Apple Sued For Dividing Final Season of Breaking Bad Into Two On iTunes

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Apple Sued For Dividing Final Season of Breaking Bad Into Two On iTunes

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 9, 2013 @02:22AM from the heisenberg-is-not-happy dept.

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."

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Why is Apple the one being sued? by ArcadeMan · 2013-09-09 02:25 · Score: 5, Funny

They didn't make the Breaking Bad series, they're not the ones who decided to split up the season in two. What's next, suing Apple because the new pop music album is crap?

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1. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by tverbeek · 2013-09-09 02:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  One of the cardinal rules of litigation is that the list of defendants includes everyone involved (in any way) who has money.
  
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2. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by jonwil · 2013-09-09 02:29 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Apple did not split the new season in 2 parts but they ARE the ones that sold it as a "season pass" and didn't say anywhere that the "season pass" is not good for the entire season.
  To me its a fairly simple case of misleading advertizing.
3. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by Xest · 2013-09-09 02:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No but they are the ones who are selling a season pass for half a season.
  Maybe things are different in the US, but in the UK at least the onus is on the retailer to make sure the products they sell are correctly advertised.
  If it's genuinely not Apple's fault, then Apple gets to sue onwards to the provider of the product to recoup their costs, but either way the consumer's purchase contract was with Apple, so the consumer is right to take it up against Apple.
4. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by gorzek · 2013-09-09 02:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Indeed. AMC's official stance is that this is one season of 16 episodes. For Apple to make the decision to consider it two "seasons" as far as "season passes" are concerned--well, I hope they've got some good fine print on that, otherwise they're boned. To me, "season pass" means "season pass," not "half a season pass." If Apple doesn't like it, they should take it up with AMC.
  
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5. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by UnknowingFool · 2013-09-09 02:44 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If it's genuinely not Apple's fault, then Apple gets to sue onwards to the provider of the product to recoup their costs, but either way the consumer's purchase contract was with Apple, so the consumer is right to take it up against Apple.
  Normally that is not how it works. Apple can request that they are excluded from the suit and the court can agree. The court has to determine this based on a number of factors. If Apple is simply a middleman or distributor selling a product based on the content holder's wishes they are more likely to be dismissed from the case. Also if competitors have the exact same arrangement, it is more likely the content holder is the one who has to address the suit.
  
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6. Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? by tysonedwards · 2013-09-09 02:54 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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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7. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by bluefoxlucid · 2013-09-09 02:55 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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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8. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by ChromaticDragon · 2013-09-09 03:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  There are couple of problems with your quip. First, it seems this chap isn't going after money. The article suggests he is seeking only a refund... for all he deems swindled by this. Second, he doesn't seem to have sued more than his immediate interface in this chain of commerce. That is, he's simply trying to hold Apple to their apparently declared obligation.
  Actually, however, there are a number of reasons to sue multiple parties in many cases regardless of the amount of money sought. Sometimes it's pretty clear who did you wrong. Here it seems rather clear that Apple made a particular promise prior to a proper appreciation or understanding of the intent of AMC. But often it's not entirely clear. Next, suing all involved parties forces them all to get their act together (individually and collectively) since if any party doesn't show at court judgement may default against them regardless of actual guilt/responsibility. Sadly, it seems litigation is often required to get multiple bureaucracies to work together... or against each other. Which brings us to another reason - getting your opponents' lawyers to do your work for you as they endeavour to show the other defendant guilty.
9. Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? by gbjbaanb · 2013-09-09 03:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  why is Apple being sued even if all they did was set down a box and say "hey consumers, good stuff will be in here" and "hey producers, stick your stuff in here". You'd think with that kind of setup they're doing nothing but acting as a middle man bringing consumers and producers together so they could engage in a transaction of goods for money.
  However, they didn't do this - to each side they said "we'll handle this", and charged a tidy sum for the privilege, Consumers don't see who produces the goods, and producers don;'t see who purchases them - Apple sticks a great big wall in between so that they, and only they, are the ones taking the big fat cut. As a result, the consumer has no-one else to sue - his business was with Apple.
  now, Apple might well decide to sue the producer in turn for not supplying the described product, but I fear that Apple, in their greed simply set up the box like I first described and left them to it - in order to make as much money as possible with the least amount of effort. And this is the result, no-one to blame but themselves.
10. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by UnknowingFool · 2013-09-09 04:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Again, if AMC is defining the season, that's AMC's liability, not Apple. Not Amazon. Copyright law is clear that content owners have immense power when it comes to distribution. If Apple and Amazon were colluding with AMC to do this, then you have a case. I would think neither Apple or Amazon have the time or werewithal to micro-manage AMC's one show in this way. Like every other content holder, they leave the content holder alone to make their own decisions.
  
