China blocks iTunes Store after release of Songs for Tibet album

SHM is reporting that China has blocked off all access to Apple's online iTunes Store after they discovered that several Olympic athletes had been purchasing the Songs for Tibet album, a pro-Tibetan album featuring 20 artists including Sting, Moby, Suzanne Vega and Alanis Morissette.

Apple's responses so far are all blaming the Great Firewall of China. The article goes on to note that Apple just opened its first brick-and-mortar in Beijing on the eve of the Olympic Games, and it is negotiating the release of the iPhone in China for later this year... which would certainly be futzed if China continues to block all access to iTunes from within the country.

China's propaganda line is typically hilarious:

According to a report published in the semi-official Chinese news portal, china.org.cn, "angry netizens [internet users] are rallying together to denounce Apple in offering Songs for Tibet for purchase. They have also expressed a wish to ban the album's singers and producers, most notably Sting, John Mayer and Dave Matthews, from entering China."

The report, published in English, goes on to say that some netizens are even calling for a boycott of Apple products, including the iPhone when it is eventually released in China.

It'll be interesting to see how Apple reacts here. Steve Jobs is a practical businessman, but he's also a pro-Tibet Buddhist.

iTunes blocked in China after protest stunt [SMH via Cult of Mac]

[#1 posted by mgfarrelly , August 20, 2008 10:27 AM]

Isn't iTunes nation specific? Couldn't they not allow users in China to purchase a specific album?

Even hearing a Sting song about Tibet is too much protest? And I thought the crackdown on laser-pointer art was nonsense. Oppression makes fools of the oppressor.

[#2 posted by BBNinja , August 20, 2008 1:19 PM]

China is just in it for the lulz.

[#3 posted by Rodney , August 20, 2008 3:32 PM]

I thought that the vast majority of Chinese are, indeed, against a non-Chinese Tibet?

[#4 posted by mdhatter , August 20, 2008 10:23 PM]

Firewall trumps garden wall everytime.

[#5 posted by Michiel , August 21, 2008 12:37 AM]

Heh, Chinese propaganda is hilarious, but a pro-tibet cd with Alanis Morisette and Sting isn't a lot less hilarious.

These people are just in it for the positive publicity, and China, as Bbninja said, is just in it for the lulz.