Socially Mundane

The headline above is utterly laughable and why you really should never throw much weight into the authenticity or authority of any so-called news media. All of them, especially blogger - even for “big names” like Ars Technica, ever since Walter Cronkite left the business. I mean really, Ars Technica? Are you decking serious?

The headline above is an Ars Technica headline. I saw it an laughed, then shook my head, then considered it confirmed that blog is no better than all the rest who will write anything, no matter how stupid, inaccurate and downright wrong, just to get more clicks.

Here is why the End User License Agreement and its restrictions are perfectly legal, nay, the correct option for the iBooks Author application:

• It is called iBooks Author, hence it is a tool specifically intended for creating and outputting iBooks-compatible content. Being able to repurpose that output into any other format is a generous optional bonus Apple has seen fit in their hearts to allow (PDF and plain text files) - anything else is technically reverse-engineering and a DMCA violation.
• The restriction that anything created and output in the iBooks file format with iBooks Author can only be sold through iBooks makes perfect sense. The app is obviously designed as a development tool for the iBookstore. This is not so say the content itself cannot be sold anywhere you wish, only the iBooks-formatted file that is output from the application.
• If you wish to create an iBooks-formatted file and give it away for free to the whole wide world, there is no restriction to do this. Have at it. It will be ‘pirated’ across the Internet and around the world within minutes, so you may as well give it away free.
• The end purpose of iBooks Author is to create iBooks-formatted files for use in iBooks and sold through iTunes (it is essentially an iTunes Development Tool). It is not intended to be some “publishing application” akin to Microsoft word or Adobe InDesign. Because Apple is providing it as a development tool for a specific platform (iBooks) they can put any restriction on the output of that tool they so choose.
• If you want to sell the content in your multi-touch book anywhere you want beyond iTunes then do so, just don’t use iBooks Author iTunes Development Tool to create the files.

The stupid, ridiculous dipshit hysteria only goes to show how ignorant and gullible people are, including so-called media such as Ars Technica. They are only fueling the flames for no reason other than to get page-views and advertising revenue (which is why I use my own tools that scrape their content without ever loading their web-pages. So sue me).

I reiterate: the content you produce in iBooks Author is not restricted from sale through any channel you choose, you daft dullards. The digital computer files produced by iBooks Author are restricted from sale, except through the platform that application is designed to produce for. How freaking gullible can you get?

Typical workflow is that you will write your text copy in Microsoft Word or Pages, create your interactive elements in Keynote or Powerpoint and your video in iMovie or FinalCut or some another variation of these applications. Then you will import these separate works into iBooks Author to lay-out the final publication.

It is the iBooks Author-created layout and experience that you cannot sell anywhere except in iTunes (duh! The layout only works in iBooks, you idiot). What you have created in all those other apps you can sell to your heart’s content anywhere else in the world through any venue in the world - in ePub, Kindle, or some other format.

Besides, here’s why you do not want to sell your iBooks version 2 multi-touch ebooks on your own: piracy. If you sell it through iTunes, Apple adds the FairPlay protection to it. If you sell it as a plain download from your web site, what’s to keep me from throwing that file all over the interwebs? As for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble and all the rest, those are just plain old Mobi and ePub files. So go ahead and sell your stuff all you want.

Stop your idiotic hysterical whining over the iBooks Author EULA because you only broadcast to the rest of the world how childish and stupid you really are. Especially you retard dip-shit bloggers writing for wanna-be important authoritative media outlets like Ars Technica and Gawker and the rest.