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Apple Censors Ulysses App In Time For Bloomsday
Miracle Jones writes "Apple has censored a 'Ulysses' comic book app — just in time for 'Bloomsday' — because of a picture of Buck Mulligan's stately, plump cartoon penis. Not since Amazon removed digital copies of '1984' from people's Kindles while they slept has there been such a hilarious episode in the ongoing slapstick farce 'Let's See What Happens When Corporations Become Publishers.'"
This is why I bought an android. Every time I see a story like this it just makes me feel better about my choice
Is this really even a suprise? I thought it was well known that, in general, Apple will reject apps with nudity.
I mean, whats next, an article alleging that Google may, in fact, have ties to the advertising industry?
This is what happens when books are licensed rather than bought.
This is different to Walmart deciding not to carry content its store owners find objectionable, how?
Apple can say "no penises on the store, even comic ones" just like network TV can say "no swearing before 9pm" or a store can say "we'll carry all of your products except that flavoured lube you make, it just doesn't fit with our image".
Also, I thought most publishers *were* corporations. When did it become ok to post troll articles as summaries? Oh wait, it's slashdot. Carry on.
Publishers weren't corporations before the iPhone?
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
I need Steve to tell me what i want.
Let's See What Happens When Corporations Become Publishers.
And Random House, HarperCollins, etal. are what, chopped liver?
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
http://www.ubuntu.com
Etc, etc.
I think this is the first time I've heard someone as senior as [Redhat CEO] Whitehurst admit something rather profound: that open source solutions save money for customers by doing away with the fat margins for existing computer companies – and thus shrink the overall market.
Giving your work product away and hoping that someone will pay you for it ensures that you will make less money than people who demand fair pay for their work.
This is different to Walmart deciding not to carry content its store owners find objectionable, how?
Apple is trying to become a primary conduit for digital media; if they succeed, then we are stuck with their censorship rules.
That's why people need to understand the danger that Apple poses now, before Apple succeeds in establishing a Microsoft-like monopoly over media, content, and apps.
just like network TV can say "no swearing before 9pm"
TV networks are forced to do that by government rules.
or a store can say "we'll carry all of your products except that flavoured lube you make, it just doesn't fit with our image".
Individual physical stores can't impose worldwide controls over products or content; those that do get big enough to do so are just as much of a concern as Apple is.
Just because other companies are sleazy and dangerous doesn't mean we should stop complaining about Apple.
Oh! THEIR app store. Now I get it.
So...in order to get an official app on my phone that app must be in the app store.
So...in order to get into the app store that app must pass Apple's moral police.
So...that would be censorship.
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Now, that being said, if I purchase "1984" and wake up one morning and find it missing, then discover the publisher I bought it from repossessed it, I'm going to be ticked off. If they've refunded my purchase price in full, I'll be quite a bit less ticked off.
If it were a hard copy, I wouldn't be the slightest bit less ticked off. I'd be pressing charges for every law they broke in order to take back the book, and throw a lawsuit on top of it for whatever my lawyer could think of. That shit wouldn't fly, which is, I believe, the point of the post you were replying to.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Well, the point is that everybody expects the license for a book to be irreversible.
When I buy the book, I have that license FOR EVER, or until I sell that book and give away that license.
But in this digital age, companies like Amazon or Apple tend to deny me that.
The licences I buy from them come with a lot more limits (but usuallay without being less expensive).
Woosh? I understand the concepts - maybe I could have been a bit more verbose. The point I was trying to make is that there are differences between licenses to read digital books and physical copies of them. The 1984 example so pissed everyone off not because it was inconvenient but because it points to how governments and corporations might use DRM and digital media distribution to rewrite history and suppress potentially subversive literature. The irony is that 1984 addresses and cautions against concentrating and enabling the power to rewrite history. You might be ticked off if your copy of 1984 was involuntarily refunded -- the rest of us would be alarmed. It's not the loss of money -- it's the loss of control.
Would you really go through all that trouble of getting a lawyer and pressing charges and bringing suits if it were a $20 book? If so, you're probably going to be in the minority.
This is why we're seeing these corporate "micro-crimes" where you get cheated out of $1, $5, $10 or much more. Whether it's something you bought that doesn't work and isn't worth the trouble of returning or a $50 game for which there was no demo that turns out to be garbage or unplayable. Most people just suck it up and move along, which is what the corporation is counting on. You say "I'll never buy from them again" but you do, you always do. Because if you have a Kindle, you're kind of stuck regarding where you can buy your books. If you have an iPhone, you're absolutely stuck as to where you buy your apps. In most American cities, you're stuck as to where you get your broadband.
So I disagree when you say "this shit wouldn't fly" because it's flying all over the place right now.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But the problem isn't licensing, it's DRM - the thing that can prevent you from lending or reselling the book, from using it in multiple devices and that enables them to remotely delete your book.
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I would never even consider owning a telecommunication/internet device that came with somebody's seemingly arbitrary and contradictory moral strictures as the arbiter of what I may use the device for. Ownership of Apple products has always been about willing to go into their secretive walled garden but lately with the hostility and snarkiness that has been shown to both Apple developers and consumers the experience is more akin to living in Gaza.
