Apple gets into the book-banning business
Apple's refused to allow an application called "Comic Reader" in the iTunes Store because they don't like the comic book it ships with -- effectively, they've gotten into the business of banning or approving literature. I bought a G1 instead of an iPhone because I believed that giving any company the right to decide what programs I can use (Apple uses DRM to prevent unapproved programs from running on the iPhone) would be a bad idea in theory and in practice. "Program" and "art" can sometimes be very close together, and whatever else Apple is, they're not qualified to judge which art I'm allowed to look at.
Who at Apple has been set up to vet material? Specifically, why was Murderdrome vetted as an application and not as a publication? Apple has a Books category in the App Store. That’s where Murderdrome should have been placed.Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book! (Thanks, Reid!)
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The cult of the shiny products doesn't like to talk about the bad stuff they do. God forbid it was Microsoft that did it, though...
I've been looking around, trying to figure out how the program works. It looks like each comic is bundled for sale as a separate program and offered for sale through Apple's App Store.
If we're to regard Murderdrome as a publication, and not an application, then that raises the question of whether a cartoonist can publish their own comic for reading through Comic Reader, without going through Infurious Comics.
Saying apple is in the book banning business for not selling a product in their store is like saying boingboing bans free speech for having a comment moderation policy.
Also, the app was rejected for violating terms of the Software Developer Kit. How do you know what terms were violated? You are just guessing that it is due to the content of the included comic.
Whatever. Explain again why Apple is obligated to host or provide content? PR issues aside, they don't HAVE to do anything.
The situations are not analogous: Boing Boing isn't a device that you purchase, it's a publication.
Apple has a 100 percent monopoly over expression on the iPhone. The prevailing argument for this monopoly has been the prevention of malware and bad code on the phone.
Now Apple is using this power to make artistic judgments and enforce them against *every single iPhone user on the planet*.
Boing Boing's editorial decisions about which links we pick determine what you can see if you only follow Boing Boing links. Apple's decision to block a general-purpose comic-book reader because it comes bundled with a comic they don't like restricts your total, overall capacity to read comics on the iPhone.
Apple doesn't *have* to allow this comic book reading application or this comic on their phones. I don't think the law should compel them to do so.
However, Apple uses a law -- the DMCA -- to legally threaten other developers, artists, and customers who try to install unapproved material on their own bought-and-paid-for phones, and this, combined with Apple's new enforcement regime against comics because they don't like their content is sufficient grounds for me to boycott their products, and to encourage others to do the same.
You may want to put a publicly traded company whose first loyalty is to its shareholders in charge of what you can do with your own property, in your own house. I think that's a bad decision, and I'm saying so, publicly, here, in the hopes that you and others will be convinced of that.
Hi there!
As the artist and the guy who designed the comic reader app (brilliantly realised in code by Phil Orr) I'd like to address a couple of questions:
"specifically, why was Murderdrome vetted as an application and not as a publication?"
Murderdrome IS an application - an application that bundles content and reader into one thing. The AppStore didn't even have a book section until one company did the same thing with books and swamped the entertainment section with their books/apps - AFAIK this caused apple to add a 'book' section. I'm guessing the idea of publications as applications caught Apple on the hop. (BTW you can read the Murderdrome Ashcan - essentially the content of the comic - for free at our website - I think it's hilariously funny... but tastes differ...)
The only class of application that can contain a developer applied self-rating is games - everything else has, essentially, PG rated.
" then that raises the question of whether a cartoonist can publish their own comic for reading through Comic Reader, without going through Infurious Comics. "
Anyone can create their own comic reader application - in fact, Apple have some code on their developer forum that is a cinch to make a very simple comic reader (if you've signed up look for 'scrolling') BUT you need to know how to program, you need to be an apple developer (ie pay the $99 Apple developer fee) and you need to not mind dealing with things that aren't in the normal realm of being a cartoonist.
Alternatively, they can get in touch with us and we can help them, using our code (which is STILL - a few months after its debut - the most advanced comic reader available), put their comic on the AppStore (end plug)
"Also, the app was rejected for violating terms of the Software Developer Kit. How do you know what terms were violated?"
