Now clearly, Rutherford was using the parable to illustrate the genius of the silent. Dirac, though one. What the poster failed to realize is that those trains rarely. Because our attempt at a direct proof failed, we next try a proof. However, a professor at the Presidency College recognized his genius and supported him,.
Update: This post is part of a series. If you find this topic interesting, I recommend you read these follow-ups as well:
I read EULAs so you don't have to. I've spent years reading end user license agreements, EULAs, looking for little gotchas or just trying to figure out what the agreement allows and doesn't allow.
I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple's EULA for its new ebook authoring program.
Dan Wineman calls it 'unprecedented audacity' on Apple's part. For people like me, who write and sell books, access to multiple markets is essential. But that's prohibited:
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.
Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech.
I've downloaded the software and had a chance to skim the EULA. Much of it is boilerplate, but I've read and re-read Section 2B, and it does indeed go far beyond any license agreement I've ever seen:
B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its 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 subscription-based product orservice), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate 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 for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.
And then the next paragraph is bold-faced, just so you don't miss it:
Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (includingwithout limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.
The nightmare scenario under this agreement? You create a great work of staggering literary genius that you think you can sell for 5 or 10 bucks per copy. You craft it carefully in iBooks Author. You submit it to Apple. They reject it.
Under this license agreement, you are out of luck. They won't sell it, and you can't legally sell it elsewhere. You can give it away, but you can't sell it. Updated to add: By 'it,' I am referring to the book, not the content. The program allows you to export your work as plain text, with all formatting stripped. So you do have the option to take the formatting work you did in iBooks Author, throw it away, and start over. That is a devastating potential limitation for an author/publisher. Outputting as PDF would preserve the formatting, but again the license would appear to prohibit you from selling that work, because it was generated by iBooks Author.
One oddity I noticed in the agreement is that the term Work is not defined. [Update: Yes, it is, as I noticed on a fourth reading. It's in an 'Important Note' above the agreement itself: 'any book or other work you generate using this software (a 'Work').' Of course, that uses the term 'work' recursively.] It's capitalized in the relevant sections of the EULA, and it clearly is the thing of value that Apple wants from an author. Leaving that term so poorly defined is not exactly malpractice, but it's sloppy lawyering.
I'm also hearing, but have not been able to confirm, that the program's output is not compatible with the industry-standard EPUB format. Updated: An Apple support document notes that '¦iBooks uses the ePub file format' and later refers to it as 'the industry-leading ePub digital book file type.' But iBooks Author will not export its output to that industry-leading format.
My longtime friend Giesbert Damaschke, a German author who has written numerous Apple-related books, says via Twitter that 'iBA generates Epub (sort of): save as .ibooks, rename to .epub (won't work with complex layouts, cover will be lost).' Even if that workaround produces a usable EPUB file, however, the license agreement would seem to explicitly prohibit using the resulting file for commercial purposes outside Apple's store.
As a publisher and an author, I obviously have a dog in this hunt. But what I see so far makes this program and its output an absolute nonstarter for me.
I'll be writing more fully on this issue after I've had a chance to use the program and to inspect the EULA under a microscope.
Oh, and let's just stipulate that I could send an e-mail to Apple asking for comment, or I could hand-write my request on a sheet of paper and then put it in a shredder. Both actions would produce the same response from Cupertino. But if anyone from Apple would care to comment, you know where to find me.
Related Topics:
Apple Government Tech IndustryKindle apps will show sideloaded KFX book covers in the thumbnail view, but e-ink Kindle devices may sometimes show a generic thumbnail instead.
Starting with Kindle firmware version 5.8.5 cover thumbnails are no longer supported for personal documents. If thumbnails are desired, use the default conversion option to create a 'book' instead.
Starting with calibre version 3.29, when the 'Send to device' function is used to send a KFX book to an e-ink Kindle, a cover thumbnail image will also be sent. Use of older calibre versions or sideloading books to the Kindle without using calibre may result in missing cover thumbnails. (The ExtractCoverThumbs program can be used as an alternative to calibre for producing thumbnails. See the MobileRead thread.)
Amazon identifies books that it sells using a ten character Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN). If an ASIN is set in a KFX book then the e-ink Kindle device will automatically download the corresponding cover thumbnail image from Amazon's servers when the book is sideloaded. This will replace any thumbnail that may have been add by calibre when the book was sent to the device.
Setting an ASIN can be used to force the Kindle to download cover thumbnails from Amazon in cases when the calibre 'Send to device' function is not being used to transfer books. Your Kindle will need to have a Wi-Fi or 3G connection for this to work properly.
In order to set an ASIN:
- Search amazon.com with a web browser for an Amazon Kindle book equivalent to the book you are converting and bring up its page. The Amazon web page must be for a Kindle-edition, a print edition will not work. If there is no equivalent book this procedure will not work. (If your Kindle is registered with an account at a country-specific Amazon site, such as amazon.co.uk, then you must use ASINs from the same site. Each Amazon web site uses its own ASINs.)
- The web browser address bar will have something like 'https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005MZN2B2/...'. The ASIN for the book is the 10-character string that begins with a 'B'.
- In calibre select your book, choose 'Edit Metadata', and in the 'Ids:' field add 'amazon:B005MZN2B2' (without the quotes and using the ASIN you discovered). If there is something already in the 'Ids:' field then separate the new information with a comma.
Calibre supports ASINs for country-specific Amazon stores by appending the country code to the identifier name when creating the 'amazon' identifier. For example:amazon:B0064CPN7I --> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064CPN7I
amazon_uk:B00BAJ6GL2 --> https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BAJ6GL2
amazon_de:B016PFA0YO --> https://www.amazon.de/dp/B016PFA0YO - You can verify that the ASIN is set correctly by selecting the book in calibre and looking at the book details panel (usually on the far right). There should be an 'Amazon.com' entry in the 'Ids:' section. Click on 'Amazon.com' there and your browser will open to the associated web page. Verify that the browser shows the expected book and that it is a Kindle edition, not a print edition. Use 'Edit Metadata' to fix the ASIN if not.
- Convert the book to KFX and sideload it to your kindle device. After you eject your Kindle from your computer the cover thumbnail will be automatically downloaded from Amazon's servers.