“Apple Computer Inc. must face several federal and state antitrust claims arising from the operation of its iTunes online music store and the sale of its iPod digital music players, a federal judge in California has ruled. Plaintiff Thomas Slattery’s lawsuit claims Apple configured the iPod so that it will play only iTunes files and not digital music files from competing vendors of online music. Apple has also encoded its iTunes files so they will only play on the iPod and not any other digital music player, the complaint says,” Donna Higgins reports for Andrews Publications.
“The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks certification as a class action. Apple moved to dismiss all the claims, but U.S. District Judge James Ware rejected the bulk of the motion,” Higgins reports. “The plaintiff has met all the requirements for asserting a tying claim, the judge said, noting that the complaint alleges Apple has an 80 percent share of the market for legal digital music files and more than 90 percent of the market for portable hard-drive digital music players. Judge Ware rejected Apple’s argument that the tying allegations must fail because people can buy the iPod and iTunes files separately. As for the rest of the suit, the judge allowed Slattery to proceed with his monopolization claim under the federal Sherman Antitrust Act and his claims for violation of California’s antitrust and unfair-competition laws.”
More info in the full article here.
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Related article:
Antitrust suit filed against Apple, alleges iPod and iTunes Music Store illegally ‘tied’ together – January 05, 2005
Lets see. iTunes import choices are: AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3 and WAV. Buy an iPod, pick your format of choice, rip your own personal CDs and sync to the iPod.
No iTunes store involved.
Let’s see. Buy music at iTunes store, play on your Mac or PC (up to 5) burn audio CDs to play in car or home stereo.
No iPod involved.
Geek choice: Rerip AAC files or audio CDs into MP3 files. Put into any competitor’s software and sync to competitor’s music player.
Wow I’m really tied down with all these choices.
G Spank, I was wondering the same thing. Then I read this story, and now I’m sure.
“With respect to the “tying” allegations, the judge said Slattery was claiming Apple forces people who own iPods to buy music online only from iTunes and also forces iTunes customers to buy iPods to play the music they purchase.”
This is patently false. I wonder if James even knows what the reality is or if he is just going on the claims in the suit.
“Judge Ware rejected Apple’s argument that the tying allegations must fail because people can buy the iPod and iTunes files separately.”
Since Apple’s argument is correct on its face, I wonder what logic James used to reject this.
has anyone noticed the date on the article? It looks like it was out in Sept 2005. Anything more recent happen with this?
Dave H,
My personal opinion is that _no_ private company should have control over something as important as DRM. There should be an open-source standard that can be implemented by everyone.
My favorite analogy to the DRM conundrum is this:
What if the Egyptians had patented paper (and been able to enforce it)?
This is going nowhere.
What, exactly, does Apple have a monopoly on? What does Apple have that keeps people from competing?
Apple isn’t stopping anyone from doingg the following:
1) Developing their own brand of DRM,
2) Signing long contracts with every major label and a boatload of independents,
3) Developing their own multiplatform software suite, and
4) Manufacturing their own player to work within this ecosystem.
Napster could’ve done it, RealNetworks could’ve done it, Microsoft could’ve done it, Sony could’ve done it. The fact is, they didn’t want to do all those things the way Apple did. All Apple did was use their own strengths in the marketplace to develop a business strategy that was VERY hard to copy, becaquse they did it under the radar and gained critical mass in the marketplace before their competitors knew what had hit them.
MDN Word “Possible” as in “Could it be possible that Apple is uber-dominant in the MP3 player/digital music download business because the marketplace chose them over all the other solutions?”
-AP
I own Apple stock – not enough
I use Apple computers since 1984
I own an iPod
I want an open system – The suit migh help this
Remember what a motion to dismiss is: it is filed under a standard by which the argument goes like this: “assuming all facts in the complaint are true, the plaintiff cannot prevail under any legal theory.” This is a difficult standard to meet in any circumstance, let alone one like this one. While some lawsuits virtually beg for what is sometimes called a 12(b)(6) motion, it is typically difficult to sustain such a ruling on appeal, particularly in a complex case like this, where it is not too difficult for a plaintiff to drum up some theory of recovery that the law does not flatly prohibit. Here, I think another large battle will loom over the class certification. Apple has many legal defenses available to it, both substantively and procedurally. But I dop wonder who is truly behind this lawsuit. But the good news is that this “yesterday’s news” is depressing the stock and creating a buy opportunity. It drives the pu$$ies out.
maybe we should all start class actions against all of the game and software companies that do not write compatible applications for apple computers
doesnt this work both ways?
and while we are at it
should we not sue all the websites that arent completely compatible with safari?
this is so high school drama fodder
Evil_MS_User
“What if the Egyptians had patented paper (and been able to enforce it)?”
