An iForce to be Reckoned With

Opening the news yesterday, a barrage of captions vied for my attention. One of the easier to overlook stories vanishes behind headlines touting tales of cowardly captains or questionable US behaviors about SOPA/PIPA failure-inspired retaliatory strikes by governmental agency against websites of equally questionable behavior. Hidden amongst all the other brouhaha, would-be author's will find something of potential interest. Apple intends to make a big splash with its iBooks Author publishing software. It [Apple] aims to revolutionize the digital text book publishing industry by offering easy to use tools for publishing aimed at a large target market of iDevices that uses standardized hardware the books can be displayed upon. Sweet! What more could an author ask for?

Cue sinister music along with a dark shadowy figure.

But not all is sunshine and smiles it seems. Taking a deeper look, one might see something more troublesome. The oft repeated phrase J.R.R. Tolkien coined, “One ring to rule them all” should be pulsing in an author's chest, reminding them of the corruptible power of the ring which represents the double edged sword a monopoly uses to control/subdue a market. What am I speaking of specifically? The buried EULA which states all published works can only be sold in the Apple iBookStore. Further qualifying, this applies to books sold for profit and does not include books given away for free.

To be more direct, as an aspiring author, I find Apple's buried-EULA restriction unacceptable. I'm confident more than a few Apple supporters would be quick to say, “You don't have to use Apple software. Nobody is forcing you. Apple doesn't want you (but they do want my money), we don't want you so go @#&^ off! Feel free to fill in your own colorful term but how @#&^. I prefer to use the term kiss off! Has a nice feel to it doesn't it?

But in my opinion, people claiming the “no one is forcing you” angle are missing the point. When a company such as [insert your favorite evil empire name here] has sufficient clout over a market that it resembles a monopoly, any pretense of a free market dies. Innovation builds on the ability to be flexible. If I can only sell my works to the old western store front facade in the form of an iStore, how can I reach my own Android phone? Oh, well, you can use a handy converter app and pay Apple a royalty if the Apple decides to permit it... wait a cotton picking minute. Sound familiar?

Heavy handed EULAs are not something Apple invented. They've been around for ages, but we shouldn't allow an entity to force a mandate down our throats when it comes to how we, as authors, are allowed to distribute our material unless there is room for negotiation on both sides of the table.