Mossberg: Some openly pornographic podcasts slip onto Apple’s iTunes Music Store
Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 10:15 AM EST"Since its introduction last week, the iTunes podcast directory has become very popular, and is the easiest way to get and listen to podcasts. Apple has over 4,000 podcasts listed on iTunes today, and has been overwhelmed with new submissions. I expect that most of the podcasts on the Web will be available from Apple within a month or two," Walter S. Mossberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
"The only twist to the iTunes podcast experience stems from Apple's decision to ban from its listings podcasts it deems to be pornographic, or to contain hate speech, or copyrighted material, such as music, which the podcaster lacks the right to distribute," Mossberg reports. "Apple also labels some podcasts it accepts as 'Explicit,' if they contain obscenity or sexual content, but aren't considered pornography. To enforce these rules, Apple reviews each submitted podcast. But there are flaws in that system. First of all, it delays the appearance of podcasts for as much as a week after they are submitted. Secondly, it means some podcasts won't ever be included on iTunes, and will have to be located manually. Third, at least in its first week, Apple applied its own standards haphazardly."
Mossberg reports, "In our tests, we found a number of openly pornographic podcasts that had slipped by Apple's reviewers, and others that should have been labeled 'Explicit,' but weren't."
Mossberg explains how to create podcasts and concludes, "It's still way too complicated for the average user to create a podcast. Apple has solved one part of the problem, but more solutions are needed."
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple iTunes 4.9 dramatically increases KCRW podcast downloads - July 02, 2005
Apple iTunes leaves Microsoft Media Player in the dust - July 01, 2005
Apple iTunes podcast subscriptions top one million in first two days - June 30, 2005
Analyst: iTunes 4.9 helps Apple by bringing podcasting to the masses - June 28, 2005
Apple releases iTunes 4.9 for Mac and Windows with podcasting features - June 28, 2005
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porno podcasts? Hmmmm....