Link: A Writer’s EULA

Daniel Steinberg on the hideous and dra­con­ian iBooks Author EULA:

On the other hand, the work is my own. I’ve been told by a pub­lisher that they want a sec­ond edi­tion of one of my books. Their con­di­tions on me are that I drop this series of ebooks I’m work­ing on because it might com­pete with the title. When I said no they responded that that’s ok they’ll just get some­one else to revise my book.

My book.

It’s not really mine. Even though the copy­right is in my name, that turns out not to mean very much.

So am I both­ered by the iBooks Author EULA? No. But maybe that’s because I’ve been sign­ing con­tracts with tra­di­tional pub­lish­ers for so long.

It’s always fun to see how the tone changes once the blo­go­ratti stop bray­ing and the pro­fes­sion­als speak up.

via Daring Fireball