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11. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by roc97007 · 2013-09-09 04:15 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There are couple of problems with your quip. First, it seems this chap isn't going after money. The article suggests he is seeking only a refund... for all he deems swindled by this.
  ^^ This is insightful?
  Are we supposed to believe that this guy is undertaking the effort and expense of litigation all in the name of recovering his $22.99?
  NO!
  There is an army of lawyers here, FUNDING and waiting upon the outcome of this case before launching similar class-actions that will net them millions of dollars and all the "swindled" customers a free season something.
  Good god man. Wake up. Read between the lines.
  Shrug. Sometimes it's a matter of principle. As the OP said, he's apparently seeking a refund for a product he purchased and didn't receive. Going after the retailer for this is entirely reasonable. If the retailer was unknowingly selling half-full boxes of product, it's then the retailer's job to sue the manufacturer. In the IT industry it's called "one throat to choke". When you deal with a distributor, the distributor is ultimately responsible to the customer for the product matching the description. In this case "season pass" for half a season is clearly receiving a half-full box.
  
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12. Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? by Midnight+Thunder · 2013-09-09 04:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  why is Apple being sued even if all they did was set down a box and say "hey consumers, good stuff will be in here" and "hey producers, stick your stuff in here".
  I would argue that the customer shouldn't have to dig to find out who is responsible. From the customer's point of view Apple sold him the content and was the point where the text was presented. Now whether it is Apple or the publishers behind, is for Apple to decide whether they pass the buck.
  In the example of Best Buy the relationship between the box and the store is a bit clearer, but if Best Buy has an advert saying something that incorrect and it has the Best Buy logo on it, then it is Best Buy's responsibility, even it was the publisher behind changing the offering.
  
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13. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by msauve · 2013-09-09 05:08 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Well, if you go to the AMC website, you'll find videos from the second half labeled "Season 5, Episode 13" and such.
  
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14. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by houghi · 2013-09-09 05:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  On a show called Talking Bad Vince Gilligan said at one point (paraphrasing) ... in part 2 of series 5 that is how our lawyers say we should call it ...
  To me this means several things in the way it was worded.
  1) For the creators it is series 6. Mr. Gilligan did not seem to agree with it being season 5 part 2.
  2) For the legal department it is series 5
  3) It has already been discussed (at least internally) on a legal level
  For all I know some parties might have asked to turn it into separate seasons, so they can sell it twice instead of once. That has been rejected for some reason.
  
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15. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by tipo159 · 2013-09-09 05:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It did say, however, that the season pass was valid for all season 5 episodes aired in 2012.
  a) It did not say this at the time that I purchased Season 5. It was added later.
  b) If you read the text of the suit, you will see that some Apple CSRs told customers would be getting all 16 episodes.
  c) Another AMC series, Walking Dead, had a mid-season break and included all of the episodes for the season, before and after the break (which was split across calendar years), as part of the 'Season Pass'.
16. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by Bill_the_Engineer · 2013-09-09 05:29 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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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17. Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? by spire3661 · 2013-09-09 06:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If I go into Best Buy and through their advertising they inform me that I can get all of season 8 of breaking bad on DVD for $X. If I then take the box home and only find HALF of season 8 in it, im going ot go back to Best Buy and say 'WTF'
  
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18. Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? by cheater512 · 2013-09-09 08:48 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
Re:First World Problems by MightyYar · 2013-09-09 02:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think you can be taken for an extra $20 in third world countries as well. Swindlers exist everywhere.

