to test whether your perceptions are real. As often as not, they aren't.
... of the binary produced by tool, not of content (Score:5, Informative)
Sole commercial distributor, not sole distributor. The quote is a misstatement of the policy.
And this only refers to the binary produced by the iBooks Author program. Apple makes no claim on your content, you are free to produce other ebooks using different tools and distribute elsewhere.
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AFAIK neither of those formats are actually "free" they both are licensed. Just that they are well documented and the genie is out of the bottle making actual licensing difficult or impossible.
Re:After what Apple did with iTunes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, PDF is an open standard and Adobe has granted anybody royalty free use of it. There may be patents that are not known that could apply, but for now there aren't any that have been asserted.
The MP3 patents are most likely expired by now in the US, that should apply to other jurisdictions as well as the US presently conforms with the WTO's TRIPs
Re:After what Apple did with iTunes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
PDF is free and open now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf [wikipedia.org]
Relevant snippet:
"While the PDF specification was available for free since at least 2001,[4] PDF was originally a proprietary format controlled by Adobe, and was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008.[1][5] In 2008, Adobe published a Public Patent License to ISO 32000-1 granting a royalty-free rights for all patents owned by Adobe that are necessary to make, use, sell and distribute PDF compliant implementations.[6]"
Apple has no DRM on music... (Score:2)
Apple's DRM schemes do not allow that. That's why I get my music from Amazon.
Huh? You can play music you get from Apple on any device that can play AAC. That includes things like the Zune...
I get some music from Amazon, but some from Apple too. There's no practical difference at this point except that it's slightly easier to buy it from iTunes so often I use that.
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$99 annual developer's fee later *cough*xcode*cough*
Well, the big difference there is that nothing stops you from cross-compiling your software on other platforms.
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$99 annual developer's fee later *cough*xcode*cough*
Well, the big difference there is that nothing stops you from cross-compiling your software on other platforms.
Except when Apple sends you a not-so-nice-gram pointing out where you signed-your-rights-away-in-a-EULA
Doesn't this sound an awful lot like the "Bad Old Days" of the music business, where performers signed contracts, only later to find they surrendered all their rights to some shady producer?
What's old is new again?
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Except when Apple sends you a not-so-nice-gram pointing out where you signed-your-rights-away-in-a-EULA
I don't get your point. They don't do that in their developer agreement.
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Except when Apple sends you a not-so-nice-gram pointing out where you signed-your-rights-away-in-a-EULA
I don't get your point. They don't do that in their developer agreement.
I think many of the people commenting on these threads are confusing things. Whether due to sincere ignorance or an attempt to muddy the debate probably varies. When discussing the free nature of Xcode and self distribution of Macintosh applications, they will invariably thrown iOS development or Mac App store requirements.
Apple doesn't claim to own your content (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA said so plainly. The iBooks format is html5 wrapped is a very thin container (Apple likes content standards). Their authoring tool is essentially a specialized html editor. Nothing stops you from taking the content you used to create an iTextBook and then using it to create a nearly identical eTextBook on another platform. You just aren't supposed to take the exact same thinly wrapped .ibook file and make that available outside of Apple's store. Maybe it's a silly clause, but obviously since they don't claim to own your content then they aren't stopping you from releasing said content in any form you choose.
Re:Apple doesn't claim to own your content (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. This entire post is based on a false premise that you are giving away your rights to your content by using their authoring tool when in fact the only limitation is that you cannot take content created in iBooks Author and sell it elsewhere using the iBooks format. If you want to sell it outside of the app store, create it in a different format.
This article is a lot of nothing..
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But there is no export to epub, so there is not really any other format you can export the book to.
Export to pdf for epub books, sucks so much I will not even mention it as a viable possiblity.
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Why would you convert it to iBooks format and then immediately turn around and look for an export option? I would think you would create any/all formats from your source material.
Re:Apple doesn't claim to own your content (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple doesn't claim to own your content (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is not entirely true. It is html5, with some things not supported, and some very non-standard css added.
As long as Apple don't document exactly what tags and styles iBooks 2 support, using Apples tool is the only way to produce files which support all the features of iBooks 2.
Like source code, book content is not restricted (Score:3)
$99 annual developer's fee later *cough*xcode*cough*
Well, the big difference there is that nothing stops you from cross-compiling your software on other platforms.
And nothing prevents you from generating your ebook with a different tool and selling it on other platforms. Only the binary generated by iBooks Author is restricted, not the content itself.
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The tools might be free of charge, and you might be writing a free of charge application, but getting the result delivered to the walled garden (or even within your own company) is not free: Choosing an iOS Developer Program [apple.com]
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It's $2. I agree with your point though.
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Free developer accounts don't give you access to download it. You need at least one paid membership.
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Those are costs for distributing your app on the App Store not the price of Xcode. From here [apple.com] with such links as:
Download Xcode 4 for Free
and
Download Xcode 4.2.1 for Lion
from the Mac App Store for Free
If you paid money for Xcode, you're an idiot.
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You're still wrong though. Downloading from http://developer.apple.com/ [apple.com] requires a program membership (Mac or iOS), and downloading from the App Store checks your OS version and only gives it to you free if you're on Lion.
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Download free Xcode. Sell on your own website.
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No it doesn't. I downloaded it from the App Store on 10.7 for absolutely nothing. If you paid for it, you got ripped off.
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Major citation needed, because the output of programs is not copyrighted. No compiled program, generated grammar, or otherwise, can be copyrighted by the generating program or its authors.
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