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Apple is quite explicitly uninterested in artistic expression on the app store. From the second paragraph in their guidelines: "We view Apps different than boo
by TillE 11y ago
Apple is quite explicitly uninterested in artistic expression on the app store. From the second paragraph in their guidelines:
"We view Apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App."
Their stance makes very little sense (arbitrarily dividing games away from books or films), but there it is.
- forgottenpass 11y agoTheir stance makes very little sense (arbitrarily dividing games away from books or films), but there it is. US society has moved past moral panic over books and music. We're still in the thick of it with software (Brown vs. EMA was decided in 2011). Apple already chose to make themselves a certifying authority for software on other axes, so I don't find it surprising they sanitize content in the US-flavor of "family friendly" similar to other game consoles.
- sp332 11y agoNot just games, but any app.
- Someone1234 11y agoI strongly suspect they wrote that expressively in case a court ever looks at Apple's policies, and needs to decide if Apple is silencing art/freedom of speech. Essentially they want to separate themselves from most existing legal precedent.
- __z 11y agoWhat "legal precedent" are you referring to?
- refurb 11y agoI strongly suspect they wrote that expressively in case a court ever looks at Apple's policies, and needs to decide if Apple is silencing art/freedom of speech Why would that end up in court? Apple is a private company. It's free to include/exclude whatever content it wants. Consumers don't have a right to force a company to provide the content they want.
- SomeStupidPoint 11y agoUsing a monopoly position in the market to influence what kind of media is available on the market at large, however, can get you in trouble with courts. Get in trouble for anti-monopoly stuff usually requires two parts: that you be a monopoly and that you somehow use it. Shaping a market to your desires is an example of using your monopoly standing. Apple won't get in trouble because they're not a monopoly, but that's how a private company can get in trouble for filtering speech in an eco-system they control.
- ethbro 11y agoFor ~50M (statistics?) iPhone users, they're a monopoly, no? IANAL, but I feel like there were previous monopoly cases successfully brought on behalf of far smaller groups than that. E.g. the fact that I'm a vegetarian doesn't invalidate a steak-knife monopoly
- rtkwe 11y agoApple runs a walled garden which is different from being an actual monopoly, legally. Unless and until Apple becomes an actual smart phone monopoly they're pretty safe from the current regulations.
- melling 11y agoWe're coming for you next Lynyrd Skynyrd! https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/legend/id98922 https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/legend/id98922
- LoSboccacc 11y agodifference being they scan and validate content and apply their own family rating, instead of relying on third party, so anything that gets under the radar is their liability, as opposed to book/music that have the explicit/mature label slapped from the origin. this looks more the result of living in the land of the lawsuit-happy easily offended puritans than anything else. if they could shift liability to esrb for their apps and games, they would actually, I wonder how did they managed to pass under the esrb radar so far.
- nmrm2 11y agoTheir stance makes perfect sense. The App Store is not a commons, it is the private property of Apple, in which they curate the works of others at their convenience. But unlike a book store or a music store, they can closely associate what they stock with the brand becaues the "App" medium is so new. It's pretty similar to a local coffee shop maintaining a few book cases for customers to borrow or buy, but being pretty strict about what books can be put in their selection. Ultimately, I suspect they are more controlling about apps than about books or music because apps are (or were) a new medium that, for both financial and marketing reasons, they wanted to think about differently. Apple probably feared (and/or hoped) that Apps would have a more intimate connection to their brand than e.g., the tracks in iTunes. (edit: 1. Not saying I agree; 2. this post is a descriptive conjecture about why/how Apple treats apps differently, not an advocacy that they continue to do so. Jeesh.)
- Mithaldu 11y agoYour simile is completely off. It's not like a local coffee shop with book cases, it's like a (fictitious) company that has a monopoly on stocking the book cases in all coffee shops nation-wide. Your cellphone is the coffee shop.
- nmrm2 11y agoOkay, fine. The coffee shop is Starbucks. The simile is only stronger in that case. The local coffee shop might be OK stocking some Marxist rags or hard core Libertarian texts or whatever the owner likes. Meanwhile, Starbucks only stocks the inoffensive books. Thus, the masses go to Starbucks because they want a cup of coffee from a nice normal person, and don't want to have to listen to a bunch of Marxists talk down to them while waiting in line or (perceive that they are being) condescended to by a Barista. The book case simile is fictional, but Starbucks appropriating only the completely inoffensive parts of the canonical local coffee shop is a perfect parallel example.
- justizin 11y agobuy a different cell phone.
- 11y ago
- dalore 11y agoSo could we create a porn book?
- kiiski 11y agoAre you implying that Apple wouldn't allow that? I can't find a way to browse their book store with a browser (it just tells me I have to download iTunes), but I would imagine they have erotica as a category there (or at least as a sub-category under fiction like Amazon does). edit: slightly rephrased.