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The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

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Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#21

Post by dman »

nirvana wrote: post #14
dman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact analogy in FSF terms which you were careful to avoid is - An executable created by a GPL compiler will have to be GPL licensed. This is where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case.

>you were careful to avoid Don't attribute to others derogatory actions as an argument technique. >This is where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case. The existence of software that does not fit my analogy does not change the fact that there are many situations where the analogy still holds. In fact, the GPL itself is an example of the analogy holding- the GPL prohibits certain kinds of co…

Ah I see where our difference in opinion originates from - you look at the book outputted by the tool as a derived work. I must admit I never conceived of this possibility, and I am still trying to digest it. I wonder how many authors who use Apple's product will realise that after two years of hard work to create a manuscript, just by hitting publish the outputted object will not wholly belong to them.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#22

Post by ugh »

nirvana wrote: post #20
ugh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the legal side. It’s still possible to be disgusted by this for purely moral reasons. Apple is pulling some vile bullshit here and they shouldn’t.

I was actually arguing the moral point. There's nothing immoral about setting the terms upon which you will trade your labor. Its the same as an employee deciding they want a higher salary or a lower one. The people who made this software give it away for free, under the understanding that it could be used by others who also give their work away fro free. What's wrong with that? But if people want to profit form it,…

Hm, that’s just not how I view the world. Of course they can, of course they should be allowed to – but that doesn’t mean I won’t judge them harshly for it.

When Apple praises their education initiatives and then turns around and puts such restrictions on their authoring tool then yes, that’s some vile bullshit. They are not in it for the eduction, they are in it for themselves.

They don’t have to give the tool aways for free, I would be perfectly happy with Apple selling it. But putting such a restriction on it? I’m not ok with that.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#23

Post by naner »

nirvana wrote: post #4

Over the years I've seen a large volume of creative software, often free, that is used to produce output, that requires, as part of its license, that you give the creator of the software a cut if you sell any of the things you make with it. This includes everything that is "free for non-commercial use", such as, if I recall correctly, Blender (in the past), most of the Free Fonts out there, and a lot of free software…

Being upset at this restriction is perfectly reasonable. It is intended to keep authors/editors artificially locked into Apple's products and distribution system. Imagine how you would feel about similar restrictions on other production tools (Photoshop, Visual Studio, Word, Garage Band, etc.) and you would immediately see this is shitty behavior.

Though I do agree with what you are saying: people have a choice not to use these tools. However, the rules of this product are somewhat hidden -- to the point where you probably won't know your restrictions until you've already put in the work. And also Apple is leveraging their platform dominance in an uncompetitive and unfair manner and should be admonished for it.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#24

Post by drivebyacct2 »

For better or worse, why do people continue to be surprised when Apple does these things? They make good stuff, their users don't care and developers still flock to them. It's like raging at Adobe because Reader sucks, even though plenty of decent, light-weight PDF readers exist.

If you don't like the EULA, don't agree to it and use something else.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#25

Post by aidenn0 »

I don't see how this is substantially different from EULAs that restrict usage to non-commercial. It's basically "non-commercial, except" so you have strictly more rights than with e.g. the non-commercial version of CadSoft eagle.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#26

Post by nirvana »

cek wrote: post #9
nirvana wrote: post #4

Over the years I've seen a large volume of creative software, often free, that is used to produce output, that requires, as part of its license, that you give the creator of the software a cut if you sell any of the things you make with it. This includes everything that is "free for non-commercial use", such as, if I recall correctly, Blender (in the past), most of the Free Fonts out there, and a lot of free software…

I completely disagree with 'nirvana' here. He/she is just wrong. Apple is going far above and behind reasonable practices with this EULA. But I did NOT downvote him/her on HN and I'm sad to see that his/her post has been downvoted. That's just wrong. If you don't agree say way, don't downvote.

Its been interesting to watch the score jump up and down as I respond to comments. I agree with you about the down votes. I've up voted several responses today from people who disagreed with me (particularly where they made a good point or pointed out an error of fact I made, but where it didn't seem appropriate to respond further since their statements stood on their own.)

