Apple is facing a putative class action lawsuit over the way consumers can “buy” or “rent” movies, TV shows and other content in the iTunes Store. David Andino, the lead plaintiff in this case, argues the distinction is deceptive. He alleges Apple reserves the right to terminate access to what consumers have “purchased” and has done so on several occasions. Andino claims he wouldn’t have gone through with the purchase, or paid as much, if he’d known the content could one day become unavailable.
Rejecting a motion to dismiss, a federal judge says it is plausible that consumers don’t know that access to purchased content can be revoked.
Eriq Gardner for The Hollywood Reporter:
This week, U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez made clear he isn’t ready to buy into Apple’s view of consumer expectations in the digital marketplace.
“Apple contends that ‘[n]o reasonable consumer would believe’ that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely,” writes Mendez. “But in common usage, the term ‘buy’ means to acquire possession over something. It seems plausible, at least at the motion to dismiss stage, that reasonable consumers would expect their access couldn’t be revoked.”
The lawsuit does lose its unjust enrichment claim, but Mendez does leave open the possibility of injunctive relief that could force Apple to change the way it sells content. We’ll see if the suit really gets there or is settled. Meanwhile, Amazon is facing a similar lawsuit over Prime Video purchases.
MacDailyNews Take: In our iTunes Store, accessed via Apple’s Music app, there aren’t even TV shows or movies availble to “buy” or “rent.” Now, in Apple’s TV app, there certainly are movies and TV shows with “Buy” buttons, so perhaps this lawsuit covers these with “iTunes Store” covering all of Apple’s media stores and apps. It will be interesting if Apple needs to do more than simply explain what “buy” really means beyond the legalese in their Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions document.