Yes not being able to buy a book through one (1) store is the same as living in a war zone where the essentials of life are blockaded. That's not overdramatic at all. You can get/buy the book through other channels (as a pdf for example) and put it on your phone to read with another program or, you know, through the friggin' website (NSFW, contains traces of nuts) as Apple continuously says to do to get content to the phone without Apple approval. That's not to say this behavior doesn't sucks and doesn't need to be challenged but the hyperbole isn't helping any.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
If I could give copies of my bread/salad/pies away and still keep the originals, why not?
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If it were a hard copy, I wouldn't be the slightest bit less ticked off. I'd be pressing charges for every law they broke in order to take back the book, and throw a lawsuit on top of it for whatever my lawyer could think of.
I agree with you. If they took back the (hard copy) book (I would agree with the wording "stole it from me"), I'd be really ticked off, too. If they refunded my purchase price in full, I'd be quite a bit less ticked off. (Please note that I'm not addressing the issue of censorship here.)
And your point here is an excellent one. Recapturing something from someone's hard/flash drive in their home is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering, unless the publisher has a court order/warrant to repossess it. Just because it's licensed, the licensor isn't granted the right to take it back at any time and place. Thank you for emphasizing that. I'm dubious as to whether clicking on a EULA can legally grant a seemingly unlimited right of repossession, just because the media is digital.
So, thanks for hitting another important issue this raises :^)
sigfault (core dumped)
Steve's banning of iPhone porn apps from the store is a front. Steve is playing both sides of the porn coin here to make as many people as he can happy.
You can find plenty of iPhone compatible mobile porn websites. These same sites work on any just about other smartphone as well. And the porn industry doesn't need any apps in the app store, because they don't make money on apps, they make money on monthly subscriptions. Sure they would love some kind of free app to drum up more subscriptions, but they aren't bothered too much, they are used to this kind of discrimination. They are also used to their customers hunting them down via Google or clicking thru 15 ads.
It's like Betamax creating a bunch of corner stores and saying "you can't buy porn in our stores" but then being able to go to Joe's porn emporium down the street and get all you want. If Steve really was that concerned he'd have permanently turned on the parental controls on all iPhones. That would be how he would have to shoot his foot clean off, because then he'd have created the VHS/Betamax situation.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If you have an iPhone you knew you were stuck. You made that decision and prayed that Steve would be good to you. Apple can do whatever they want with their platform. I can do what ever I want with my money. I don't buy iShit, and I do not buy iShit for my children.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I think if a publisher stole a hardcopy book from me, but left the ammount that I paid for it in it's place, I'd be even more pissed off. If they just stole it, then it is just that: stealing. It is illegal, they know it is illegal, everyone can see that. However, by leaving me money they are signifiying that they think what they are doing is perfectly ok. It is an attempt to legitimize their action, and prevent me from becoming upset. I'd find it unbelievably insulting.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I see nothing in the definition of "censorship" that requires it to be done by Government, or that it must be illegal to get round it.
Seeing as the publisher stealing a hardcopy of a book from me would likely also involve breaking and entering, yes. I most certainly would pursue the issue legally.
This is why I don't own a kindle. I don't like to make it easy for others to take advantage of me.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Keeping in mind of course apple did not 'take away' anyones copy. If they later reaudit and change their mind, they just stop selling the app in question.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Recapturing something from someone's hard/flash drive in their home is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering,
Id say that depended rather heavily on what terms you agreed to when you bought the device, wouldnt you?
But that doesn't inspire Apple Panic nearly as well as saying the mean ol' turtleneck Nazis are coming to take your apps, from your cold, dead, hands (after they rape your dog and shoot your spouse).
demigod Steve is an uncultured pathetic little micromanaging dictatorial prick.
With high quality products.
While I'm under no delusion that my iPhone isn't the slave of demigod Steve's whim and will, that trade off is one I'm willing to accept (for the time being) to get a phone that doesn't have a shit-slow laggy UI. Every blackberry I've ever tried, and the Storm was the worst, had this inherent delay to every aspect of the UI that made the phone's quirks ever the more maddening. Also, and with notable exceptions to what I've heard about the HTC Evo (though the battery life is another story), Android phones haven't quite made it to the zero-lag UI state quite yet. Maybe in another couple years that will change.... at least it should, anyway. I'm hoping Microsoft has learned something from Apple, RIM, and others in that regard and will blow us away with WinPhone7.
At the very least, the iPhone does what Steve says it will do right out of the box. Android phones and blackberries, on the other hand, have managed to disappoint over and over, but quite notably they will do what you tell them to do. The average consumer prefers the former trade-off, whereas the average geek prefers the latter one.
In the end, just want to get my email, make phone calls, take pictures/video, and maybe play a game or two. Any smartphone will do that out of the box, but as it stands, the absolute best phone on the market is unfortunately the one that leaves a slightly bitter taste in the mouth of the informed device owner.
Actually, better in the irony department would have been forcibly erasing everyone's copy of Farenheit 451.
I am officially gone from
Lets say I sell you a car (I know I know, oblig.). You fork over £5000, I fork over the keys, you drive home. 1 month later, you wake up to find the car missing, and £5000 deposited in your bank account. You eventually notice I've emailed you saying "took the car back, cheers".
You'd obviously be pissed, refund or no. Even though no breaking or entering or mugging happened, you'd still be unhappy that something you thought you owned has suddenly up and gone.
Now lets say you complain, I tell you that by buying from me you actually agreed to a great big bundle of terms and conditions that I never forced you to read (but were available on my website, and pinned up on my shop wall, if you'd cared to look). Would you magically be less pissed?