I think part of the reaction is that people are used to paying for creative software. Imagine if Adobe had terms like this in Photoshop that required you to use their stock photo agency for any photos edited with photoshop. That would be outrageous and I would be right there with everyone saying it was wrong.

The difference is, Photoshop costs $600 or something (don't know or care, but they charge for the software) while iBooks Author is free.

What if iBooks Author had no other output modes-- just published iBooks to the iBookStore. And that's it. No PDF export, no epub. (Assuming in this example iBooks were more proprietary than they are- say like kindle's proprietary format is.)

Would people be upset about that? It would be a free tool for publishing to a proprietary formant for a specific store.

How could you complain about that? Apple's offering a tool specifically for their publishers. (I'm sure some tool exists like this for iTunes Album content. Another example of this is the iAd Producer software Apple makes which only works for iAds.)

If this product only working in a proprietary format would cause people to not complain--- because obviously the product was built to support the iBookStore-- then really the outrage is that you can use the product for other uses as well, Right?

So, Apple gives you the ability to produce ePubs and PDFs for free, if you want to. They add this feature, and now this product is somehow unreasonable?

Sorry, cek, if you aren't interested in debating this, that's fine. You didn't give reasons for why I was wrong, I just thought of this argument while responding to you. You don't have to engage on the topic further, no biggie, as I may not be responding at all to the reasons you think its wrong.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#27

Post by thetrendycyborg »

nirvana wrote: post #15
dchest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still can discuss it, and argue whether such contracts should be enforceable. The fact that there is already a practice of doing what Apple is doing doesn't mean that we should stop debates. We may be not entitled to demand people to produce things for our benefit, but we're certainly entitled to demand the freedom to do what we want with already produced things.

>We may be not entitled to demand people to produce things for our benefit, but we're certainly entitled to demand the freedom to do what we want with already produced things. The only difference between those two example is temporal. I don't think that difference makes a difference. Do you have the right to demand that people who have already produced some software, give it away for free and never be allowed to char…

They can charge for the software. What he's talking about is if you produce a thing, no matter how you produce it, you have the right to determine what you want to do with that product.

No one can say this tool must be used in this way so we make money. If they need to make money off the tool, they should be charging for it in some way.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#28

Post by scott_w »

nirvana wrote: post #15
dchest wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still can discuss it, and argue whether such contracts should be enforceable. The fact that there is already a practice of doing what Apple is doing doesn't mean that we should stop debates. We may be not entitled to demand people to produce things for our benefit, but we're certainly entitled to demand the freedom to do what we want with already produced things.

>We may be not entitled to demand people to produce things for our benefit, but we're certainly entitled to demand the freedom to do what we want with already produced things. The only difference between those two example is temporal. I don't think that difference makes a difference. Do you have the right to demand that people who have already produced some software, give it away for free and never be allowed to char…

In the UK and USA, yes you do have that right. Apple have the right to ignore your demand.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#29

Post by petrovg »

Don't use it then... Simple. Write your thing in what you like and sell it as you like. Write it on paper even. And sell it. Or don't sell it, just give it away for free and see how many people get your superior thinking and go downloading you on a scale that will bring the Internet down...

You can get the payment, thats easy, you only take cash, there an ATM round the corner. Distribution is easy too isn't it.

If someone is unhappy about it, you can handle the returns. Or, no, sorry, of course you don't do returns. This is YOUR intellectual property - once they've got it, they may have photocopied it, you don't want your work to go around for free, do you.

In all fairness, you really don't need this - your website is already drawing an enormous attention and everyone wants a cut of it....

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#30

Post by pingswept »

nirvana wrote: post #4

Over the years I've seen a large volume of creative software, often free, that is used to produce output, that requires, as part of its license, that you give the creator of the software a cut if you sell any of the things you make with it. This includes everything that is "free for non-commercial use", such as, if I recall correctly, Blender (in the past), most of the Free Fonts out there, and a lot of free software…

If the restrictions were made clear before the software is installed, I would agree with you. Yes, you can see the EULA as part of the sales process, but it's presented as part of an unreadable pile of legal crap. If it were presented in the same way that Apple explains other restrictions (like "This iPhone only works on Verizon's network"), I would have no complaint.
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