Apple’s App Store: the continuing misadventures, this time through the Downward Spiral

Sometimes it feels like we here at rgbFilter are just banging the drum slowly when it comes to Apple and the App Store. As we’ve reported time and time again, the App store’s walled-garden app system sports an approval process that makes some people raise an eyebrow and ask “huh” (or in my case, shout out “WTF??”). But now their selection process has negatively affected the very entity Apple has always professed to protect: the artist.

Explicit language after the break.

According to Trent Reznor’s blog, an update to the application “nin: access” was rejected due to “objectionable content”, in this case, “The Downward Spiral”. Whether the rejection is regarding the song specifically or the entire album is unclear, but in either case, Apple’s unique brand of censorship has forced Reznor to “make the necessary changes to the application as soon as possible, and resubmit your binary to iTunes Connect”. To add an extra dash of confusion to this already weak sauce, Reznor goes on to say the following:

Now, “The Downward Spiral” the album is not available anywhere in the iPhone app. The song “The Downward Spiral” I believe is in a podcast that can be streamed to the app.
Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem – as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards?

Hear, here. Apple’s ambiguity and odd conservatism has reared it’s inexplicable head before, with the recent banning of the Twitter app Tweetie 1.3 for the same objectionable content argument; in this case, because people tend to curse on the Internetz. Apparently Apple quickly realized that such an action qualifies as “fucktarded” and reversed their decision, but banning Tweetie is yet another sign of a growing trend within Apple’s walled garden; one of subjective decision-making and flat-out censorship.

Oh and did I mention hypocricy?

As Reznor goes on to explain, the entire album “The Downward Spiral” is available, unedited, in apple’s own iTunes store. Reznor compares the practice to another ubiquitous worldwide marketer that some feel also demonstrates questionable practices:

I’ll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and “clean” versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart’s standards of decency – because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you’ll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any “indecent” material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film “Scarface” completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense? You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone!

This is very much looking into a mirror darkly. While the conservatives among us might agree that keeping our ears safe from naughty language is a good thing (in a “won’t SOMEBODY PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!!” sort of way, I suppose), the rest of us will argue that this is one more step towards a future that includes a gag order on creativity. What’s next, is Apple going to discontinue support of its MAIL app because someone e-mailed me a picture of nekkid b00bz?

It appears Apple’s goal is to censor the Internetz, and control the content you watch. Such an ambitious goal of providing only content that makes all of the people happy all of the time is reminiscent of the Blockbuster business model (No PR0nz? GTFO), and while they were huge in their heyday, recent developments show that such a model of unwavering inflexibility, and how that mindset trickles down to other aspects of the business (Downloadable movie rentals? Nah, we’ll just waive late fees) might not be the best way to go.

But if Apple refuses to learn from its own mistakes, I have little faith that they’ll learn from others’.

The new NIN album is available as a free download here.

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