Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

venomousporridge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 143 posts

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#81

Post by Someone »

nchuhoai wrote: post #73
ryanwhitney wrote: post #16

I'm not seeing why this is so unreasonable, if someone could fill me in. The program is for creating iBooks, not eBooks, to be sold through their iBookstore. I'm seeing these more as apps than something like .ePub files or .PDFs. Unlike apps though, which require an developer license to load yourself, Author gives anyone the ability to run these books on your iPad. It also gives anyone the ability to distribute an iB…

"It also gives anyone the ability to distribute an iBook outside the iBookstore." That is exactly what the author complains about, you cannot distribute an iBook outside the store: "if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions"

IANAL, but an obvious workaround is to sell the eBook version and add an iBook version for free with every order.

Problem with that approach is that receivers of the iBook can distribute copies at will.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#82

Post by Someone »

naner wrote: post #23
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 t…

I do not think Visual Studio is an example that supports your argument.

I haven't spelled its license recently, but the native code compilers are intended to keep authors locked into Microsoft's ecosystem. Whether that is more or less artificially then this product, I would not know.

Having said that, I agree that this is part of a strategy that is designed to corner a market. Some people would phrase that as "good old capitalism at work", though. I agree with them, except for that "good" adjective.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#83

Post by zak_mc_kracken »

statictype wrote: post #50
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…

Your entire post can basically be tl;dr'd as "It's Apple's product so they can do anything they want and therefore there is no reasonable discussion to be had about whether or not it makes sense or is offensive or the right thing to do" There are real issues with gpl code that makes other derived works also gpl and there are reasonable discussions to be had about it besides "the person who created it can do whatever…

> "It's Apple's product so they can do anything they want and therefore there is no reasonable discussion to be had about whether or not it makes sense or is offensive or the right thing to do"

The problem is also that it's this kind of attitude that allowed Microsoft to illegally leverage its monopoly to pressure other markets, with the excuse that "Hey, you don't have to use Microsoft if you don't like their terms".

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#84

Post by MatthewPhillips »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #80
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be direct. Are you arguing that this is not a fee or that it's not hidden?

It's neither. You can produce all the books you want and give them away for free, without paying Apple a fee of any kind, and the notice is prominently displayed right on the screen where you publish your document. This is no different from the zillions of dual-licensed GPL projects out there that say (roughly) "You're free to use this code in projects that you yourself give away for free, but if you want to sell you…

> You can produce all the books you want and give them away for free, without paying Apple a fee of any kind, and the notice is prominently displayed right on the screen where you publish your document.

Yes, a notice is displayed after you've already put a lot of work in, that is exactly what makes it slimy. A conditional fee is still a fee.

> This is no different from the zillions of dual-licensed GPL projects out there that say (roughly) "You're free to use this code in projects that you yourself give away for free, but if you want to sell your application you have to buy a license from us".

This is nothing like that. GPL projects do not hide their terms. And developers are very aware that libraries have terms. It is typical. An exportable document format having terms is not typical.

The user will not anticipate these conditions. This is why I call it a bait-and-switch. A company that prides itself on putting UX first couldn't have done this on accident. Either the product passed through QA without UX concerns being raised, or the concerns were ignored.

It's a slimy, used car salesman approach. Apple is better than this.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#85

Post by ryanwhitney »

178 wrote: post #78
ryanwhitney wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just guessing here, but if you write a textbook and get published by a traditional publisher (McGraw-Hill, etc.), they probably disallow you from creating a copy of that same book and selling it for $5 from your own marketplace. They check it for quality, help create the physical book, and put their name on it. They even have some ownership. I'm simply seeing Apple as a publishing partner here. They're helping yo…

As an iOS 'fanboy' i have to tell you that both iOS and Android have a "kill switch". It's a measure for the really dangerous cases and Google has used it once or twice, and i guess Apple too (not shure atm). When jailbroken, you can turn it off on both platforms. But you are right in that there seems to be no such thing for books, unlike on Amazon (remember the 1984 case?)

Ah, you're right. I'm not sure why I was thinking there wasn't one for iOS.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#86

Post by Natsu »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #79
timwiseman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make some excellent points. However, there is room to critize Apple for not making that particular clause absolutely crystal clear instead of merely including it in a EULA which the vast majority of users will never look at. Also, while your anology to the FSF is technically correct, I think it is safe to say that the FSF as currently governed would not do that. So, while your point is valid, it is a bit misleadi…

It's right on the dialog where you publish your document, not just buried in the EULA.

A place where you will find it after creating the document, rather than before.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#87

Post by nchuhoai »

Someone wrote: post #81
nchuhoai wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It also gives anyone the ability to distribute an iBook outside the iBookstore." That is exactly what the author complains about, you cannot distribute an iBook outside the store: "if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions"

IANAL, but an obvious workaround is to sell the eBook version and add an iBook version for free with every order. Problem with that approach is that receivers of the iBook can distribute copies at will.

i am not a lawyer either but the wording seems pretty clear:

If you want money, you gotta use us.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#88

Post by ryannielsen »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #36
nirvana wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is intended to keep authors/editors artificially locked into Apple's products and distribution system. There is no artificial lock in. They are providing a tool to produce content for their distribution system. That's its point. The comparison to general purpose tools isn't relevant. Consider if this tool, like iAd Producer, had no ability to export in a format outside of Apple's proprietary one. Would you still…

The lock-in would be complete if they change iBooks to only display books that have been published with their variant of epub classes. They don't do this, so would have to agree that you can produce your book any way you want then make it available. I believe the original author's pain is around the paucity of good EPUB publishing tools, and to have one appear with these restrictions makes them sad. It would have bee…

I don't follow your argument... Kindles don't support ePub. Even if iBooks Author exported standard ePub files, it couldn't be used to make content viewable on a Kindle.

Hell, iBooks Author exports PDFs. PDFs are viewable by Kindle Fires. (And possibly other Kindles.) So iBooks Author already creates content viewable on competitors' platforms.

I'm also not certain the Fire is threatening to Apple. They make far more money off of the hardware than they do off content sold through their various digital media stores.

Re: The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

#90

Post by ryanwhitney »

statictype wrote: post #45
ryanwhitney wrote: post #16

I'm not seeing why this is so unreasonable, if someone could fill me in. The program is for creating iBooks, not eBooks, to be sold through their iBookstore. I'm seeing these more as apps than something like .ePub files or .PDFs. Unlike apps though, which require an developer license to load yourself, Author gives anyone the ability to run these books on your iPad. It also gives anyone the ability to distribute an iB…

Apple doesn't own the Apps that you create or claim partial ownership of it. Your code and it's output belongs to you. The developer license is offensive in it's own way but that's a different issue than what's happening here with iBooks

Sorry, but where does Apple claim partial ownership? Maybe I missed it, but I haven't seen that.

You own a car, but you're licensed and registered by the state. You can paint it whatever color you want, but can you make an exact duplicate of that car and sell it as your own? Nope. Can you sell it without transferring registration? Nope (at least, not without alternate state paperwork). You might "own" it, but you still can't do whatever you want.

You're licensed iBooks Author and you enter into an agreement. You create, retain copyright, and own the product, but you can't copy it and do as you please. You follow the licensing and only have certain rights when it comes to the .ibook file.

A comparison in my mind would be saying GarageBand creations can only be sold through the iTunes store. The difference I see is that iBooks Author is not outputting a simple media file, but a more complex experience filled with medias. As often the case with Apple, they want to lock that experience (& resulting profits) into the best device for it, the iPad.

Post reply on HN