“Apple Inc said it discovered that the lead consumer in a $1 billion group antitrust lawsuit over the iPod didn’t buy a device in the time period covered by the case, which could derail a trial now under way,” Karen Gullo reports for Bloomberg.
“Bill Isaacson, Apple’s attorney, told U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that plaintiff Marianna Rosen’s iPod was purchased in July 2009, three months after a deadline for iPod owners to be included in the case. The case, filed in 2005, is over claims that Apple sought to thwart rival music stores to maintain a monopoly over digital players,” Gullo reports. “‘I am concerned that I don’t have a plaintiff,’ Rogers said in court today while the jury was on a break in the third day of trial in Oakland, California. ‘That’s a problem.'”
“Bonny Sweeney, Rosen’s attorney, told Rogers she hadn’t yet reviewed Apple’s claims. The only other named plaintiff in the case didn’t purchase an iPod during the period covered by the lawsuit, she said.,” Gullo reports. “A named plaintiff in a class action has to be an individual who was injured by the conduct being challenged in the lawsuit, said Vikram Amar, a law professor at University of California at Davis. Another person could take Rosen’s place as a named plaintiff under procedures approved by Rogers, he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Put a mannequin in there instead. It’d be fitting for a case such as this that’s been manufactured by lawyers for lawyers and hasn’t “injured” anybody.
Related articles:
Apple on trial: Were iTunes updates really an anti-consumer scheme?
Steve Jobs on RealNetworks in 2011 deposition: ‘Do they still exist?’ – December 3, 2014
Steve Jobs said Apple took pains to protect record contracts – December 3, 2014
Star witness in Apple lawsuit is Steve Jobs – December 1, 2014
How to kill the DRM in your old iTunes Store music purchases – March 18, 2014
Apple asks judge to dismiss FairPlay lawsuit following Steve Jobs’ deposition – April 19, 2011
Apple’s iTunes Store goes DRM-free and 3G via iPhone; variable pricing coming soon – January 6, 2009
Major music cartels demand concessions from Apple before inking DRM-free iTunes Store music deals – December 15, 2008
RealNetworks ‘Harmony’ stops working on iPods but nobody notices for a month and a half – December 15, 2004
Real’s online petition for music ‘freedom’ backfires bigtime – August 17, 2004
Real cracks Apple’s Fairplay; to sell iPod-compatible songs without Apple’s authorization – July 25, 2004
Jobs to Glaser: Go pound sand – April 16, 2004
I’m all for pinnig corporations to the mat when they conduct anticonsumer activities, and Sagan knows there more than enough corporations that need to have their hands slapped if not a finger cut off. But it sounds like it’s pretty much time for this nonsense lawsuit to just go away.
Never let a good lawsuit go to waste.
Can’t let a good law suit “go” to waste, as most of them are wastes already.
It is shocking that Jennifer Westhoven is telling viewers of the Morning Express that the songs are actually “lost forever” when the iPod is reformatted. It is my understanding that no songs are actually deleted from the consumers computer, only that the iPod itself is wiped (as happens with all iDevices)???
Better yet, if you purchased the music from iTunes you can just redownload it. I’m pretty sure that has always been the case. You do, of course, need to know your iTunes account and password. I know man that forgot this and could not get back in.
Seriously, the stupid ass lawyers who filed this case, and who should be fined for wasting courts time when it is dismissed, did not cover this fairly obvious point? It is quite apparent this whole thing is a sham to make money for the morally challenged lawyers themselves and nothing more.
Ehhh, stupid like greedy foxes 😡
You have to be one dumbshit attorney to not properly vet your client in a class action suit before you launch it.
This ambulance has been chased for 9 years, and they have no plaintiffs?! SMH.
“We have money for you!!!”
Too many lawyers in this country and not enough engineers.
Steve Jobs stated that (lack of engineering talent) as one of the reason Apple finds it difficult to bring manufacturing back to the US.
So they’ve got to find someone who:
1. Bought an iPod during the specified time
2. Bought from Real songs containing Real’s own DRM
3. Used Real’s hack to put those onto an iPod
4. Subsequently synched that iPod with iTunes
After all that, the “damage” that was done is that those songs were no longer on the iPod. They were still on the computer, of course, but Real’s hack no longer worked so they couldn’t side load those onto the iPod.
Note that if those songs did not have Real’s DRM there would have been no issue at all. Normal files worked without a hitch and were unaffected.
If they were stupid enough to buy music from Real, they probably bought a Zune and called it an iPod. Look at the number of people running around today calling their Android tablets iPads. There is a sucker born every minute.
OOPS! The trial’s a scam!
Attempting to suck on Apple’s blood again, eh parasites?
We need a Glagafrimcham B-Ark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Golgafrincham
That word is Golgafrincham, and I want coffee!
This is absolutely hilarious. I’m sure this is going to be used for whole bunch of “Americans are so whiny that…” jokes. What a farce. Gosh this could replace the “Americans are so whiny that they’ll complain about a country having weapons of mass destruction before invading” jokes.
What a classic.
Oh man, you’re flying RIGHT over the ditto heads around here. How DARE you?! 😆
Scam…
Judge Koh is shaking her head…
“WTF with that judge. Just change the parameters of the trial and extend the date. See Solved, Done! Apple is ALWAYS wrong. The judge should just spend his time instead figuring out how many more billions to add to the fine… moron. We can then move on to the NEXT case where the Fashion Industry is suing because it’s been damaged by people matching their clothes with WHITE earbuds for years… “.