I can confirm, uncategorically, that the App was rejected due to violent content - unfortunately Apple's email to that effect is too vague to use as a guideline for re-submittal (and the content of murderdrome - a loopy, ultra-violent spoof of early 70s british boys comics, would be pretty hamstrung - not to say pointless - by removing the ultra-violence)
"Whatever. Explain again why Apple is obligated to host or provide content? PR issues aside, they don't HAVE to do anything."
I don't think anyone made that case - certainly Infurious haven't - we'd like Apple to use the same rating system that can be applied to games to apply to books/comics - if they do that (and again, they don't have to) the doors will be wide open for what's possible on the iPhone/iPod touch as a comic platform - right now, the only gamble any company will take will be on reprinting 'safe' material (certainly you'll never see Watchmen in that format)
-pj
www.infuriouscomics.com
ps If anyone wants to see the code in action, you can buy our kids comics -'EyeCandy#1: Masked Marshall' and 'EyeCandy#1: Beatnik High' from the AppStore.
Cory you raise some good points about the differences between the iphone and boingboing comment moderation.
I guess I just do not see this as big deal as they have already not allowed porn and such in the app store. Also they still provide safari, and a photo-viewer, etc. so there are plenty of other ways to view this "banned content"
I still see nothing that suggests Apple banned the comic app due to content, just that it violates Apple's SDK. The blog referenced just guesses which part was violated. So until we know why, this is all conjecture.
Before embracing a new technology, you should ask yourself a simple question: who does it empower? Once you have an answer to that one, you vote with your wallet. No big deal.
"or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."
I don't know about you, but I find DRM to be objectionable. They're breaking their own SDK.
If Microsoft was telling you what you can or can't install in your own machine, you would be all in arms (rightly, I think such idea is in teh back burner of "brilliant ones" in Redmond HQ).
The funny thing is to see all the Apple apologists coming out of the woods and defend the indefensible: the emasculation of the power of computing.
I failed my Saving Throw vs. Shiny with the iPhone, I confess. However, it's been a heartbreaking process, very similar to when I got a PSP: A running firefight with the people who built it to get it to do what I want.
Monstrously disappointing. Monstrously. I had hoped that Apple would be different from Sony in this regard. Utter, complete, Epic Fail. I don't own this iPhone, Steve Jobs does - which is why when the contract lapses, it's going in the recyc. Or possibly the microwave.
Errr, the date on the blog post you link to is August 25th. A lot can happen in four months, especially online as we all know. Perhaps Apple may have changed their minds or backtracked since then?
The interesting thing is that Google can just as easily ban applications on the G1 as well. Google has admitted there is a kill switch in their application that can deactivate ANYTHING they want...over the air.
Having said that, I have had my phone jailbroken before and considering Jobs told all of us that we bought the phone -- they weren't subsidized -- I don't find anything immoral about this. Hell, I switched to AT&T after Sprint threw an over the air update to a phone of mine that killed most of the bluetooth features of a phone I bought specifically for this...I'll never buy another phone I can't hack.
Still, Apple is clear about their policies...it wouldn't be hard to make an app that doesn't have the banned content and downloads it in the first time. Just so Apple doesn't have to serve the content in the first place. Lot of book readers out there do this on the iPhone and Apple isn't banning them...in fact, one of the ones that does this is featured on the Apple site.
When Jobs was questioned about Apple's kill-switch and approvals process, he made it clear that he was worried about malware and bad code -- he conveniently left out the "also, we will be prohibiting anything we decide is bad art." I suspect that the omission was deliberate. You don't think that this represents a step into regulation of speech that's qualitatively different from preventing viruses and buggy apps?
Apple is *clear* about their policies? Apple of the "not allowed because it might maybe be competitive with us" and "not allowed because we arbitrarily think there's not enough demand" random gatekeeping? Apple of the "your rejection notice is under NDA" policy? Please.
There is a big difference between 'banning books' (i.e. insisting they be made illegal, including public libraries) and any given bookseller deciding that they don't want some books for sale in their stores.
