Apple rejects ebook app, Victorian-era text cited as culprit

Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an ebook reader application enabling iPhone and iPod touch users to download public-domain books from the Project Gutenberg digital archives, on grounds the app contains "inappropriate sexual content." The specific content cited by Apple: A Victorian-era, text-only edition of The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.

On his blog [1], Eucalyptus developer James Montgomerie writes "The exact book (the Kama Sutra) that Apple considers the ability to read ‘objectionable' is freely available on the iPhone in many ways already. You can find it through Safari or the Google app, of course, but it is also easily available via other book reading apps. You can get it easily via eReader, though the search process is handled by launching a third-party site in Safari, with the download and viewing taking place in eReader. Stanza offers up multiple versions, some with illustrated covers. Amazon's Kindle app, the latest version of which was approved by Apple this week, offers multiple versions too--although it does charge from 80¢ to $10 per book--and you again purchase via Safari before Kindle downloads the book."

According to Montgomerie, Eucalyptus was first submitted to the App Store April 27--on May 3, it was rejected for misusing the "Contacts" and "Bookmarks" icons to represent "Authors" and "Books." Montgomerie re-submitted the app with new icons, and on May 10 received a follow-up email from Apple reading "We've reviewed Eucalyptus--classic books, to go and determined we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which 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 may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.' Please view the attached screenshot [depicting The Kama Sutra] for further information."

Montgomerie adds "I'm afraid I've currently decided to sell my soul, or at least rent it out for a while, and manually block the Kama Sutra from appearing in Eucalyptus."

For more on the Eucalyptus controversy:
- read this Boing Boing article [2]

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