The International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) is considering making a complaint to Apple over its request that German publisher Springer censor the naked girls on one of its iPhone apps.
A Bild girl before she gets all shook up.
The Guardian reveals that that the Springer-owned tabloid Bild’s wonderfully-titled ‘Shake the Bild Girl’ app allows iPhone users to undress a model. “Each time the user shakes the phone, the girl strips an item of her clothing. While Bild features naked women daily in its pages, Apple ruled that the girls in its iPhone app should wear bikinis,” adds the report.
The FIPP approached Apple over the issue at the behest of the Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ). Indeed, the VDZ chief executive, Wolfgang Fuerstner, has warned that Apple’s move might represent a move towards censorship.
Perhaps getting a little too uppity considering he’s talking about the right to show naked women via an iPhone app Fuerstner said in an interview: “Publishers can’t sell their soul just to get a few lousy pennies from Apple”.
Bild Digital CEO Donata Hopfen agreed with Fuerstner though and followed up his statement with the quite fantastic quote: “Today they censor nipples, tomorrow editorial content.”
Apple, for its part, asks publishers of general interest apps to respect its US “no nipples” policy. This whole case actually goes back before the recent purge of 5,000 questionable apps reported a few weeks back, as Apple approached Bild in January, when the publisher censored the PDF version of the paper programmed for the iPhone.
Springer is apparently Apple’s second biggest client worldwide after Google, though in turn, reports the Guardian, “Springer makes good money via Apple”. The ‘Shake the Bild Girl’ app costs €1.59 a month and can be topped up with a PDF of the printed Bild for €3.99 a month. Springer’s head of public affairs, Christoph Keese, said that the iPhone apps launched Bild and its other newspaper Die Welt have sold a total of more than 100,000 units.
As the Guardian report sensibly notes though, “Apple’s intervention has made it clear to publishers that they find themselves in a new role in a digital world… It is Apple that has final control over its platform, not the publishers.”
Based on