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Infinite Loop / The Apple Ecosystem

Enthusiasm for iBooks Author marred by licensing, format issues

iBooks Author makes it extremely easy to author interactive e-books for …

Educators so far seem excited about the potential promise of a learning "revolution" enabled by Apple's new iBooks Author app. However, not everyone is feeling that same level of enthusiasm: e-book publishing experts have concerns about the formatting that iBooks Author can output, which isn't fully ePub 2 or ePub 3 compliant. Furthermore, Apple has added a clause to iBooks Author's end user license agreement that prohibits selling e-books created with iBooks Author anywhere but the iBookstore.

iBooks created by iBooks Author use ePub 2 along with certain HTML5 and JavaScript-based extensions that Apple uses to enable multimedia and interactive features. Those interactive features will only work with Apple's iBooks app, not with other e-reader software or hardware, because only Apple supports those extensions.

Still, there shouldn't be any technical limitation to exporting a strictly ePub 2-compliant ePub document if none of the interactive features are used. Unfortunately, iBooks Author only exports PDFs and text.

"It's disappointing that iBooks Author is such a good tool, but you can't just export to standard ePub," user experience expert Nick Disabato told Ars. Last year, Disabato self-published a treatise on user interaction design called Cadence & Slang. He has since been working on translating the original book created in InDesign into standard ePub format.

"InDesign can export to ePub, but it's not perfect," Disabato said. "Fortunately for me, I can go in and tweak the code by hand." But not every author is so technically inclined.

"ePub 3 covers most of the interaction stuff in iBooks. It's a little disappointing that Apple hasn't adopted it yet. There's not a single e-reader that supports it yet, and Apple could have really accelerated adoption of the standard," said Disabato.

"Audacious" licensing restriction

Beyond the format issues is a particularly troubling clause in the iBooks Author EULA. E-books made with iBooks Author can be given away for free wherever and however an author wants. But e-books offered for sale can only be distributed via the iBookstore, and nowhere else:

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.

Several independent publishers have called the clause "unacceptable," "ridiculous," and "audacious."

"They could have made an amazing tool, and encouraged people to create their own content," HTML and ePub expert Liz Castro told Ars. "[Apple is] being greedy."

At first blush, the restriction seems implausible. "I was baffled at that restriction—I am not a lawyer, but that seems like overreaching on that," Disabato added. "It's not a good impression."

However, we consulted technology and IP attorney Evan Brown to understand whether this is truly as crazy as it seems. "The notion of placing a 'condition' on the use of software is at the heart of software and content licensing," Brown explained.

"The offending language in the iBooks Author EULA is a condition on the use of the software, sort of disguised as a condition on the use of the books that are created," Brown said. "Imagining how this might play out in a dispute reveals the nuance. Say a user makes her iBooks Author created work available for sale through some non-Apple platform. Would Apple sue, claiming that that book is infringing? Of course not—it would lose that lawsuit big time. Instead, Apple would claim that the use of iBooks Author to create that work violated this condition of the EULA, thus was beyond the scope of the EULA, and thus was infringement. Any lawsuit would be for infringement of the software, not of the book."

Still, Krista Stevens, editor-in-chief of Web publishing site A List Apart, believes Apple's restrictions are a serious pitfall. "My initial enthusiasm for iBooks Author is dashed by Apple's strangle hold on alternate distribution channels," she said via Twitter. "If Apple really wanted to make a difference in education they'd champion distribution, not limit it."

Of course, an argument could be made that iBooks Author is free software, and made by Apple specifically for iBooks. "If Apple ties Pearson and others to the iBookstore so that teachers can have iBooks Author for free, I think I'm OK with that." Fraser Speirs, head of information technology for Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland, said via Twitter.

Disabato seemed to cautiously agree. "iBooks Author can definitely benefit independent authors, empower them, and bring additional democratization to publishing, but there's a trade-off there. I'm willing to accept the limitations in the short term to get publishers on board, but I hope Apple moves forward on this," he said.

However, not everyone will be willing to accept that compromise. "I bridle at anyone telling me where I can sell my books," Castro wrote on her blog. "Even if I only wanted to sell through the iBookstore I would be annoyed at Apple making me sign a paper to that effect."

Futhermore, Stevens said, "making iBooks Author free is a grand gesture that falls flat because of distribution limits."

The limitations might be even worse than some suspect, too. A source who asked not to be identified told Ars that the iTunes Connect contract required to distribute content via the iBookstore contains a clause (section 3a) that states, in effect, that if you sell some of your content on the iBookstore, you have to sell all of your content on the iBookstore. The full implications aren't clear, but it seems to suggest that if you have e-Book titles available elsewhere, Apple could have the right to also sell those titles.

Troubling licensing terms have ruffled the feathers of developers and publishers in the past, though Apple largely backed away from the most worrisome issues. It's possible that the backlash against these licensing terms could result in a similar outcome.

But, as Evans told Ars, the likelihood of Apple ever filing such a lawsuit is pretty slim. "I think it's about as likely as Jimmy Wales and Lamar Smith taking a Mediterranean cruise together."

(Regardless, we suspect many would-be authors and self-publishers may not like the specter of Apple's legal team floating over their heads.)

Who will give e-book power to the people?

iBooks Author is still a 1.0 product—for instance, it only has six templates total, and all of them are designed for textbooks—so the formatting issues could be resolved in a future version. The iBooks Author licensing could also change in the short term, as well. We contacted Apple to clarify their position on the licensing, but got no response.

If iBooks Author isn't quite the "GarageBand for e-books" we had hoped for, however, it may be just the impetus for other software developers to fill the void with a cross-platform tool that creates standard ePub files that work across several distribution platforms.

"The parameters for ePub are known, so I don't know what's stopping others from creating something as good as iBooks Author for Windows or Linux," Disabato said. "That market it wide open. If developers can find a way to export to different platforms at once, it'll be really great."

Let's hope that both Apple and other developers are paying attention.

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