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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Straw Man on April 15, 2012, 12:28:37 PM
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gotta be a joke
right?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?tag=nl.e539
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Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement
By Ed Bott | January 19, 2012, 1:32pm PST
Summary: Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program.
Update: This post is part of a series. If you find this topic interesting, I recommend you read these follow-ups as well:
•How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books
•Some standards are more open than others
•Closing thoughts on Apple’s greedy, “crazy evil” iBooks license
I read EULAs so you don’t have to. I’ve spent years reading end user license agreements, EULAs, looking for little gotchas or just trying to figure out what the agreement allows and doesn’t allow.
I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program.
Dan Wineman calls it “unprecedented audacity” on Apple’s part. For people like me, who write and sell books, access to multiple markets is essential. But that’s prohibited:
Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented.
Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech.
I’ve downloaded the software and had a chance to skim the EULA. Much of it is boilerplate, but I’ve read and re-read Section 2B, and it does indeed go far beyond any license agreement I’ve ever seen:
B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:
• (i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
•(ii) 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: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.
And then the next paragraph is bold-faced, just so you don’t miss it:
Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including
without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.
The nightmare scenario under this agreement? You create a great work of staggering literary genius that you think you can sell for 5 or 10 bucks per copy. You craft it carefully in iBooks Author. You submit it to Apple. They reject it.
Under this license agreement, you are out of luck. They won’t sell it, and you can’t legally sell it elsewhere. You can give it away, but you can’t sell it. Updated to add: By “it,” I am referring to the book, not the content. The program allows you to export your work as plain text, with all formatting stripped. So you do have the option to take the formatting work you did in iBooks Author, throw it away, and start over. That is a devastating potential limitation for an author/publisher. Outputting as PDF would preserve the formatting, but again the license would appear to prohibit you from selling that work, because it was generated by iBooks Author.
One oddity I noticed in the agreement is that the term Work is not defined. [Update: Yes, it is, as I noticed on a fourth reading. It's in an "Important Note" above the agreement itself: "any book or other work you generate using this software (a 'Work')." Of course, that uses the term "work" recursively.] It’s capitalized in the relevant sections of the EULA, and it clearly is the thing of value that Apple wants from an author. Leaving that term so poorly defined is not exactly malpractice, but it’s sloppy lawyering.
I’m also hearing, but have not been able to confirm, that the program’s output is not compatible with the industry-standard EPUB format. Updated: An Apple support document notes that “¦iBooks uses the ePub file format” and later refers to it as “the industry-leading ePub digital book file type.” But iBooks Author will not export its output to that industry-leading format.
My longtime friend Giesbert Damaschke, a German author who has written numerous Apple-related books, says via Twitter that “iBA generates Epub (sort of): save as .ibooks, rename to .epub (won’t work with complex layouts, cover will be lost).” Even if that workaround produces a usable EPUB file, however, the license agreement would seem to explicitly prohibit using the resulting file for commercial purposes outside Apple’s store.
As a publisher and an author, I obviously have a dog in this hunt. But what I see so far makes this program and its output an absolute nonstarter for me.
I’ll be writing more fully on this issue after I’ve had a chance to use the program and to inspect the EULA under a microscope.
Oh, and let’s just stipulate that I could send an e-mail to Apple asking for comment, or I could hand-write my request on a sheet of paper and then put it in a shredder. Both actions would produce the same response from Cupertino. But if anyone from Apple would care to comment, you know where to find me.
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Brutal. That is just wrong.
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Brutal. That is just wrong.
might be right
sort of
can't people just not agree to the terms and choose not to use the product?
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might be right
sort of
can't people just not agree to the terms and choose not to use the product?
Yeah, its wrong that Apple knows most people are just going to bypass reading it and sign it without knowing. Thats whats brutal. Its peoples fault for not paying attention, but its also Apple being dicks for praying upon the stupid/ignorant.
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Yeah, its wrong that Apple knows most people are just going to bypass reading it and sign it without knowing. Thats whats brutal. Its peoples fault for not paying attention, but its also Apple being dicks for praying upon the stupid/ignorant.
I don't see where the "wrong" is
any can take as much time as they want and read it all and choose to agree or not agree
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I don't see where the "wrong" is
any can take as much time as they want and read it all and choose to agree or not agree
Sometimes I think you actually have no stances and just argue. Youre literally taking the right side on this one, that this company fucking over its consumers is ok because the people didnt read it.
