iTunes, and Sting, banned from China

The Chinese government has blocked access to Apple's iTunes store. Meanwhile, a US-based activist group has claimed that the People’s Republic did it to prevent anyone in the country from downloading a Tibet-themed album. The Art of Peace Foundation (APF) released Songs for Tibet last weekend. Sting, Alanis Morissette, …

[Anonymous Coward]

Itunes and Sting

Chinese government are showing remarkable taste!

Mines the Tantric Mac.

Efros

[Anonymous Coward]

Copycats

I banned Sting several years ago in my house.

"And you can hear it in my accent when I talk,

I'm an englishman in New York."

Using your pronunciation guide, I declare that your work is wonk.

[Robajob]

@AC

Quite. Anyone for a petition to get Sting, Alanis Morrisette and Garbage banned from the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Art of Peace Foundation (APF)

Surely that should be The Peace Artist Foundation (PAF)?

[Phil the Geek]

Chinese Apples

The China government link has a comment about angry citizens boycotting the iPhone, such is their imperialist indignation.

Presumably Hon Hai Precision (aka Foxconn) will have to stop manufacturing Apple products in China. Or is there too much money involved for principles to get in the way of that?

[iewgnem]

good call

Who in China buys their songs from iTunes? Chinese search engines has a dedicated mp3 search section, for any mp3, for free, in any quality.

Apple need to decide between funding Tibetan sepertists or do business in China, they are lucky Chinese media didn't report it or it will be Carefour all over again. You fund Tibetan sepertists, you pay the price, simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

AC -

"Surely that should be The Peace Artist Foundation (PAF)?"

Royal Mail would have them for IP/TM infringement...

[Fihart]

Itunes all chinese to me

Let's us ban Itunes too. Both the overpriced download site and the software (quite the most confusing and disorganised program I've ever used).

[ZM]

@ Fihart

iTunes is "the most confusing...program...ever used"?

O_o

Surely there's something out there you had more issues with? Have you looked at Vista lately? :p

[Anonymous Coward]

Good on them

I mean, Sting is OK (was better with the Police), but banning iTunes is a great move... bearing in mind that iPoods etc are tied to it, perhaps it will help chinese people buy nicer mp3 players and stop being sheep?

Then again, perhaps we'll be over-run with porcine aviators.

[Iain]

Oi!

Look, I'll accept that Sting is a complete twonk, but there's a new(ish- it's a remix) Underworld track on there. So I'll be buying it.

[StopthePropaganda]

@iewgnem

wow. instead of thepiratebay we can get free pirated tunes from thechinesegovt?

What's the URL? Are capitalist running dogs also allowed to access this or are us devil round-eyes banned from this collection of Liberated For The People's Music?

[Stewart Haywood]

The real reason that they banned it is ...

The adult content is unsuitable for the members of their olympic team.

[John Savard]

Make China Safe for iTunes

And the Tibetan people forever safe from Cultural Revolution Red Guard goons. Dismiss the Chinese government from office, dividing China into Uighuristan, Tibet, Greater Suburban Hong Kong (Canton province) and the Republic of China (temporary capital: Taipei, until relocation to Peking can be completed).

Well, maybe a few more pieces, so that the speakers of Mandarin won't be able to push around speakers of Southern Min and the other dialects any longer.

Of course, taking care of Russia seems to be a more urgent priority now.

[kain preacher]

Robajob

Quite. Anyone for a petition to get Sting, Alanis Morrisette and Garbage banned from the UK?

Nice to know U2 will survive .

Now on the American side c, can we get rid of Brittney sprears, Alien ant farm.

[Daniel]

Perhaps this is a good time...

...for Apple to look at manufacturing opportunities in other countries, hmm?

-Daniel

[Anonymous Coward]

Garbage?!

Garbage is still around? I would have thought that since "Garbage 2.0" came out in the late '90s, we'd be up to Garbage XP by now. Or at *least* Garbage For Workgroups 3.11.

[ShaggyDoggy]

surprised ?

... yet another China bans something story .....

[James Woods]

block china from us internet kthx

George Bush won't do it, it's good for business to have slave labor products over here. However as far a the internet is concerned, china doesn't really produce anything we can do without. Let's censor china, would surely cut down on the hack attempts and spam we get from the censors.

The internet does not need china to be on it, let them have their own internet as censored as they want it without being on ours.

[Luther Blissett]

@John Savard and lurking capitalist-roader opportunists and Grauniadistas

You preach liberation in in the name of non-liberation, "safety" over "freedom", and one law for the Lamas and another for "the Tibetan people".

> [Make] the Tibetan people forever safe from Cultural Revolution Red Guard goons.

... and from the Dalai cult and all movers to reestablish for another 1000 years a repressive Tibetan feudalism drawing sustenance from an intellectually fraudulent and spiritually nihilistic dogma called karma.

[Anonymous Coward]

No different

What difference does it make? Apple doesn't want your business if you don't have an American, European, British, Aussie or Japanese credit card (thus I cannot see how it would effect them anyways, since they cannot buy from the iTunes Music Store as they're not on Apple's "Elite credit cards" list).

Dead vulture, because Apple should be for telling me upfront that my Malaysian credit card is not good enough for the iTunes Music Store.

[Zmodem]

who care for tibet

china only has a few cities. with billions of square miles of china still wasteland. they waste all they`re time trying to kill a culture, with land that is worth nothing

[John Savard]

Value of Land

Unfortunately, Tibet is not worthless land.

The parts that can grow food are largely outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region, it is true.

But the Himalayas are not only of interest to mountain climbers. Rocky terrain is where metals are mined; Tibet is rich in gold and doubtless other metals of vital economic and strategic value.

[Zmodem]

@Value of Land

it is in theory. china and tibet could just be the same as briton and jamaica. jamaicas independent. while the british military is and probaly will be forever the main backbone of jamaica`s military. while the police will fly over there when ever really needed

[Gis Bun]

What a joke China's government is

They know nothing about the Internet.

It won't stop the illegal copies from flowing in through torrents, web sites, newsgroups, etc. What a joke for trying to block iTunes.

[Gordon Pryra]

Lies and half truths

"40 athletes downloaded the album in an act of solidarity"

If the atheletes showed any solidarity then they wouldnt be there in the first place.

I've never heard of this albium, so this is just an attempt to get some hype around it so some mugs spend cash on yet anougher "charity" con with "all proceeds" going to charity (apart from admin costs of course)

[Zac Jackson]

Missing link....

Whoah!!! My comment that actually made it onto this forum last night (from inside China - I work over here), has mysteriously disappeared, and after my 'net connection's been down all evening...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Missing link....

To clarify, Zac. Your earlier comment to this story remains published. So disappearance is not down to us.

[Zac Jackson]

@Drew

Cheers Fella, confirmation that I'm not going nuts!!! If I remember correctly, I was saying how I preferred living in China - go figure! I'm not entirely sure how this all works, but something's amiss.. Guess it serves me right for checking El Reg from work (government owned company). If you don't hear from me again, tell my parents I love them..... LOL!

Paris, because she's an innocent dear too...