No NINE INCH NAILS For iPhone

According to the New York Times, a NINE INCH NAILS-themed application for the iPhone was rejected by Apple because it contained potentially offensive content. Over the weekend, NIN mainman Trent Reznor published an e-mail message that he received from Apple's iPhone developer group at his official web site, NIN.com. Apple wrote in the message that it would not carry the NINE INCH NAILS iPhone application because it offered a streaming version of the band's song "The Downward Spiral", which Apple said was "objectionable content," according to the e-mail message. On his web site, Reznor wrote that that though he loved Apple products, he urged the company to "think your policies through."

Here is an excerpt from Reznor's reaction to the situation:

"I'll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including NIRVANA) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency — because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any 'indecent' material for sale — but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film 'Scarface' completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense? You can buy 'The Downward Fucking Spiral' on iTunes, but you can't allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey, Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot Asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone! Come on, Apple, think your policies through and for fuck's sake get your app approval scenario together."

According to Billboard.biz, Apple has different standards for iPhone app content than it has for iTunes music store content. According to a post at the NINE INCH NAILS forum, Apple's e-mail specified that the app was rejected for violating Apple's Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement. The specific content in question is the video for "The Downward Spiral". The iPhone SDK Agreement, according to the e-mail from Apple, 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 judgement (sic) may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

Apple is clearly more lenient with music — iTunes sells 379 tracks by the often obscene band AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED, for example, and countless other songs with obscene and graphic lyrics that many would find objectionable if heard. AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED's songs, hardly noticed among the millions of songs at iTunes, are not marked as explicit but do have censored song titles.

Read the entire article from Billboard.biz.