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Amazon, others doing it too by XxtraLarGe · 2013-09-09 02:27 · Score: 4, Informative

From what I understand, other vendors are doing it as well, and it was due to a decision by AMC. Besides, if they charge $2.99 per HD episode, and the season pass was $22.99, wouldn't it seem peculiar to give such a big price break for 16 episodes? Not trying to excuse Apple, just trying to introduce a little reason into the debate. I think the fault ultimately lies with AMC and the way they decided to break up the season into two parts.

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1. Re:Amazon, others doing it too by bluefoxlucid · 2013-09-09 03:01 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  No, from a legal standpoint it will come down to if it was reasonable to assume the customer knew what this shit meant. If there's a highly buried definition somewhere in doublefine print, folks start looking guilty. Misleading advertisement is a crime, and writing somewhere deep in the manual "You only get 20% of what you pay for, but we call it Full Package and show a picture of the other 80%, just you have to spend 5x more to get the rest really" will not be looked upon favorably by the courts. Putting in "Full Package!*" with "*Complete accessory set shown, sold separately; Full Package references the full standard set, not to include the full accessory set" directly below in half-size print will not get you boned in court, as the judge will look at the plaintiff like he's stupid for not reading the text shoved right in front of his face.
  
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As usual, the legit users get punished by Powercntrl · 2013-09-09 02:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Meanwhile, the people who just download the series through torrents have no such problem.

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Counterpoint by schneidafunk · 2013-09-09 02:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

If the price is $3 per episode, why bother paying $23 for 8 episodes... to save $1?

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Re:First World Problems by gl4ss · 2013-09-09 02:36 · Score: 5, Informative

*I seriously doubt this was apple!s decision. Wrong party to sue.*
well apple sure was the party that sold the season pass... even if apple wasn't the party to decide that the final season is actually two seasons.

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Some thoughts by Cowclops · 2013-09-09 02:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.
Better Call Saul! by bradgoodman · 2013-09-09 02:48 · Score: 5, Funny

...for a lawsuit like this!
Re:AMC split season 5 by Bill+Dimm · 2013-09-09 03:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Perhaps someone at Apple made the mistake of thinking they were two separate seasons.
The studio sure seems to be encouraging that mistake. They are selling DVDs saying "The Fifth Season" on the packaging with no hint that it is half of a season
Re:First World Problems by interkin3tic · 2013-09-09 03:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

You posted that at 10:34, the story went up at 10:22. It's possible that there was someone out there who was stupid enough to not realize that apple was not making breaking bad, and he or she happened to somehow have enough money to hire a lawyer who was willing to take their money in exchange for nothing. But it's also possible that whoever is behind this spent longer than 12 minutes thinking about it and has a better idea of what they're doing than you do.

There's probably already a rule for this, but I'm going to go ahead and state that as a general rule, any one line objections raised about a story within the first 15 minutes of the story going up on slashdot are probably not really that insightful. If you think you've found a gaping hole in a legal strategy, maybe consider that the strategy is more complex than the headline suggests. If it's a story about a scientific study, and you don't bother reading the actual published paper, maybe don't bother spouting a one line rejection of it.

Perhaps it takes some slashdotters less than 15 minutes to read a scientific paper, digest it, and crystalize a major problem to one line, maybe there are slashdot lawyers out there who pull up the documents online and read through a court case and then explain in one single sentence the glaring flaw. But I doubt it has ever actually worked like that.
Re:AMC split season 5 by jollyreaper · 2013-09-09 04:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Piracy means never having to deal with this kind of BS. Hint to companies: don't make piracy easier/better than watching legally. We have choices we never had before.

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Re:First World Problems by Half-pint+HAL · 2013-09-09 05:25 · Score: 3, Informative

I seriously doubt this was apple!s decision. Wrong party to sue.
Very basic principle of consumer law: sale is a contract between retailer and customer. If I buy a phone and the box is missing a vital component (perhaps even the handset), it's the retailer's responsibility to supply me with the missing goods -- he can't just fob me off with "that's what the manufacturer sent us".

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Comment removed by account_deleted · 2013-09-09 08:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

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