Does Apple iBooks Author Own Your Content?

Apple iBooks Author looks like a pretty slick tool to create books on the iPad and the Mac. This can make publishing your own books simple and easy. In fact one of the reviews said that the reviewer had all ready started their book within ninety seconds of downloading the app from the app store. I'm sure if it's a typical Apple product it will have ease of use built in and it will be a decent product from the launch.

Like every other software program before and after it the Apple iBooks Author program has an End User Liscence Agreement and this spells out all the rules that you must live by to use this program. You saying hey every program has that and we just digitally sign them and go on our merry way and nothing ever happens. That is true most of the time nothing ever happens and everything is okay.

Apple iBooks EULA Problems

If you create content to make a living the Apple's EULA can be problematic for you because what it basically says is this. You may use this software to create iBooks and sell them in our marketplace. However if you decide later to sell them somewhere else or sell them elsewhere at the same time, you can't. That's against the EULA. If you want to sell your books elsewhere then the only price you can charge is free. Good luck making a living on free. Now for what the EULA actually says.

Apple iBooks EULA

B. Distribution of your work. As a condition of this license and provided you are in compliance with it's 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 subsription based product or service, you may only distribute the work and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions(a)you will be required to enter into a seperate 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 at it's sole discretion and for any reason not to select your work for distribution.

That's a pretty serious EULA statement basically saying that if you want to make money on your work you can sell with us. But hey if for whatever reason they may decide not to distribute your work either. So this is not a good deal for publishers

What Else is Wrong With Apple's EULA

If you are a content provider on the internet you know things change rapidly and always. So what is good and working today may not be tommorrow. Apple may be the best distribution model out there now but what if that changes then you can't move your work somewhere else and charge for it? What do you mean this is Apple nothing can go wrong? Well, honestly it can and it has before remember Apple hasn't always been the darling of the tech world and these things change with time. A short time ago many people here on Hubpages.com were going a long fine making lots of money on their hubs or articles then guess what happened, Google had changed their ranking system and suddenly people who made a lot of money on their content suddenly didn't anymore. Just with one Google change. Those are happening every day. So some people stayed around here even till now and they have seen their rankings go back up and made more money. Others took their content they created and they own and went elsewhere to a place where the grass was greener. With Apple's model you could not do that. Not to mention with only their distribution channel it is going to become very crowded very quickly.

Will I Use This Product

I may use this product. I would like to try it out and see how well it works but I won't depend on any income I make from it. Because It could be taken away at anytime. I think there are a lot of other places to sell e books that don't have these restrictions in place. I'm hoping Apple changes this policy because I like their products and this could be a really good one.

Picture Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigb/22867852/