Discussion on:

Apple's dirty little EULA publishing secret

South Park recently did a parody of the Apple EULA.

I won't go into details here - but the analogy was actually quite appropriate.

Between Apple and Microsoft, we're fked.

If only Linux had some marketing power.

Have you ever seen any Microsoft EULA as Draconian as this? In fact [depending on the software] some of Microsoft's EULAs are very tame. Typical Linux user biasness.

Just because Apple (or anyone else) puts such nonsense in their EULA, doesn't mean it will hold up in court. Sounds a bit unreasonable to me, and it probably wouldn't be too tough to convince a judge or jury of same. Although having to deal with it at all is probably enough for me to avoid using the product.

But who will have the money to last their court battles? They will exhaust you before you have a chance to get it thrown out.

Probably some law firm who's looking for some publicity would go after Apple [partially for the publicity] as they know they have a good chance of winning.

Wishful think is involved here?

Companies don't do anything like this unless there is something in it for them and you would want to be very High Profile for it to be worth their while.

Sure things may get thrown out when they reach Court many actually do but the Time & Expense involved rightfully put all sane people off wanting to experience the Court Process.

Col

Remenmber that most law firms [in this type of case] may set things up such that they only get paid if they win. Of course going after Apple will mean plenty of court time and other expenses. So they can probably deduct all that from any compensation awarded.

Before you need them and you'll find out just how difficult it actually is.

Then feel free to go and flout the EULA and wait for Apple to come calling. I appear in Court as an Expert Witness for things related to IT and to be perfectly Honest I don't like it that much.

To willingly want to rush into Court having your Goolies on the Line and everything else that you own in the hope of getting even partially free representation is a sure sign of Insanity.

It's one thing saying this is what should happen and it's entirely a different thing living it.

Col

Mr Wallen,

thank you for the information. I have not yet come across this particular case, but it fits very well into the picture. Some big boys in business do their utmost to make judges consider small boys subject to such practices to be seen and treated as half-innocent minor consumers in the need of protection. Such EULAs and business models are therefore likely to die a fast, not a slow, but nevertheless painful death.

In the other way, this EULA blog reminds me of a story where some company his in their EULA a toll free number and said something like "if you are one of the first 3 to read this call our number". It took 3 months from the releasefor the first to call and another 3 months for the second and third to call.

Seriously, consumers generally don't read EULAs but many businesses go through some or all of it to see if there were any advantages. As an example, Adobe allowed FrameMaker and Acrobat [maybe 10 years ago] to be installed on as many computers as you want - just as long as the number of licenses in use didn't exceed the number of licenses bought. You had to keep track and therefore required third party software to keep track.

That said in it's EULA that by accepting the terms and Conditions in the EULA you gave them your Immortal Soul.

I still love that Pommie Game Companies logic.

Col

... even more determined not to touch anything coming from Apple. Ever. Not even with the borrowed 10ft pole.

Heard about the "free" ebook publishing software and thought it was great. But like all things Apple, how good it is really is defined by what you're not allowed to do out of the box.

This particular limitation makes the product a non-starter for any serious author or writer who intends to commercialize their work. Why would you lock yourself into an exclusive distribution relationship with Apple when you could just use another tool?

Thanks for the heads up, not that I am likely to use this software. I don't usually read EULAs because I, perhaps somewhat naively, depend on folks like you to alert me to the bad ones.

mark

Until Apple fixes the wording of this EULA, all writes should avoid publishing under them, as though they had the black plague!

I would never buy any Apple product for the simple reason that everything they sell is sizzle, no steak. Their original ideas are almost nil; they takes other inventions and spin them. The EULA under discussion is just one more reason I will never buy or use an Apple product. One cannot trust them at all. They just spin masters, no substance except for their legal team.

This isn't a "misstep" by apple....THIS IS APPLE, Jiminy christmas will you wake up already?

Imagine if Case demanded a cut of every piece of revenue generated in a building built using Case earthmoving equipment (backhoes, excavators, bulldozers, graders, you get the idea). Imagine if Bridgeport demanded a cut of ever piece of revenue generated by everything built using parts machined by their equipment. Imagine if Intel could be accused as an accessory to every crime committed using equipment with an Intel processor in it. Unfortunately, our founding fathers didn't want to risk guaranteeing people any kind of rights to the fruits of their own PRODUCTIVE labor, so they said "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", instead of "life, liberty and property" and didn't require a balanced budget. Eisenhower warned us about the power of the military-industrial complex, but it was probably already too late.

