iBooks Author update clarifies EULA terms on sales
updated 04:05 pm EST, Fri February 3, 2012
Non-iBooks output uncontrolled
Apple has pushed out an update to iBooks Author, the company's recently-launched publishing tool. The sole change in v1.0.1 is a new end-user agreement, clarifying a controversial portion of the document which initially suggested that any material produced with the software could only be sold through the iBookstore if it was sold at all. "If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a 'Work'), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple," one part of the previous EULA read.
Multiple sections have been changed to state that the provision only applies to files in the .ibooks format, which already require iBooks for reading, and the iBookstore for distribution. iBooks Author can also produce PDF files, which people have typically assumed Apple should have no control over.
iBooks Author is a 137MB download, and a free download from the Mac App Store. Users must have at least OS X 10.7.2 or later, as well as iTunes 10.5.3 for sync purposes, and iBooks 2 for .ibooks previews.
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Joined: Jul 2006
Apple is changing
This hints at how Apple is changing and, in particular, at its growing addiction to income derived not from hardware or software sales but as a gatekeeper to its own software and hardware from others who have done the actual work of creating and making. That's both apps stores, that's ebooks in this format, and that's their absurd demand for a 30% slice for in-app linking. There's an all to obvious pattern developing.
Apple wants to make money, not just from what they create and make, but from what others create and make merely because the fruit of their labors happens to pass through one of Apple's software products (here IBA) or ends up on one of their hardware iDevices (but not yet Macs). It really is like Ford demanding a slice of the income you make from a moving business using Ford trucks.
That's what should have developers, writers, musicians and other content creators outraged. Apple doesn't want to own your copyright. That'd be too much trouble and bother. They simply want to grab a hefty 30% slice of retail from what you have created. And that simply because the app or ebook spends a few seconds passing from their hard drives through their servers to your customers.
In short, Apple intends to profit, enormously and unjustifiably, from the creativity and labor of others by blocking, in every way possible, every attempt to bypass their 30% tax. That's the point of this license and much else that Apple does. It is becoming their primary business model.
Apple, once the favorite tool of creative people, wants to exploit its position as a gatekeeper. It is becoming a vampire, sucking on the creativity of others. Authors, song writers, and musicians consider themselves fortunate to get 5-10% of the retail price of their creations. Apple want to take 300 to 600 percent more than the creators for simply passing along what others have created.
As a business model, that's very, very sick and it is time for a little outrage.