Apple Censors Comic

If you've been following the craze for Apple's iPhone, then you probably know that there's a place where you can download applications. One of them is designed to let comic artists provide their content on an iPhone, and it comes with the first episode of a comic called Murderdrome. Yup, as violent as it sounds - and now banned by Apple for its content, even though it apparently allows other types of media that are perhaps less grotesque but not necessarily less graphically violent. Check the Murderdrome link, read the comments, and see the other types of content that are available through the company.

By now, you might have heard that Murderdrome has been banned by Apple. This is due to the part of the sdk that suggests content must NOT offend anyone in ‘apple’s reasonable’ opinion. Here at infurious, we would love to work with Apple to ensure a content rating system can be put in place to allow material that is no more offensive than many of the R rated films available to download on iTunes.

Once it was government bodies that banned content, and the U.S. has constitutional protections against such activity. But legal rights don't extend to dealing with private companies, and increasingly they act as gateways to content. One day Wal-Mart decides what is family-friendly enough to be put on sale, the next day it's Apple.

At least digital distribution allows those creating the content to distribute it themselves, but let's be realistic for a moment. Have you ever written anything of length, even a short story, let alone a novel? Ever seen the hours a well-executed drawing can take to complete? Ever sat down with other musicians and tried to record songs? It all takes time - lots of it. That's why creative people need to find commercial outlets, because otherwise they have to do something else in addition to make a living, and while many of us will toil away in extra hours, it's often just not enough. To shut down the few commercial outlets to expression, which might allow more expression, is to cut off the ability for most people to make their creativity available. That puts the control of culture into the hands of corporations. To see the result, turn on a television or radio, or read a magazine or hyped book. Don't think that things can't get worse, because they can.

Jobs Dismisses Written Word?

Steve Jobs, when asked by the New York Times for his opinion of the Amazon Kindle, was apparently dismissive:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Media observer Simon Dumenco had a pretty funny and pointed take on this in Advertising Age (disclosure - I write on occassion for the magazine):

By all rights I shouldn't be writing this -- and for God's sake, you certainly shouldn't be reading it! Because reading is, officially, dead.

My own reaction is simpler: 40 percent of the country read one book or less a year? Simple arithmetic suggests that the remaining 60 percent must read at least one book a year, to say nothing of magazines, newspapers, and the occasional amusing product packaging. Sounds like a good sized market to me - maybe even more than the number of people who would buy a Mac.