Apple To Authors - We Own A Piece Of You

Apple's dirty little EULA publishing secret | TechRepublic. Say it ain't so, Apple. The new iBook publishing app, that allows authors to upload their work and sell it, and competes with similar offerings by Amazon and others, allegedly has an even more Draconian EULA agreement than any of its competitors. Lawyers are familiar with End User License Agreements (EULAs); and, I'll bet, we don't read them in the same percentages as the rest of computer users. Unless, of course, somebody actually does read one and highlights the problems. In the case of iBook, Apple asserts that anyone who publishes content to it, and charges for that content, must share the charge with Apple, and may only publish to iBook. For authors who publish to Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, and other sites, this is a non-starter. This is like a bookstore telling an author that it will carry his book in the store; but, you can't sell it anywhere else. Amazon gives authors the option to have better access to Prime customers if they give it a 90 day exclusivity period; but, Apple's EULA makes no such distinction. Check out the article for the actual contract terms. Just a little light bedtime reading.

 

Comments

[Mdelaw]

First, this is very "last week," as all of this was announced last Thursday and people began discuss the EULA on that same day.

Second, and more importantly, the way you describe it above is actually wrong. The EULA of iBooks Author states that anything created using iBooks Author and published to iBooks can only be published to iBooks. Meaning that if you use the very simple, amazing, easy, and fee iBooks Author program that Apple has created in order to create your own amazing interactive book or textbook and you publish it for profit to iBooks, then the version made through iBooks Author cannot be published anywhere else. That does not mean, however, that you cannot publish the same text and photos as a book or textbook through Amazon or another publisher. It just means you cannot publish the iBooks version created with iBooks Author to another publisher. That is very, very different from what you describe above!

[Rick Georges]

Apple still wants control over content. Tell this to the article writer. Has Apple loosened its control in the last week? Didn't think so.