Every merchant in the US has the right to not sell anything they don't feel comfortable with.
The Christian Science Reading room not having a copy of 'Dianetics' is not book banning. Barnes and Noble not having 'Juggs' on its magazine rack is not banning. My local children's bookstore not carrying 'American Psycho' is not banning.
This is more analogous to the sole printer with access to a press that can run paperbacks (and with a history of suing people who try to publish their own paperbacks) refusing to print books that contain material they view as objectionable.
But even that analogy breaks down: we're not talking about whether Apple will or won't "carry" the book. We're talking about whether people who *own* iPhones can opt to use this app. Because Apple threatens to sue people who make apps that run on the iPhone without their permission, they establish a long tether between their headquarters and the pockets of every iPhone owner in the world.
Here's a better analogy, perhaps: this is like Borders deciding not to carry a certain book -- and then sending people around to your house to take the book off your shelf if it is on the same shelf as one of the books they've sold you.
Here's a question. Does BoingBoing publish every link that's submitted to them? The answer, of course is no. Just as you evaluate stories to see if they fit into the general vibe of what you've created here so Apple has the right to do the same for content to be viewed on the product that they've created. Show me where Apple has tried to remove a person's right to view said comic on any other medium and then you have a point. Otherwise you're just blowing smoke.
When a person chooses to buy an iPhone they choose to accept the limitations that come with it. Apple is under no obligation to make every piece of content available on the iPhone, just as you are not under any obligation to purchase one.
Your beef seems to be with capitalism, not censorship. Sorry, but this one's a stretch anyway you look at it.
There's a difference -- you don't own Boing Boing -- but you do own your iPhone!
Capitalism is all about property -- if Apple invades your property to tell you how you may and may not use it, they upset the very foundation of a market economy, the principle that people own things.
You may own your iPhone, but you don't own the software on it -- you license it. (This is one of the sucky things about software.)
If you take the object code of that software, load it as raw digital audio, chop it into a rhythm and use it in a music track that you distribute, that's probably some kind of violation of copyright :/
So it seems like this boils down to an objection that Apple has locked down the iPhone - their refusal to carry a comic in their store is only problematic because they have a monopoly.
Take away the DRM-created monopoly, and everyone's insistence that Apple has the right to carry or not carry whatever they like are a lot more reasonable.
The G1's open application process has already backfired http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/11/g1_roaming/
You mislead your readers when you suggest that the G1 phone is superior to the iPhone because of the iPhone's kill switch.
The G1 also has a kill switch. (And, if you think about it, every similar device will need to have a kill switch so that viruses & such can be controlled.)
If that's an indicator of the quality of the research that you did for the rest of this article, then you need to raise your standards.
Cory, Apple isn't restricting my "total, overall capacity to read comics on the iPhone." I just did a search for "comics" on the App Store and came up with dozens of results. Look, I'm one of the people who should be the natural market for this sort of thing, but if Infurious' intention was to market the app, they should have picked a better comic to bundle with it, and if their intention was to market Murderdrome, then screw 'em. I mean, what if they had bundled the app with Rapeman?
Anyway, doesn't jailbreaking make this a moot point?
In a similar vein of a company trying to tell you what you do do with a product after you purchased it, I point out this MSNBC headline.
"Musicians don’t want tunes used for torture"
(from article)
Bob Singleton, whose song “I Love You” is beloved by legions of preschool Barney fans, wrote in a newspaper opinion column that any music can become unbearable if played loudly for long stretches.
“It’s absolutely ludicrous,” he wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “A song that was designed to make little children feel safe and loved was somehow going to threaten the mental state of adults and drive them to the emotional breaking point?”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28144557/page/2/
Cory I hope you do the right thing here and not support any artist that wants to limit me from using their product for torture.
#22, the mere fact that some comics viewers are available through the App Store doesn't mean Apple isn't restricting your total overall capacity to read comics on the iPhone. As long as there is even one comics viewer that won't run on the iPhone, and Apple uses the legal cudgel of the DMCA to prevent you from installing it on the iPhone that you legally own, they're restricting your right to do as you wish with your own property.
