In no particular order, they are:

• content aggregators care much about Rupert Murdoch putting content behind a paywall,
• increasing the amount of media content in controlled spaces (ie the iPad) could significantly undermine Google’s business model,
• it will become easier to stop people breaking DRM and other copy-protection measures in the future, not harder, and
• the implication that radio stations, TV channels and other internet sites don’t read newspapers and re-use the content.

They’re all worth having a laugh at for various reasons. I’m surprised a technology writer doesn’t make more about how Google structures its search algorithim. I’m also surprised a technology writer thinks the golden age of copy protection is apparently ahead of us, not behind.

But the most interesting thing in Farrer’s piece is that citizen journalists, bloggers and tweeters have more to fear from News Ltd and other old media organisations locking up content than the other way around. Farrer makes the not unreasonable comment that if traditional news content was successfully locked away, tweeters, bloggers and citizen journos would have to go elsewhere for content to ‘riff’ off. It’s a big if but even if he was right in saying it could be done successfully, it doesn’t matter. News Ltd, Fairfax and other big media outlets should be more afraid of citizen journos having reduced opportunities to riff off their content than the other way round.

People are already paying less attention to traditional media, they’re digesting less traditional media and diversifying their sources when they do. They’re paying more attention to their Twitter feeds and Facebook updates than ever before because they feel that the content is relevant and that it matters. Locking conternt up further encourages more of that, not less. News Ltd and Fairfax et al should do everything they can to encourage bloggers and tweeters to hang off their every word.

To do otherwise risks speeding up a virtuous circle that has already begun and risks leaving old media out in the cold.

He makes a number of points in the article that are worth looking at one by one.

Incumbents made bad revolutionaries
His argument here seems to be that Apple is more interested in using the great technical features of the iPad to either restrict its use or find a way to make people pay for it.

The example he uses is the Marvel iPad comic app. The argument is the app – and by extension the iPad – is bad because, for example, you can’t lend someone else your comic. Put aside the fact that it’s really an anti-DRM rant (which I mostly agree with) he forgets one simple thing. The device actually makes it extraordinarily easy to lend someone your comic – hand them your iPad. It is in this way exactly as easy to lend someone a comic on your iPad as it is with a physical comic book.

And if Apple gets this right, they’ll help craft – or at least speed up – the development of a whole new computing and media model - tablet computing.

That leads nicely into the next argument…

Infantilizing hardware
Tonight I had leftover pizza for tea. I heated it in the microwave and then put it under the grill for a minute to crisp it up. I punched some buttons on the microwave and it did what it needed to do – help me consume my dinner. I don’t need to be able to take it apart, repait it and install Linux on it. I just need it to work – like my television, my bed and my table.

But Cory’s argument here seems to suggest that if I’m only using a device to consume something I’m somewhat less likely to survive in the brave new world of the 21st century than someone who can take a device apart and put it back  together.

I can enjoy consuming a book even if I don’t know how to pull the spine off, reorder the pages and put it back together again. It  should be okay that not everyone wants to take everything apart all the time.

Boing Boing is a site supported by ad revenue. I bet there’s a strong correlation between the rates for those adverts and the number of people simply consuming the site – page hits or unique visitors. I hope the number of people actively interacting with the site by adding comments also factors in there but I doubt simple consumers of the site take a back seat when it’s time to crunch the numbers.

Wal-Martization of the software channel
According to Wikipedia there are around 150,000  third-party applications in the App Store. If Apple was the only computer maker in a regulated market I’d be more likely to accept the claim that “the iStore lock-in doesn’t make life better for Apple’s customers or Apple’s developers.”

But again this is an anti-DRM argument, that’s not (or shouldn’t be) restricted to the iPad. Clearly developers and customers aren’t stupid. That’s why more than three billion downloads have been made from the App Store.

The Wal-Mart analogy is a bad one too – at least on one level. The development of the iPod Touch, the iPhone and now the iPad has not seen a massive takeover of an existing market, it’s fostering a massive expansion of a new, previously small market.

Journalism is looking for a daddy figure
It’s not the device’s fault if journalists and bloggers get sucked into the spin from Apple’s marketing team. Indeed, arguing that Rupert Murdoch is silly because he thinks putting up a pay-wall will save his newspaper empire in the long-run should not be confined to discussion about the iPad.

Gadgets come and gadgets go
I’ve got some sympathy for the argument that “the real issue isn’t the capabilities of the piece of plastic you unwrap today, but the technical and social infrastructure that accompanies it.” But that’s the real crux of the whole post. Until he gets to here, Cory seems to be arguing that the iPad can’t won’t and shouldn’t change things. But here, he pretty much gives up the ghost and you almost get the sense that he knows it will.

Well you can’t buy a device, there are no e-books on sale through the app store and it was only announced three days ago but as predicted Apple’s iPad has already shaken up digital publishing.

On Friday Amazon removed all books by publisher Macmillan – physical and digital – in a move industry insiders say is the culmination of an ongoing dispute over the price the retailing giant was charging customers for e-books on the Kindle. Macmillan wanted to set its own price (around $15) for e-books but Amazon had them locked in at a maximum of $9.99. That disagreement means you can’t currently buy any books from one of the world’s biggest publishers directly from Amazon.

Funnily enough Macmillan is one of the big publishers signing up to the Apple e-book store right from the start. And what’s the price Apple is letting Macmillan charge for an e-book? The magical $15.

While the New York Times rightly says there may be some anti-trust issues if Macmillan’s books went on sale through one of the stores and not the other, there’s still a bit over a month before Apple’s e-book store opens for business. My guess is that it’s Macmillan flexing its muscle now there’s another giant player in the market. Plenty of time for further negotiations.

I’m even more convinced now that the iPad as an e-book reader is a fifth order issue when it comes to digital publishing. All the uber-geeks are complaining because it doesn’t do this or it doesn’t do that. But this device is not designed to replace your laptop. It’s a device to let you consume digital media easily. And it does that well. I’m sure it will make a very good e-book reader but we’ve got plenty of them already.

While it could be months (or years) before Australians will be able to buy e-books from Apple, the impact across the digital publishing industry is likely to be felt much sooner.

But the interesting news is what it means for the e-book market.

The iPad introduces a new app called iBooks which links with a dedicated e-bookstore called iBookstore (enough with the “i”s already). It supports ePub as its native format! Apple adopting an industry standard is almost unheard of and it will be interesting to see if Apple allows access to ePub books bought for Stanza (or someone adds this functionality through a hack). They already have in place agreements with major publishers such as Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette.

But the device is not the issue – Apple entering the e-book trade is. These developments – support for e-Pub and Apple having a dedicated e-bookstore will mean a lot for the business. If only we could convince them to open the store up to non-Apple devices. 

What it will mean for the Kindle, who knows at this stage. But it’s 2.5 times heavier, thicker and larger, has a shorter battery life and there’s still that backlit LCD screen. I don’t think it’s a Kindle-killer. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a big leap for e-publishing.