If media pundits are to be believed, the iPad, which has already sold over a million units worldwide, will go some way to restoring the relevance/reach/revenue of the floundering print publishing industry. But at what cost? Well according to reports from tech blog Shiny Shiny those salacious Fashion Magazines will have to tone down their overtly sexual, nipple flashing devil editorial if they’re to distribute content through Steve Jobs’ puritanical tablet.
According to an insider at Dazed and Confused Magazine “the mag’s iPad edition has been nicknamed the Iran edition by the people putting it together, given the parallels between censorship in the Muslim theocracy and the iTunes store.”
So yeah, much like the G-rated iPhone Apps sold through the iron fortress of iTunes, all iPad magazines which are to be distributed and sold through iTunes must adhere to Apple’s blanket “no porn” policy. Basically this means no nipples. Even if the purpose of said nipple is to lend artistic credence to an arty high fashion editorial instead of titillate 14 year old boys. Confusingly the rule seems to be targeted at Lads Mags but Apple haven’t made a distinction between softcore porn and fashion magazines so publications like Dazed and Confused and FHM get lumped together. We can praise technology for all the conveniences its afforded us but until a robot can gauge the “nipple intent” of magazines we might as well do everything ourselves.
Plus who’s going to read a digital magazine with less nipples than its print publishing twin? Isn’t that the reason the internet exists in the first place?
Via Gawker
