The contract is pretty amazing. I can't believe any author would agree to the terms. My experience is mostly with college books but most of the issues are similar. The book market for high school and grade school books involves a lot more money and is highly politicized with publishers working very hard to get state-wide adoptions in states like California and Texas. You can check out how the publishers have been forced to remove or, at best, deemphasize, evolution if they want to get their books adopted.
A couple of observations: Some of the major publishers were known for contracting with multiple authors for books in the same area and then only publishing one of them. At least, authors had an advance so they didn't come away with nothing. The Apple contract doesn't even propose that. Authors I've spoken to in both he trade and college book area feel that when signing a contract they figure they won't make money beyond the advance. But no advance? I've always worked with Addison-Wesly which has acted honorably and didn't engage in such practices. However, they were bought by Pearson a while ago and as publishers struggle to figure out how to survive things are changing. For example, my book now has a Kindle version, something I have no control over. Fortunately (?), students don't really like technical books in electronic format (yet). But the part that is most alarming is that the students are getting screwed. Even though the numbers of books I sell each year has declined due to piracy my royalties have remained pretty constant over 15 years. Why? The prices have sky rocketed so the honest students are paying a ridiculous price. For example, at UNM, the first biology course requires a book that costs over $200. With Apple students will also have to own a compatible device. I don't think many students in Santa Fe can afford it. Unfortunately I don't think there are any easy answers. The potential of what you can do with new media is something we'd like to have available to all students. Maybe what Bruce has done with Glow Script is the best compromise for now. Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) [email protected] 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel On Apr 18, 2012, at 10:03 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote: > And be sure to read > > http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?tag=content;siu-container > > for which there's a link on the page shown below, but you don't want > to miss it. The Apple contract just blows one's mind. > > Bruce > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Bruce Sherwood > <[email protected]> wrote: >> See >> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/why-the-apple-textbook-program-will-never-work/6526. >> A sample: "My colleague Ed Bott has done a thorough job tearing apart >> the Apple licensing agreements and technical details that turn the >> iBooks textbook program into a “mind-bogglingly greedy and evil >> license agreement”." >> >> I had the same reaction when I saw the Apple terms announced some weeks ago. >> >> Bruce >> >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Oops, forgot: Apple is getting into text books big time .. here is their ad: >>> http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/ >>> >>> They know its going to take a long time, transitioning to a new media, >>> dealing with legal and authoring issues. They are working on an IDE for >>> books, so to speak .. software that helps create the new books, with >>> interactive media etc. They also want to take readers way beyond the >>> current relatively static ebooks. Hard to say if they succeed, but they >>> have worked quite a bit with schools, and iTunesU is quite successful. >>> >>> -- Owen >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:59 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> How do we deal with fair author protection? Certainly the current >>>> business model doesn't work. As prices soar, so does piracy. >>>> >>>> We have several authors on the list. Have you insights? >>>> >>>> -- Owen >>>> >>>> Just FYI: If you'd like to see the titles of the now-defunct russian site >>>> of 80,381 text books: http://backspaces.net/temp/all/all.txt Although the >>>> site is gone, my guess is that all of these are available via torrents. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