I can think of at least two possible solutions to this kind of ULA:
1. Require that every ULA (and law) be like construction design codes in consisting of two parts, one that states everything you're agreeing to in simple terms, and one that explains all the ifs, ands and buts, etc. for the lawyers and crooks trying to get around it.
2. Require that anyone agreeing to a ULA that takes an average reader longer than 1 minute to read be paid by the company for the additional minutes at twice minimum wage. (If I had been paid by Microsoft at minimum wage, for every hour I've spent trying to get their OS to work properly, trying to get around bugs in their software, relearning things they forced me to relearn by changing things for the sake of change, and fixing problems with their software; they would be paying me to use their software.)

The business models of today appear to be to get people to agree to things by making it cost more to them to find out what they're agreeing to than they can afford while forcing them to pay for the legal system that will then be used to enforce the agreement, or to encourage people into becoming dependent on things either by deception/withholding information, or creating a de-facto monopoly as a single source for what they need.

If I prepare something on Apple's service, who's the copyright holder? If I'm the copyright holder, does their ULA violate the intent of copyright law?

It is icky, but if you were a musician signed with Arista, wouldn't they hold you in contract against signing another deal with Capitol Records?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I would assume if you used an old-media publisher like O'Reilly, you'd have to have special permission to publish that work elsewhere as well. I guess maybe that's the difference between a publisher and distributor.

There has to be some way to distribute iBooks without getting into an exclusive agreement with Apple, otherwise how are there so many pre-published works in the iBook bookstore?

Don't get me wrong here -- I both love Apple products and hate their legal team as much as the next guy. I just wonder if maybe there's more to this than a one-page blog can tell. For example, where is "Work" defined?

EULA is really illegal.It's a virus.I suspect that right there at the EULA during install is a prompt from the BIOS that you never get to see.

I would classify EULA as a popup.

"Imagine if Microsoft attempted to lay claim to anything you had written using MS Word. Or what if Adobe took you to court saying the images you created using Photoshop were their property?"

Wow. I kept reading this kind of logic in many tech news sites lately.

It seems you and many people writing for tech news sites are treating MS Word and Adobe Photoshop as FREE software like iBooks Author.

Is there something you and those people working at tech new site know (or get) that the rest of us don't??

Perhaps you get free personal copies of MS and Adobe software because you work at Techrepublic and have forgotten how pricey MS and Adobe software are?

My company does not provide free MS or Adobe software for me to use at home. Damn.

How about imagine if Microsoft gives Word away for free. Or what if Adobe provide Adobe Photoshop to people at no cost?

Since iBooks Author is free and if EULA is a problem, the solution is simply NOT to use iBooks Author to create ebooks. iBooks store acccepts standard EPUB files created by other authoring tools.

you can check apples all details at google by searching apple accessories. i always check sell mobiles from their. and this website http://www.mobile-phone.pk/buy-sell-mobiles/
is a great source of selling your old phones

If you don't get a chance to agree or not agree, then the company can't even guarantee you read it. (and that's over and above the legality of any of the terms--if they cannot be comprehended easily by an average reader, I would question the enforceability of the provisions, especially in front of a jury, regardless of how well-dressed Apple's lawyers are.)

Their products are great.
Buy they have no respect for customers and for workers. What is going on at "their" Foxcom factories is modern age slavery, so they can achieve US$ 400.000 profit per employee.
Apple and Steve have a very bad dark side to them, hidden behind beautiful products.
Lets stop supporting all company that dont respect their customers and workers.

"If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software ??? you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."

The original:

"If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a ???Work???), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."

Cheap shot artist: Replacing "a Work" with "...".

Don't you hate it when someone nails you by intentionally changing your quote and acting as if they didn't?

"If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software ??? you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."

Sorry, the dots you added were missing above.

"If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software "???" you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."

Sorry. Seems the blog sw removes the "..." unless you put quotes around it.

Interesting. My "..." worked but the "..." within the quote of the Eula produces
" "!

The user group of Apple electronics should have their own name: iTard. I don't believe they can read, because if all Apple-users did read the EULA, just a few of them would agree to it. Most people with some brains wouldn't, but I guess that's too much to expect from the army of iTards.

Interesting that you mention Apple and Amazon as competitors in the ebook arena -- only about a month after Apple colluded with Amazon to cripple Stanza.