Will Kujawa of OKedition seems to think I just don’t understand. If that's so, you have to wonder why Apple still claims ownership rights and restrictions on the output of the file (just not the words itself, thanks to the rewrite).
If you want to charge a fee for a work that includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, you may only sell or distribute such work through Apple, and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.
This is still akin to Adobe preventing you from selling PDF books except only through an Adobe store, or Windows Live Writer or MarsEdit preventing me from posting nicely formatted blog posts here, or Typepad preventing me from exporting these nicely formatted blog posts to another service.
Sorry, I think Will just don’t understand. This feels like another attempt by Apple, partially thwarted, at locking authors into the iOS ecosystem. There is precedent, here. Why again did they initially mandate all iOS applications be created in XCode only?
It should also be noted, the contract as now written leave us an oddly curious loophole. As Michael Tsai writes:
Apple is apparently OK with you using iBooks Author to create e-books and then convert the .ibooks files to .epub and sell them. You can also use (hypothetical) third-party software to create .ibooks files and sell them. But you’re not allowed to create and sell .ibooks files with iBooks Author—although it’s not clear how Apple would be able to determine which app created the file.
It’d be interesting if somebody put this little loophole to the test.
Oh, and I have a new reader! Hi, Will.
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