iBooks Author offers simple to use templates
Misunderstandings, hysteria and outright disinformation get repeated until they become inaccurate ‘truths’ that in turn get cited in defence of other inaccurate assertions.
The past few days have seen exaggerated squealing over Apple supposedly stopping authors from selling books wherever they like if they create a title using iBooks Author.
This isn’t what’s actually happening.
Apple has made a free tool available to help people make Multi-Touch content specifically for iPad.
Not Kindles, Android tablets or any other device as yet unimagined.
iPads.
Apple’s terms say the file created by iBooks Author – not the content it contains, the file – cannot be sold by any means other than the iBookstore.
Apple makes no claim on the content you create. The words, pictures, videos inside your book are yours. Always. Unless you give them to someone else.
But if you want to sell a Multi-Touch iBook made with iBooks Author you have to use Apple’s official iBookstore.
Because it’s an official Apple software package made available for the single purpose of distributing content via the iBookstore.
Authors are free to parcel up the same elements and sell them under the same name on any device they want.
They just can’t use Apple’s software to make content for Kindles and Android tablets or sell their iBooks Author file via any channel other than Apple’s official store.
And because iBooks Author just assembles content written, photographed and created outside of it, there’s no reason to use it to create an end file for other platforms in the first place.
Expecting to use iTunes Author to create products for other platforms is like expecting iTunes Publisher to upload to Amazon’s Kindle store.
It’s not that hard to understand.
Anyone who doesn’t want to agree to Apple’s terms is free to use a different software package to create books for iBooks and any other device they see fit to distribute it on.
They can exercise this choice because Apple hasn’t hidden the requirement to sell books via its store from users. It’s very clearly stated on the Mac App Store download page for iBooks Author:
But it seems some people haven’t bothered to read it or have misunderstood what it actually means.
They’ve then taken to shouting down anyone who dares try and correct their misunderstanding.
The problem is that Apple is claiming rights to its software’s output. As many articles have used as an example the last couple of days: That’ like Adobe would claim money every time you use a JPEG file created with Photoshop. Doesn’t sound good or right, does it? Of course Apple wants to make money on their software. I completely understand that. However, Apple is claiming that their iBooks Author software is free. That’s far from true. My point is: The business model is wrong, wrong, wrong.
>> Apple is claiming rights to its software’s output
They are not claiming ownership of anything.
The licence only allows you to commercially exploit the file produced by their software through their store because the software exists only to make content for sale in their store.
>> That’ like Adobe would claim money every time you use a JPEG file created with Photoshop.
It’s not like that at all.
A jpeg is a commonly used format which can be used in any number of applications. An .ibooks file, which is what iBooks Author produces, is not. It’s designed for use with a single application on a single platform.
>> Apple is claiming that their iBooks Author software is free
It is free. It’s a free tool made available for the single purpose of making content for the iBookstore.
What are the sale terms that Apple has? Does the author decide the price of the book? How much of the selling price goes to the author and how much to Apple?
As far as I know, you can decide the price to some extent. The book can however not cost more than 14,99 USD in iBookstore. Apple takes 30 percent.
So, I guess you would be OK with MS saying that anything you create when using Windows MUST be distributed ONLY via Microsoft’s Marketplace and they get a 30% cut of all sales?
That would be acceptable to you, right?
Same for any OS, right?
After all the “end product” can only be used on that OS.
They just have to give it away for free, right? I think MS would jump on that in a heartbeat. . . . and then we all work for MS! “Sorry, that refrigerator can’t be sold at Sears because the software to design it ran on Windows and therefore must be sold via Microsoft’s Marketplace.”
No software company can ever be allowed to claim any right whatsoever over any content/Work a person creates using said software. . . .
NEVER!
If we do then we are essentially becoming that companies serfs.
If you don’t get that then you have some serious mental deficiencies.
The problem is they claim this will be accessible for everyone to use, so someone like me not in the publishing business writes a 200 page script in iBook. Apple chooses not to publish it, all I’m allowed to take with me are the words, all styles such as line returns, indentations, and anything else will not be exported. It seems to me rather a waste of my time to use iBooks then and that it would make more sense to use something else. But at the same time iBook was supposed to revolutionize publication for everyone. Yet I still need to use other programs. For the legal details here’s a professionals take (not mine) http://m.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360