Creators of rejected App Store comic book appeal for rating system

By Jacqueline Emigh | Published August 29, 2008, 6:22 PM

After its 'Murderdrome' comic book was rejected by Apple's iPhone App Store, Infurious Comics this week appealed to Web site visitors support its request to Apple for a rating system similar to one already used on iTunes.

The App Store turned down the comic book earlier this week, claiming that it violated a section of an SDK agreement which states: "Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.) or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

On the Infurious Web site, however, comic strip co-creator Paul Jason Holden has been suggesting inconsistency between the App Store and iTunes, arguing that iTunes currently allows user downloads of R-rated films that included South Park, Reservoir Dogs, and Two Smoking Barrels, for example.

"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," Holden wrote on his company's blog Monday. "Please leave a comment committing your support to us -- we'll forward all of these to Apple, so that we can ensure that not only Murderdrome, but that any comic submitted to Apple doesn't fall foul of the same censorship."

When BetaNews visited the site early Friday evening, Infurious had received more than 130 user comments on its site, mostly supporting its cause.

Though the Infurious Web site continues to run early episodes, the Murderdrome project has been placed on temporary hold, according to Holden. Instead, it's now focusing on other titles "which will be more Apple friendly," he said, in a Q&A with TechRadar UK, also cited by Infurious. "Longer term, I'm hoping Apple will see the very public need for some sort of ratings system and we can bring Murderdrome to everyone who's clamoring for it!"

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

Again...if you don't like Apple's restrictive attitude then don't support it. Buying the products and authoring for their platforms does not persuade Apple to change. Profit is what motivates the company.

Score: 0

|

this is why I jailbroke my ipod touch... my machine I want to use it my way.. I want to put on my choice of content - not apple's!

Score: 0

|

Aww here we go with all the hippie nerds crying over comics on their phones. How Stupid!!

Score: 0

|

Read the article. It's not able comics, it's about "R-Rated content".

Score: 0

|

Smells like censorship to me. Oh and double standards.

Score: 0

|

UGH. Censorship is a govt process of stopping someone from their right to free speech or religion they wish to practice. Not some publically traded company imposing certain standards on the content they provide to their customer.

Score: 0

|

Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.

Corporate censorship is the process by which editors in corporate media outlets intervene to halt the publishing of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light. Privately owned corporations in the business of reporting the news also sometimes refuse to distribute information due to the potential loss of advertiser revenue or shareholder value which adverse publicity may bring.

Score: 0

|

You question King Steve????

Score: 0

|

Microsoft's Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie on Silverlight vs. standards

Bob Muglia: "We're trying to provide people with an environment that has capabilities that you just simply can't do today in the standards-based world."

Sony looks to finally open a single storefront for downloads

Sony has had many different download portals for movies, music, e-books, and games, and now it's looking to make a single shop for all of it.

PDC 2009: What have we learned this week?

There was the freebie that no one will forget, the heebie-jeebies courtesy of Scott Guthrie, and a teensy bit clearer picture of how this cloud thingie should work.

Tuning out the tablet: Time to give the endless speculation a rest

Wide Angle Zoom: Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying....won't put an iTablet on the market.

Microsoft's .NET Micro Framework is now free and open source

The latest version of Microsoft's .NET Micro framework is now in the hands of the FOSS community.

Google's value proposition for Chrome OS: Should we feel insulted?

For a search engine that has direct access to all the world's online history, it appears to have taught Google nothing about selling a machine.

E-book readers will be in short supply this holiday season

E-readers are hot this year, and a lot of compelling new products have been released, but are there enough electrophoretic displays to go around?

Five improvements for IT managers in 2010

If businesses are to improve their efficiency for next year, they need to stop and reassess the basic tenets of their job.

Live report: Will Google Chrome OS change Linux?

The mysteries of just what Chrome OS is, and how much of an operating system it truly is, may be resolved today.

AOL's spinoff from Time Warner to shed 2,500 jobs

As AOL moves toward become an independent company again, it will cut nearly a third of its workforce.

PDC 2009: Microsoft cares about Web browser performance

The effort to give users of the world's dominant Web browser the impression of quality, is a personal one for the man who leads that battle.