iBowdlerize

[robin_d_laws]

Comments

[agrumer]

"Freedom from porn"?

I just realized -- Jobs is fighting against the well-established principle that porn drives new communication technologies.

[mysticalforest]

Ha! :)

[shannon_a]

I don't follow why you think a publisher--or if you prefer, a distributor--should be forced to sell things they don't want to. As others have said, you can get normal PDFs and load them onto your iPad via any number of ways. I've read more PDFs via those means than via Apple's ebooks, and I suspect I'm far from the only person for who that's the case.

Do you believe that DriveThruRPG should have to carry material they disagree with? e23? Paizo? Diamond? Why or why not? I'd argue that some of those people have at least as much of a hold on distribution to their genre as Apple does to their medium.

[robin_d_laws]

I'm not proposing to force anyone to do anything.

[mysticalforest]

They should sell content they symbolically don't want because it's symbolically important to you?

[robin_d_laws]

Not just to me.

We have all, those of us who live in countries with a tradition of free expression, benefited from booksellers' efforts, symbolic and actual, to advocate, advance, and fight for the crucial principle of free expression. It does not take care of itself; it needs constant tending.

To the extent that the next wave of booksellers ignores this tradition, or worse, in the case of Apple, thoughtlessly establishes itself as an force for censorship, the free exchange of ideas is threatened.

So, yes, booksellers should want to uphold this tradition. They should want to sell books.