Legal Niches

Does Apple Hate Comedy?

By JamesWilton64

Steve Jobs might hate the sound of laughter. That is a conclusion one could draw from the company's continued censorship of satirical apps for the iPhone. Wired has been following this trend for quite awhile and it all stems from the vagueness of Section 3.3.17 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. It reads:

Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.

The most recent iPhone app to be rejected makes fun of Tiger Woods, which, one would think, would be an acceptable target. The app was created by editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle, who works for MSNBC. Apple informed Cagle that the app contained content that "ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.17 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement." Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on April 28, 2010 (boomark / email).