Apple iBooks 2 EULA Looks To Stifle eBook Publishers

I was all excited to hear about the new iBooks 2 Authoring tool. It looks cool, it seems fast to create good looking content and is a new door-way to get your ebooks published through the Apple iBook app.

Then, I read Ed Bott’s post called ‘Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement‘

Summary: Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program.

If like me you were considering publishing some new work through Apple’s iBooks using the new Authoring tool, you may want to looking into the licensing a little deeper. My idea was to use the tool to format my book and then export it to other platforms like the kindle, but Apple are basically saying… sorry mate… if we ain’t making money from all of your work you can’t use our tools.

As much as I think most of what Apple do is really cool, this seems another case of greed on their part.

What do you think? Were you thinking of using the Authoring tool like me?