Sorry Igor, I have seen that thread and several other discussions in the last day or two. And I still don't get what the issue is. Loosely paraphrasing, in what is not at all a novel approach (pun intended), Apple says "you use our free goodies to make a buck, we want a share of the profits. And we'll manage that process painlessly by putting the book through our store. Oh by the way, as with apps for our phones etc. we do have standards; if your work is objectionable, we don't want your business." Sounds fair to me. And I think the Blurb analogy is a perfect one. Both offer free software which has the purpose of allowing the user to make a product which will be produced/distributed through the supplier of the software, yielding the software provider some profit. Seems a good and fair business model.
BTW, I have been party to several contracts with actual publishers of actual books. Technical, textbook-type books. Low quantity distribution expected, and the publisher can only hope for break-even. So they structure the contract to read (again, paraphrased) "we are taking the risk, we are covering the up-front production/advertising/distribution costs. So we'll take [all/most of] the gross income from the first [1000/2000] copies. Then we'll start to give you authors a small percentage of the net on succeeding copies sold." I find the eBook business model to be much more palatable in that the share of profits apparently does not vary as a function of sales volume; the author gets a share of the income from the beginning. IIRC, it used to be that GM, Ford, etc. expected you to do periodic maintenance on your vehicle in order to maintain the validity of their warranty. Any more they build them so well that maintenance is pretty much a moot point, but they used to require you to have the work done in their facility. Again IIRC that was stopped as an illegal restriction of trade. Someday, if Apple publishing gets to be a significant factor in the eBook market, then maybe they might lose a suit claiming unfair restriction. Right now to me I see nothing wrong with what they are doing or how they are going about it. stan On Jan 22, 2012, at 5:25 PM, Igor Roshchin wrote: > > Stan, > > This example is not a correct one. > Nobody complains that a kitchen knife is not suitable to hammer nails, > but nobody would forbid you using it for that purpose. > > But if you buy a hammer at the store (or get it as a freebie), - > you are not going to read the instructions to see if you are not > allowed to use that hammer for a paid job. > > While I clearly understand the motivation of Apple, but it is not > the RIGHT WAY to implement the solution. > If the software didn't have functionality except for submitting > the books via Apple website, that would be one thing. i > > Stan, please read the second link, - it explains what the problems are. > They are not in the fact that Apple restricts something but rather in > _how_ they do that. > > > Igor > > > Sun Jan 22 16:41:15 EST 2012 > Stan Halpin wrote: > > > I don't see this as a big issue. Blurb gives me free software to layout > books to print/sell via Blurb. I can't use that software to print in any > other way, even on my own printer. (Well, I can print, but with a big > Blurb watermark on every page.) Anybody that doesn't want to print/sell > exclusively via Blurb can find some other software to use. Apple offers > free software to layout/distribute books via the Apple store. Anybody > that doesn't want to sell exclusively via Apple can find some other > software to use. Ho hum; no evil empire. > > stan > > On Jan 22, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Igor Roshchin wrote: > >> >> >> Apple's license (EULA) forbids you from distributing your work created >> using >> Apple software. >> >> While the software discussed is not the one for photography, but for >> writing/publishing (iBooks Author), this can create a precedence. >> >> Read more about it here: >> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?tag=nl.e589 >> http://venomousporridge.com/post/16126436616/ibooks-author-eula-audacity > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
