I’ve picked on the iPad a few times. From the moment it was announced, the iPad looked to me like a brain-dead solution in search of a problem, and when Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal announced its pricing for reading WSJ on the iPad I told you how ridiculous it was, and why. I was hoping I was done; it’s almost like the iPad was created to carry a big “kick me” sign.

I’m not.

Jay Rosen, esteemed professor of journalism at NYU, made a point on His Twitter Page yesterday. Here it is:

No copy and paste, no links and no comments when you’re reading the WSJ and NYT on their iPad apps http://jr.ly/yic4 Explain the thinking…

I can’t, unless I go with something very simple: What may be the two most influential newspapers in world just don’t care what their readers think.

I’ve commented before on issues like this. The New York Times (and many other), for example, has a longstanding policy of using the “NoFollow” tag to withhold credit for posts from people who comment on their web site, and  CNet has actually asked me to give my opinion of and contribute to their content, but not identify myself.

The Internet doesn’t work that way. Or at least it hasn’t. And I’m concerned: the iPad is looking more and more like the chance that really big businesses have been looking for to control what happens on the Internet at the expense of free speech and the greater good.

Ironic that the very people who would be loudest in defending THEIR right to free speech are now becoming the ones looking to stifle it for everyone else.

Now I’m a business guy, and I too prefer that you pay attention to me instead of anyone else, so I understand the driving business change forces in play here. I even teach other people how to make that happen for their businesses. But something about making both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal locked-down countries really, really bothers me.

Tell me what you think.