I am currently teaching a Copyright and Fair Use class (emphasis on digital content) for LIS students at the University of Denver. Last week we spent some time talking about Apple's unprecedented (to me) move to lock in all author's to their storefront. At the time I had only spent a few hours reading through their End User's License Agreement, and it seemed to me then that I had never encountered anything so draconian, undemocratic, and downright ugly. Apple's behavior and attitude at the time seemed to be one of those rare instances that could rally all Americans of every political persuasion against them.
Such hyperbole worries me, and I did not (I hope) use such strong terms in class last week. But it certainly seems justified. Ed Blott has an excellent and thoroughly accurate breakdown of Apple's "evil" behavior here. Evil is his word, and while it is a hyperbolic use, I think it is a justifiable one. It is not evil in the sense of racism or holocaust evil, but in the Big Brother, undemocratic, antihuman spirit kind of evil. Apple has just made publishers look positively benign and puppy dog friendly.
The obvious question is,"How different is this from Amazon's exclusivity with the Kindle? I am not sure and I will have to do some thinking and research on the subject.
Such hyperbole worries me, and I did not (I hope) use such strong terms in class last week. But it certainly seems justified. Ed Blott has an excellent and thoroughly accurate breakdown of Apple's "evil" behavior here. Evil is his word, and while it is a hyperbolic use, I think it is a justifiable one. It is not evil in the sense of racism or holocaust evil, but in the Big Brother, undemocratic, antihuman spirit kind of evil. Apple has just made publishers look positively benign and puppy dog friendly.
The obvious question is,"How different is this from Amazon's exclusivity with the Kindle? I am not sure and I will have to do some thinking and research on the subject.
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