What if printed books went by ebook rules? | OUPblog

Whenever I read a book on my iPad, for example, I have tacitly agreed to the 15,000-word statement of terms and conditions for the iTunes store. It's written by lawyers in language so dense and tedious it seems designed not to be read, except by other lawyers, and that's odd, since these Terms of Service agreements (TOS) concern the use of books that are designed to be read. But that's OK, because Apple, the source of iBooks, and Amazon, with its similar Kindle Store, are not really publishers and not really booksellers. They're "content providers" who function as third-party agents. And these agents seem to think that ebooks are not really books: Apple insists on calling them, not iBooks, but "Books Store Products," and Amazon calls them, not Kindle books, but "Kindle Content."