Dont look now, but im pretty sure youre siding with big business, lol.
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Ive said since its inception that the consumer protection whatever obama created should address this.
Most customer agreements are to long and chalked full of technical terms that the majority of ppl wouldnt understand.
I agree its the consumers fault for not reading it and or agreeing to something they dont understand but I also think the companies could make them easier to read and shorter but dont do so at times so ppl wont read them.
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Sometimes I think you actually have no stances and just argue. Youre literally taking the right side on this one, that this company fucking over its consumers is ok because the people didnt read it.
Dont look now, but im pretty sure youre siding with big business, lol.
I don't know what my opinion is on this yet
just read about it today. It sure sounds like a ridiculous overeach but I don't know that it's "wrong" per se
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The post on ZDnet is misleading. Apple isn't claiming ownership over anything you produce with their software. It only says that if you use the software (which, by the way produces output files in the Apple proprietary format) then if you charge for your content you must distribute it using the Apple distribution system, the use of which is subject to a separate agreement and that Apple can choose to not distribute your content.
The author interprets the license to mean that "Under this license agreement, [if Apple doesn't choose to distribute your content] you are out of luck. They won’t sell it, and you can’t legally sell it elsewhere. "
Nonsense. You own the *original* work (i.e. the words behind the formatting) and you can simply save your "work of literary genius" in any number of other eBooks formats and offer it for sale under any terms you so choose. The only thing you cannot do is force Apple to agree to distribute your content over their distribution system.
Nothing - and I mean NOTHING in the EULA - suggests that Apple owns the underlying work.
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The post on ZDnet is misleading. Apple isn't claiming ownership over anything you produce with their software. It only says that if you use the software (which, by the way produces output files in the Apple proprietary format) then if you charge for your content you must distribute it using the Apple distribution system, the use of which is subject to a separate agreement and that Apple can choose to not distribute your content.
The author interprets the license to mean that "Under this license agreement, [if Apple doesn't choose to distribute your content] you are out of luck. They won’t sell it, and you can’t legally sell it elsewhere. "
Nonsense. You own the *original* work (i.e. the words behind the formatting) and you can simply save your "work of literary genius" in any number of other eBooks formats and offer it for sale under any terms you so choose. The only thing you cannot do is force Apple to agree to distribute your content over their distribution system.
Nothing - and I mean NOTHING in the EULA - suggests that Apple owns the underlying work.
Yeah, thats what I got out of the article. I can see a lot of lawsuits in the future if they try and distribute it without going through apple.
As far as the other part, yeah he mentions he can move it to another format but then he bitches that he'll have to "start over" and "reformat it". (Which I can guess is a pain in the ass, but I dont really think thats a legitimate complaint, lol).
The thing that bothers me is that theyre basically saying, if you want to use Apple software for your job, be prepared for Apple to be involved in your business. Something about that just seems wrong.
What Im wondering, is Apple going to get a cut of the profits from the book sales? Are they forcing you into a contract with them in which they recieve a percentage of your sales? I cant imagine that they wouldnt, if theyre distributing it.
Which, if they are, then basically theyre saying, if you want to write books on Apple software (that im assuming the customer paid for) than were distributing it and were making the profits off it. It doesnt bother me, as I simply hate Apple products to begin with. But it makes me wonder if there are going to be situations where people are forced to use Apple out of necessity, and then wind up having to go through Apple for the distribution.
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The post on ZDnet is misleading. Apple isn't claiming ownership over anything you produce with their software. It only says that if you use the software (which, by the way produces output files in the Apple proprietary format) then if you charge for your content you must distribute it using the Apple distribution system, the use of which is subject to a separate agreement and that Apple can choose to not distribute your content.
The author interprets the license to mean that "Under this license agreement, [if Apple doesn't choose to distribute your content] you are out of luck. They won’t sell it, and you can’t legally sell it elsewhere. "
Nonsense. You own the *original* work (i.e. the words behind the formatting) and you can simply save your "work of literary genius" in any number of other eBooks formats and offer it for sale under any terms you so choose. The only thing you cannot do is force Apple to agree to distribute your content over their distribution system.
Nothing - and I mean NOTHING in the EULA - suggests that Apple owns the underlying work.
good info
Thanks