Johnny Cash too offensive for iTunes, but Pussycat Dolls are OK

Davey Winder
Friday, 24 October 2008 20:02

Business IT - Networking

Just what is up with the UK iTunes Store which seems to think that 'hot' and 'killer' are offensive words so has censored them in song titles, along with Johnny Cash? The Pussycat Dolls escape the filtering, however...

File this one under oddball event of the week. The iTunes Music Store in the UK has had an attack of the vapours and decided that the most unlikely of words will make users break out in a cold sweat, so to be on the safe side has censored them.

Words such as hot, for example. You can still buy songs from the Red H*t Chilli Peppers and H*t Chocolate, buy you just can't read the group names in full in case you are offended by anything other than Coldplay or Vanilla Ice.

Unfortunately though, you can still buy 'Touch My B*m' by the Cheeky Girls. A little more censorship, on the grounds of musical taste, would be welcome in this particular case I think most people with the gift of hearing would agree.

According to Apple the censorship is not deliberate, but rather it has been introduced by a database glitch which a spokesman has said it is working hard to rectify. So much for putting the Genius into iTunes then.

The same spokesman admits that Apple has no idea why their filtering software, which ordinarily does censor group names and track titles for offensive or adult content, has suddenly decided that hot is an explicit reference and otherwise inoffensive wrods should get the asterisk treatment.

Indeed, the glitch does seem to be rather bizarre in the words it is targeting, So while Lesbian is getting censored, gay is not. Equally, J****y Cash has found himself censored, while the Pussycat Dolls escape the big red pen.

Not so lucky, however, is Danny Kaye with his classic 'I Thought I Saw A P***y Cat' song...