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South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions

By | April 28, 2011, 9:07pm PDT

Summary: The ever-topical South Park took aim at Apple in the premiere episode of its 15th season last night. The show lampooned Locationgate and Apple’s ridiculous 55-page iTunes terms and conditions.

The ever-topical South Park took aim at Apple in the premiere episode of its 15th season last night. The show lampooned Locationgate and Apple’s ridiculous 55-page iTunes terms and conditions which Kyle casually agrees to — without reading them first.

After “swiping his homework from his iPad to his iPhone” Kyle gets tracked and abducted by a crew of business casual g-men (complete with Apple clipboards and jackets). After being held in an Abu Ghraib-like cell with two other “accepters” they’re converted into a Humancentipad live on stage at at a Stevenote.

Two more (somewhat NSFW) clips from the episode are posted over at TechCrunch.

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TechCrunch, Apple iTunes, Digital Music, Digital Media, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Imrhien 28th Apr 2011
LOL grin
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Masari.Jones 29th Apr 2011
One of the funniest South Park episodes of all time!!
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They also parodied the snob factor
otaddy 29th Apr 2011
Pretty funny when Cartman's mom refuses to pay for an iPad and tries to get Cartman a Toshiba "Handibook".
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Our new legal overlords
Robert Hahn 29th Apr 2011
This is good news. More people will find out about the T's and C's from watching South Park than ever did by reading the EULA.

Alas, no episode of South Park or anything else will inform the Droidsters that they've agreed to the same terms.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Rick_K 29th Apr 2011
To be honest those were funny. Must be a sign of the times, become popular and have parodies done on you.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Doctor Demento 29th Apr 2011
@Rick_K

I think that being portrayed as a controlling, authoritarian tyrant who wants to achieve complete control over its products and their users is a little more than just a light hearted 'parody'....it was in fact a fairly savage attack which demonstrates that concern over Apple's tendency towards totalitarianism is starting to become mainstream.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Rick_K 29th Apr 2011
@Doctor Demento
What concern? I do not have any concerns, maybe because I do not have an iPad? I don?t know, I could see the humor, and I do not think that people are that simple minded as to believe what they see on a show like SouthPark.
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I wonder if you can watch this on an iPad?
Bill Pharaoh 29th Apr 2011
@Doctor Demento
You know, with Apple's policy of "policing" what is acceptable for the iPhone and iPad.
happy
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Lerianis10 29th Apr 2011
@Doctor Demento

Agreed, Doctor..... the fact is that the increasing 'known where you are every moment of the day' crap that the phone companies and Apple are doing is getting me very concerned. They should have a way to turn off all this location awareness stuff and/or not activate it until a person specifically says that they want to be monitored 24/7.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
dazzlingd 29th Apr 2011
@Rick_K
Let's see if Apple thinks it's funny. They made Ellen Degeneres apologize publicly on her show for a parody that was far, far milder than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uma-p8c-r0A
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As long as they don't use Apple's trademarked logo
Bill Pharaoh 29th Apr 2011
@dazzlingd
they're cool.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
hwgray 29th Apr 2011
@dazzlingd
Anybody with any common sense at all knows better than to **** with the Comedy Channel or with Adult Swim. SP parodied Mormonism and nothing happened. SP even parodied *Scientology* and got away with it! Fighting a parody is like wrestling the tar-baby: you get yourself slimed and gain nothing. Fight a parody and that fight only leads to further parodies of the fight itself. Apple could never win, any more than Mormonism or Scientology could have. If SP can **** over those two groups and get away with it, then it can **** over Apple and get away with it.
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Wrong kind of popular
Bill Pharaoh 29th Apr 2011
@Rick_K
it depends on what the parody is. Getting parodied for your charitable giving in a fun way is one thing, getting it for a "terms and condition" thing isn't so much.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
hopp64 29th Apr 2011
I will take Trey and Matt over iJobs anyday. Truth hurts apple fanbois get over it.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
Pete "athynz" Athens 29th Apr 2011
@hopp64 Nothing to get over! That Southpark thing, that right there was funny I don't care who you are...
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Why...
mattmuir 29th Apr 2011
... do people insist on bagging fanbois? I'm one. I don't care that Apple, the Government, Banks & Big Brother track me. I've got nothing to hide. A bit like the former Miss USA who got upset at a patdown, because she wouldn't walk through a full body scanner. Get over it. If you've got nothing to hide, no issues. We travel safer thanks to Airport security, and live safer thanks to phones that have the ability to inform of location. Growing numbers of people are being rescued and recovering stolen goods, thanks to tracking. Bring it on.
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
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RE: South Park parodies iTunes terms and conditions
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