Censorship! iPhone Style.

Posted by: dgoldring on Aug 26 2008

I just saw an extremely troubling post over at Gear Diary, in which Apple appears to have banned a comic book from the App Store.  OK…well, let me back up a minute.  You see, over in the App Store there is an application called Comic Reader.  My love for comic books compelled me to download this on my iPod Touch, and I found some extremely amazing comics, most of them independent, not your mainstream superhero type stuff.

Recently, the developers announced plans to debut a new comic, titled Murderdrome.  As Mike Cane so eloquently noted, “From the title alone, you expect it not to be all bunnies and unicorns and rainbows.”

Murderdrome was properly submitted to the App Store where it was rejected for violating terms of the Software Developer Kit which state:

Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.

The problem, though, as Mike Cane correctly points out is that this is not an application.  It is media which is played on an application which is properly distributed through the App Store. 

Take a look at the first full episode of the comic, compliments of Infuriouscomic, and then we can talk about it a little more:

 

 

Well, let’s put this into context.  As I mentioned, this is not an application, but media.  Other media available over at iTunes includes Judas Priest (over 500 selections), Marilyn Manson (over 300 selection), and more gangsta rap than I could count.  I also found Reservoir Dogs, which depicts a man getting his ear cut off, and all of the following horror movies:

• Nightmare on Elm Street (complete series)
• The Shining
• The Blair Witch Project
• Silence of the Lambs
• Saw!

OK.  Let me just stop right there.  Saw?  You’re telling me any comic is too gory or violent for iTunes, but SAW…SAW is perfectly acceptable?  Saw, for those of you who have not seen it, depicts a crazed murderer who kills his victims by devising various torturous traps.  I won’t go so far as to describe any of them here (see the movie).  But I would love to hear Apple’s logic for including Saw, but not Murderdrome.

OK, you say.  But those are all different, because they are available in iTunes not the App Store like this comic.  Well, then I suppose we can look at some of the other books available in the App Store.  Books like:

• Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
• La Divine Comedia (Depicting Dante’s descent into Hell)
• Jungle Tales of Tarzan (the non-Disneyfied version)
• Frankenstein
• Moby Dick (which has the potential to bore you to death with entire chapters on the quality of rope)

And that does not even include all of the offerings on eReader (which is also available in the App Store), such as Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, and the single goriest author I have ever read, Clive Barker.

As an author and editor for most of my life, I have studied the historical and societal impacts of censorship quite extensively.  Frankly, I am outraged by Apple’s actions here.  If they want to devise some kind of rating system or other system in order to alert readers that violent content lies ahead, fine.  But to simply dismiss a comic book as being too violent, while allowing all manner of violence in books, movies, music, and other media, creates a ludicrous and unworkable double standard. 

I’ll let Mike Cane close us out with some of his parting thoughts:

It’s evident that Apple has yet to sort out what its stance is on several issues. Properly rating movies, for one thing. How to handle publications that are wrapped in applications. The left hand of one part of the iTunes Store knowing what the right hand is being asked to approve for the App Store.

Every single writer in the world is watching you right now, Apple.

Your problems with MobileMe and iPhone 3G reception issues are minor compared to this.

eBooks are the future. You are at the nexus of downloadable content and millions of consumers. Are you telling all of us that you intend to stand between us and every possible publication, permitting only your vision of the future to be offered for sale?

If that’s going to be the case, you’ve just handed the eBook ball to Google and Android.

And Jeff Bezos over at Amazon must be breathing a great sigh of relief right now too — when he isn’t busy laughing at you.

As for me and every other writer who’s been waiting for you to jump into eBooks and free us from an industry frozen in the 19th-century, let’s just say we are not pleased.

And you absolutely do not want to displease writers, Apple. No, you do not.

So.  What can you do?  Don’t just sit idly by.  Leave your comments here.  Or, head on over to Infuriouscomic (the folks behind Murderdrome) and leave a comment on their post which they plan to submit to Apple. 

Via: Gear Diary, Mike Cane, Infuriouscomics

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