On 03/19/2012 09:52 AM, Matthias Schmitt wrote: > > All the confusion is part of the licence conditions of the "iBooks Author" > software, which comes for free from Apple. All eBooks not created with this > software are not part of this discussion. If they are distributed via the > Apple iTunes book store or not. > > As the "iBooks Author" software comes for free, Apple wants to earn money on > the book sales. If you create a book with "iBooks Author" and you give it > away for free, you may do so in any file format via the Apple iTunes book > store or any other distribution channel of your choice. > > If you want to charge money for your book and you want to distribute it in > the "iBooks Author" native file format '.ibooks', then and only then you have > to publish your book via the iTunes book store. If you are using the same > software and you are publishing the book in EPUB format, then this > restriction does not apply. > > Why? The '.ibooks' Format is based on the EPUB format with Apple specific > extensions. So this file format can only be read by Apple software. This > format embeds multimedia extensions in sound, moving pictures and animations, > which cannot be implemented with the current EPUB standard. If somebody want > to use these Apple specific features and wants to make money with them, then > he has to share his profit with Apple. This makes sense to me. > > As Scribus in a future version might allow the export of EPUB or MOBI > formatted files, this discussion is of no concern here. > Nonetheless, it would be lunacy to make an ebook and offer it through iTunes or Apple in some other way. I suspect they would happily convert an ePub or MOBI file to ibook format.
Greg
