Can Mobipocket Creator be used for commercial ebooks?

Todsplace · May 10, 2011

Hi guys,

I installed mobipocket, and it's End User License Agreement stumped me. It reads:

Subject to your compliance with all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Mobipocket grants to you a non-commercial, non-exclusive, non-assignable, non-sublicensable and otherwise non-transferable license to download, install and use the Software on your desktop or laptop computer, PDA, smartphone, or other appropriate device for your personal use. All rights not expressly granted to you by the foregoing sentence are reserved by Mobipocket. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you may not copy, modify, distribute or reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software, except that you may make one copy of the Software for back-up purposes. This license expressly excludes, without limitation, any resale, modification, or commercial use of the Software or any portion thereof and making any derivative works based upon or distributing or copying the Software, except as expressly permitted hereunder. Any unauthorized use terminates the permission or license granted by Mobipocket in this paragraph.

Does this mean people aren't supposed to use Mobipocket to make commercial (aka not just "personal-use") ebooks? It's odd because Amazon recommends Mobipocket on their site, and yet this EULA which is present upon installation and present in the installed directory (eula.rtf).

Installing the Publisher Edition does not yield a different EULA.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Todsplace

jnfr · May 10, 2011

I don't think so. It's referring to "the software" which is Mobipocket Creator. You can't resell or modify the software. They aren't talking about your book.

VoireyLinger · May 10, 2011

It means you can't sell or modify Mobipocket Creator. They don't care what you do with your own files.

cameron_chapman · May 10, 2011

Theoretically, the way it's written, it could exclude you from using it to create ebooks for other people for a fee ("commercial use"). Not sure if that's their intention or not, though. It's not blocking you from creating ebooks for yourself for resale (in other words, you can convert the ebooks you've written and sell the commercially without issue).

Todsplace · May 10, 2011

Thanks for the replies guys.

A part of me wonders if this is an old EULA. But I can't answer that either.

Can Mobipocket Creator be used for commercial ebooks?

Todsplace

jnfr

Always learning

VoireyLinger

Angel Wing Fetish

cameron_chapman

Makes Things Up

Todsplace