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Apple Sued For Dividing Final Season of Breaking Bad Into Two On iTunes
An anonymous reader writes "Last night's episode of Breaking Bad was one of the most intense in series history, but for those who haven't seen it yet, don't worry, I won't be putting out any spoilers. You see, today's Breaking Bad news has nothing to do with Walter White's slow transformation into Scarface, but rather with a legal suit filed against Apple by a Breaking Bad fan. In a lawsuit that many saw coming, an Ohio man named Noam Lazebnik recently filed a class action suit against Apple upon finding out that the $22.99 he forked over for a 'Season Pass' of Breaking Bad was only good for the first 8 episodes of the show's final season."
If the price is $3 per episode, why bother paying $23 for 8 episodes... to save $1?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Obviously, its a problem when "Season Pass" doesn't actually get you the whole season. If I hadn't RTFA'd I might have presumed that the guy was complaining that he didn't get access to either all 16 episodes including the ones that weren't even played yet (that would be absurd) or that he didn't get access to the first 8 + the ones that have been played already (not absurd but I wouldn't be on his side)
If Apple's intention was that buying a season pass to season 5 of breaking bad would get you the first 8 episodes now, and the last 8 episodes when they were released to dvd/bluray/download, it would just be a matter of patience and I'd still be on Apple's side on this one.
Except from the sounds of it, Apple was selling a season pass to "Season 5" and not listing it as "The first 8 episodes of season 5." They had no intention of ever giving him access to the last 8 episodes of Season 5 for that price, making it "Not really a season pass." Clearly this is a problem and the guy just wants his money back for misleading advertising. If I were him, I'd be ok with a gift card in the amount of the price of the first 8 episodes, since the second 8 will presumably be priced the same anyway, effectively getting me what was advertised. The whole season for one price.
Or, Apple gave AMC an account to upload content (as they do every other iTunes Content Distributor whether they be app, music, movie or tv) and AMC did it under the guise of Season 5 is 8 episodes. Just because AMC is covering their asses as SciFi did on many occasions in the past does not mean that Apple is at fault. Basically, it is the same as the DVD and Bluray copies sold as Season 5 during a mid-season break only to have 5.1 after the season truly ends. Or do you blame Best Buy for those too?
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Fine print won't help if you can call this "Misleading Advertisement". False and misleading advertisement are both illegal; if you put something reasonable as a title on your shit and people are reasonably mislead, you're misleading. "Entire CD for $5!" *"We only carry 2 tracks of this CD as a bundle, you get the entire 2 tracks we carry as the digital version of the CD, you have to buy the rest" fineprint bullshit will quickly get you boned unless it is slapped right across the front somewhere most complete retards will spot it. The harder you bury that fine print, the guiltier you look and the less amused the courts will be.
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That's true. However that doesn't explain the network's distribution. Personally I hate this trend of splitting seasons into Season 5.1 and Season 5.2 or Season 5 (Spring) or Season 5 (Fall). The BBC experimented with splitting series up for DVD sales or Schedule pigeonholing (make the season last despite the lack of episodes).
In AMC's case, they either didn't want to delay the Season 5 premiere by waiting on the second half of the season to finish production or (and) they wanted to milk the cash cow as long as possible by having the new episodes spread out into two half seasons.
To AMC's credit, they didn't label the second half of the distribution as "Season 6" but as "The final season". I think this has more to do with AMC's right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing than Apple or Amazon wanting to confuse or frustrate their customers.
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Pity this guy isn't in Australia. Apple would be forced to refund or give him both 'seasons' over here without any lawsuit.
We have a government organisation called the ACCC to keep companies in line with their advertising.