You could have been able to get it from China. (Just like today)
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Poor argument on the part of Apple’s Legal team. It does play many other formats. Its the licensing of such other formats with its DRM that does not make it profitable. Secondly, they are the brand/one company and that brand/one company is its own software as well. When you buy Apple you are buying the WHOLE package with a certain amount of quality control. Why is it that WalMarts Music files will not work on iPod….BECAUSE of the DRM imposed on it by the music Companies….NOT Walmart. It is NO different than Apple’s DRM imposed by the Music Companies….that is the “deal” , “NO DRM embedded….you cannot sell our music.” The music companies dont care what DRM the companies are using when it comes to selling their music. All they see is $$. They just dont want lame DRM. It is totally out of Apple’s hands…..and there is no such “committee” for such DRM “standard” to agree on so, that every brand portable player and music is compatible.
Stupid Lawsuit!
How can i t be a monopoly – Usually that comes fro someone buying out the competition a-la Microsoft. Apple created the digital music industry and people bought it, You don’t have to buy an iPod no one is forcing you to. If the industry grows with you that can’t be called a monopoly. Is Apple just suppose to help its competitors be “more competitive”?
This suit should be thrown out – you don’t need an iPod to survive.
re: paper – “You could have been able to get it from China. (Just like today)”
Or wasps.
Why isn’t Real in court to defend it’s criminal act of reverse engineering? It’s even quoted as a fact in the court case!
Giofoto,
Yes, Apple was forced into using DRM by the record labels. But don’t think for a second that Apple would drop DRM if the record labels decided not to use DRM anymore. Why? Vendor lock-in. Its the real truth behind DRM, not anti-piracy. Apple has you now. If there is no DRM, you could all of a sudden buy from any music service. Apple doesn’t want that. They want you to HAVE to purchase from iTunes.
Maybe the whole thing that this suit is about is there in no way to get music on the iPod without using iTunes – Is there? Thus the “tied together” argument.
Apple licensing Fairplay (widely) is one thing but it being able to play competing drm schemes is crap. Just cos someone offers some format doesn’t mean you have to accommodate it. Plus, licensing something usually involves a fee, I don’t know about PlayForSure – anyone know on what basis Microsoft license it? Irrespective of any cost, Microsoft don’t even let it run on Mac’s so they don’t even have the option of licensing it.
Re idiot:
yeah, maybe, except iTunes is a free giveaway. It’s hard to base a monopoly complaint by citing a product that is freely distributed to anyone who wants it.
Re: Jeff,
“have to buy from The Itunes store”. Is that why you can put your whole CD collection on your Ipod or any songs you may have gotten from any download service not using some other DRM. Fairplay was a requirement to protect the money not necessarily the artist but at least Apple tried to keep thing legit. I like Itunes it’s easy and just works.
I guess Microsoft will be next on the chopping block for tying PlaysForSure (DRM-WMA) exclusively to Windows, which has already been found to be a monopoly. If this guy wins, you can bet Microsoft will be next in line for a similar lawsuit.
That’s BULL****. Apple work so hard to make technology better for everyone. Apple didn’t crush other competitor. Apple made the software for windows yet hurt Apple’s sale. If Apple didn’t make the software available for windows, windows users would have to buy mac computers in order to use ipod/itunes. …. Apple already gave two options for windows users.
Dell, Creative, HP, MS, Sony and Samsung tried and always try to dethrone Apple but Apple doesn’t mind. Apple believe in competitive not crush competitors.
I disagreed with the judge because Apple never threated competitors like MS did for all years until 2001. OH BULL*****!!!!!
Mel
Let make this a good thing. If apple is being sued for it’s DRM & itunes store, can apple sue all the companys that are not making their software and/or hardware compatible with the macintosh-OSX.
Let make this a good thing. If apple is being sued for it’s DRM & itunes store, can apple sue all the companys that are not making their software and/or hardware compatible with the macintosh-OSX.
Apple wouldn’t have to even do that; it would only take a person with a similar gripe to that of Thomas Slattery to bring about a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for the same allegations, but this time it would be Microsoft tying its DRM-WMA combo to Windows-only. If the case above is somehow successful, then a case against Microsoft should deliver the same results.
For a little reality check about the judge involved look here:
http://www.fa-ir.org/ai/judgeware.htm
He’s currently a member of the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the most reversed and off-the-wall bunch of legal dunces in the history of the U.S.
Turbo:
>yeah, maybe, except iTunes is a free giveaway. It’s hard to base a monopoly complaint by citing a product that is freely distributed to anyone who wants it.
Microsoft was sued on the same principal by Netscape because MS was giving Explorer away and has bundled it ever since with it’s os.
I am not defending MS nor AAPL. I’m just pointing that out to you.