Venomous porridge

[GreyGeek]

From my G+ account:

DeWitt Clinton originally shared this post:

Imagine if when you used a D700 to take a photo, you owed Nikon a 30% cut if you ever sold it.

Imagine if when you used a Ultra SDHC to store the photo, you owed SanDisk a 30% cut.

Imagine if when you used Photoshop to retouch the photo, you owed Adobe a 30% cut.

Imagine if when you used a Mac when uploading the photo, you owed Apple a 30% cut.

Imagine if.

http://venomousporridge.com/post/161...-eula-audacity

[Snowhog]

Re: Venomous porridge

Imagine if every time you used a D700 to take a photo, you charged Nikon a 30% fee for 'advertising their product'.

Imagine if every time you used a Ultra SDHC to store the photo, you charged SanDisk a 30% fee for 'advertising' their product.

Imagine if every time you used Photoshop to retouch the photo, you charged Adobe a 30% fee for 'advertising' their product.

Imagine if every time you used a Mac when uploading the photo, you charged Apple a 30% fee for 'advertising' their product.

Imagine if...

It cuts both ways.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Venomous porridge

...
It cuts both ways.

Except that without the money to pay for lawyers to sue the corporations, or to bribes to Congress, Joe Sixpack's knife isn't sharp enough to cut.

[Snowhog]

Re: Venomous porridge

We both did say "Imagine if..."

[SteveRiley]

Re: Venomous porridge

This was an especially gripping paragraph:

Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented. I’m sure it’s commonplace with enterprise software, but the difference is that those contracts are negotiated by corporate legal departments and signed the old-fashioned way, with pen and ink and penalties and termination clauses. A by-using-you-agree-to license that oh by the way asserts rights over a file format?

If Microsoft were to attempt the exact same thing, the web would light up with uniformly negative criticism. Rightfully deserved, of course.

Therefore, I eagerly await equally scathing critique of this stupid move by Apple.

Oh, but wait -- that won't happen, of course. Did you read the comments posted after the article? Wow, the fanboys are really out in force, defending Apple's stance. Astounding.

[de_koraco]

Re: Venomous porridge

I don't see a problem here. Apple is not enforcing legal restrictions on the content, just the binary format. I mean, I don't see a legal problem, the DRM thing is as nasty as any other example of that kind of practice. But none of that matters, they're so far behind Amazon in taking on the print publishers, it's not even worth mentioning.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Venomous porridge

I don't see a problem here. Apple is not enforcing legal restrictions on the content, just the binary format....

The article states:

This restriction — that iBooks can be sold only in the iBookstore — isn’t enforced on a technical level. You can save the document, move it to your iPad in any of the usual ways (including just emailing it to yourself), and it happily opens in the iBooks app.

The tool allows you to export the text YOU wrote (based on your expertise, training, desire, etc..) in either an iBook, PDF or text format. The EULA states:

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.

Notice that the EULA doesn't make the distinction you make between "source" and "binary". What you wrote is called a "work". The only question is "do you sell it or give it away?" If you sell it Apple wants 30%.

Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty.

The article is arguing about Apple's legal "right" to make money on work of others just because they clicked through the EULA and then used the app to create the work. That question has already be settled in court. The "click through" or "plastic wrap" EULA is legally agreed to by the mere act of opening the plastic wrap surrounding the installation medium or clicking through to the next web page, even though the user may not be able to read the EULA to decide if they want to agree to the terms before breaking the seal. You can thank greedy politicians ("campaign donations") and judges (tripsforjudges.org) for that one. For the click through EULA you can blame the stupidity of users not caring what is in the EULA.

IF Apple's grasping is allowed to stand you can bet your last dollar that other software makers will create their own online stores and demand a percentage of any works sold for profit using their tools. Architects selling house plans, artists selling graphic art, authors writing books (even if they are printed on paper), etc...

It doesn't matter to Apple if you sell the "source" or the "binary", regardless of the format. All that matters is that you sold something you created using iBooks, be it saved in iBook, PDF or text. Although I fail to see how a text version of a graphical work would be appealing, Apple is covering all possible bases of income generation.

Now that the camel is IN the tent, it won't take long before other camels will get as equally greedy and add those terms to the user of their software. Once a bunch of software companies have established a legal basis for taking a cut of users personal income (reminds you of an extortion racket, doesn't it?), how long will it take for makers of tangible goods like drills, trucks and planes to add those terms to their legal documents? Then, the percentages will rise. Next it will be 35%, then 40%, then 50%, then you will become a minority partner, working for them. All because you agreed to it because the app was "free".

P.S. -- software is present in computer chips that are part of many tangible devices: cars, trucks, kitchen equipment, etc... What if those manufacturers decide that they are ENTITLED to a part of the income you generated using their equipment because it is software controlled?

[woodsmoke]

Re: Venomous porridge

So that means that I would have to pay Adobe a percentage of the sales of my online books because I supply them in .pdf format. Even though I have purchased the Adobe suite.

Eventually, after taxes, paying the secretary, paying the income tax preparer, paying the ISP for the web site, paying the online store a percentage, I would have nothing left to pay myself and I could then just stop the business and go back to sitting at the tiki bar, polishing the mahogany with my elbows.



woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Venomous porridge

.... polishing the mahogany with my elbows.
...

As long as you don't charge the bar owner for polishing his bar...

[woodsmoke]

Re: Venomous porridge

hmmmmmm

woodgettingelbowpadssmoke

[ardvark71]

Re: Venomous porridge

The EULA states:

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.

Notice that the EULA doesn't make the distinction you make between "source" and "binary". What you wrote is called a "work". The only question is "do you sell it or give it away?" If you sell it Apple wants 30%.

Incredible. My question is if EULA's like this will be able to stand up in court, despite its terms. It's decisions like these that drive me further into the Open Source camp, in terms of what I choose for software.

Regards...

[de_koraco]

Re: Venomous porridge

The tool allows you to export the text YOU wrote (based on your expertise, training, desire, etc..) in either an iBook, PDF or text format.

You're right, I didn't see that one. I figured they were applying restrictions on the binary format (what is it called, isomething?), not the intellectual content. i don't see this surviving the first legal challenge, and there are bound to be some in the future. If this thing even survives.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Venomous porridge

.....
Incredible. My question is if EULA's like this will be able to stand up in court, despite its terms. It's decisions like these that drive me further into the Open Source camp, in terms of what I choose for software.
....

A legal system which is capable of this travesty is capable of anything. The SCOTUS has now made ALL public domain software free for the taking by those with the political influen$e, and I don't mean the voters.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Venomous porridge

The reason that nobody knows about Blackmask online is because of the 2002 ruling which placed stuff that nobody wanted in the hands of people who MIGHT be able to make money from it at some unknown time in the future.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Re: Venomous porridge / first digital/print combo book

LOL
curiously, this is what I was kind of attempting at RevLinuxos.

I had one story already started and had the "prequel" started in another thread, eventually the stories would have been merged in a third thread, and with the limited capabilites of a forum's software, i had included pictures and the text from some songs(with attribution) and also included links sometimes to music at You Tube.

A combination digital and hard cover book.

Just exactly what the "Ipod"/Apple hardware/software could produce:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

woodsmoke