Wow. This one strikes close to home Corey!
I love my iPhone. I have an original, bought the week they came out, and in most ways it has been the best gadget purchase in my entire life (after my first computer).
Recently I started having a problem with a dead spot on the touch screen; the first issue my iPhone has had in a year and a half. (The battery still works fine.) Given the recent price drops, buying a replacement iPhone seems like a no-brainer; but I have been reluctant to do so.
Why? Mostly for the reasons you give in your post. Apple's control-freak approach pisses me off so much that I am seriously considering a user-friendlyness downgrade: Very likely my next phone purchase will be a completely unlocked (developer version) GPhone. This from a guy who moved to Apple computers partly because he liked the iPhone so much!
I'm not making a philosophical decision about DRM here, more a practical one where I must weigh the value of relative technologies; one better in many ways, but intrinsically broken against another with a bright and open future, but I might need to make some compromises in the short run.
The G1 and the iPhone both have kill-switches, but only the iPhone is designed to refuse code unless it is signed by Apple. You can run any code on the G1.
Cory, I too have a g1 and am a huge fan of comics and cbr's, my question is "is there a comic reader for the g1?" Being able to read comics on my portable devices has been a dream of mine for some time. I've had some degree of success with my ds but the screen is just too small. :(
Crap, I previewed and everything and still missed a Corey/Cory typo. ARRRGH!
It's more like Borders refusing to allow you to put certain books on a bookshelf they sold you. (Although I don't think they sell bookshelves...)
Still stupid, and still sucks.
I'm happy Cory is pointing this stuff out - I'm always having to defend my dislike of Apple's business models as far as how they affect content and content producers.
The power of the internet and technology should be to free us and to allow more expression to reach more people. But more and more, we're seeing large companies tighten down the bolts and reign things in.
Sure anyone can put their stuff out there - movies, music, art, writing, etc. But the primary channels are being controlled more and more in ways that really aren't useful to consumers or creators.
*** Originally in my excitement at the chance that this issue will finally get some high profile bits thrown at it I posted this as anonymous - here's a logged-in version: moderate the prior one, or this one, at will ***
Hi Cory, glad you've finally glommed onto the importance of this issue. I've been talking about Apple's censorship and trying to point out that the iPhone App Store is a cultural platform and thus should not be censored, for months. I've been trying to convince other people and linking around but generally even though I am otherwise a huge Apple fan, I've been treated like an outlier and an anti-Apple kook. People just don't seem to get it that devices like the iPhone are the future, and their future is at stake and if Apple will be the lodestar then that future is not looking too pretty. You may find the following interesting...
Wall Street Journal Welcomes the iPhone Overlords
Apple vs. Art, Part 2: Apple vs. Fart
Increasingly glad I never was tempted to get an iPhone.
still gonna get a macbook. until Logic gets available on other systems again. Oh wait I had endless hardware compatibility issues.... one of the hallmarks of windows boxes IMO...
See, everyone talks about cool Apple is and I just don't get it. I see as much blind brand-loyalty to Apple as to Starbucks.
The appearance of other comic book readers in the App Store seems to imply that Apple doesn't object to the readers per se. They appear to be objecting to the comic bundled with the app. My money is on the bet that Apple would lift any objections they had if the comic wasn't pre-loaded into the app for you. After all, I get violent and disgusting content in the form of movies on my AppleTV all the time when I make the -choice- to go out and get that content for myself.
There is a difference between providing hardware and/or applications that allow you to pursue content that others might object to and providing hardware and/or applications that come bundled with content likely to be found objectionable to somebody.
I do believe that is a vital difference here. To start bundling content into applications or hardware is an invitation for trouble. It's an invitation for my prude neighbors (who seem to believe that EVERYTHING made by Hollywood or available on the internet should acceptable for their 6 year old to view) to write their Senators/Representatives and start demanding that they make noises about content regulation. It's an invitation for an outside ratings board that makes those judgments for me.
It's just such complaints that have ensured that you can't buy an Adults Only games on Xbox or PS3. Major Retailers will NOT release AO games on their shelves and AO games are strictly prohibited from development by most studios. De facto censorship.
Apple hasn't decided that I can't read Murderdrome. They've decided that I can't download an app that comes bundled with it. If I can download this (or any other) app and then pursue Murderdrome on my own... well they have walked a tightrope between keeping me happy and not being seen as the next industry to regulate to protect our children.
I know that BB readers are prone to hyperventilation about some issues but a wider view taking in something more than the immediate consequences would seem to help put these actions into perspective.
MOLLYMAGUIRE,
(for me) that is because you are looking at Apple, as a company, rather than their products.
Personally I don't give a fuck about Apple, but I am a loyal user of their products because they work and do what I want them to do. Admittedly I use their computers rather than their phones or music players, but that is me.
I do think the have some of the best products in each respective market, but I also think they can be restrictive in their choices, sometimes for the worse - but often times for the better.
Also, is there a way of classifying these comic as games instead, to give them a rating and avoid banning?
I know it's a cludge, but it's better than nothing.
Jss, wh crs...
n th pls sd, w'r n "fnby" ccstn frm cmpltng my Bng sht.
"Jesus, who cares..."
Was that the colonel or the gentleman? It didn't seem very gentlemanly.
@Dculberson :
No, it's like Waldenbooks deciding not to sell, say, xXxenophile back in the day.
Damn shame - great, GREAT comic (lurves me some Foglio) - but not an unexpected outcome.
One of the best things, maybe the best thing about Apple is how ruthlessly they limit the features of their products.
Windows and Linux are mush compared to Mac OS, other music players are mush compared to the iPod, other music stores are mush compared to the iTunes Store, other phones are mush compared to the iPhone.
So, while I disagree with this particular decision of theirs, and I think both DMCA and shrink-wrap are wrong, I'm wary of going all the way to saying that Apple shouldn't have the right to sell products limited to what they say they are.
It seems a high price to pay just for the ability to hack an object that didn't advertise itself as hackable, in a world with lots of hackable objects, but only one Apple.
Believe me, I'm also wary of the opposite loss, where "No one forced you to buy a phone."
This is in that nasty zone of companies in a position between common carriers and editorial controllers. I don't think notions as simple as "I own it," or calling Apple a "monopoly" (on what, Apple products??) will help resolve it. It's okay to have a slogan if there's a good argument beneath.
I primarily use 3 app on my iPod Tocuh. The excellent ebook reader Stanza which reads several formats, AirShare which allows me to store and read various file formats, and the photo viewer.
So why not sell the comic as a PDF or (other format)... unless it's because it would be too easy to pirate that way... which is rather interesting, eh?
I despise having content bundled in with apps, I would much rather have it separate.
(And BoingBoing regularly bans weeds out my comments. Maybe this time?)
I think it's possible that it's been rejected more or less for a technical reason. The creator said himself that the only section that can have a developer-applied self rating is the Games section. It's understandable that Apple would want an app like this to have a rating, and since that currently isn't possible, it was rejected. Perhaps they're working to remedy this, and add ratings to apps other than games. Who knows? They definitely should.
The iPhone is the first phone I've never wanted to throw against the wall.
Hell, it's the first phone I haven't thrown against the wall.
It's a phone. A damned good one. The best one out there. Anything else is gravy.
Also, seriously, I don't want your stupid comic reader, and most people don't either. This isn't a free speech issue. There are a million other ways to get this to people using iPhones. Apple has just issued a "thanks, but no thanks" on selling a shitty comic.
Actually, Kyle, there are NO other practical ways to get iPhone apps to people using iPhones, other than through Apple's App Store. Therein lies the problem. If you don't want the comic app, nobody is forcing you to have it. However, for those who DO want the comic app, Apple *is* forcing them *not* to have it. Why would you want that forced down my throat? You have the ability to opt out but I don't have the ability to opt in. So thanks a lot for imposing your tastes on the rest of us and cheering Apple on as they do the same. This is definiely a free speech issue: Imagine if Apple had invented the microphone.