Apple DRM Lawsuit Loses Last Plaintiff, but Judge Rules Against Dismissal

UnknowingFool writes: In the Apple DRM lawsuit, the last plaintiff in the case has been disqualified. However, due to the number of potential consumers affected, the judge has denied Apple's motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs' lawyers will have to find a qualified plaintiff. To recap, the suit lost both plaintiffs in the last week when Apple reported to the judge that their iPods were not eligible (iPods must be purchased between Sept 2006 and May 2009). The first plaintiff withdrew when all her iPods were found to be outside the time period. The second plaintiff produced one iPod that was not eligible but two others that were eligible; however, Apple challenged the two eligible ones as the plaintiff could not prove she purchased them. They were purchased by her ex-husband's law firm. Since one of the suit's main claims was that the price of the iPod was raised due to Apple's actions, it was important to establish that she purchased them.

At the heart of the case is that Apple's use of DRM harmed customers by raising the price of the iPod and that Apple removed other competitor's music from the iPod — namely RealPlayer's Harmony music files. Apple does not dispute that it removed RealPlayer's files, but contends it was done for security reasons as RealPlayer was able to get the music files onto the iPod by posing as Apple FairPlay files. In testimony, Steve Jobs called RealPlayer's move "a hack" and there was considerable discussion at the time."

Comments

Re:Only in America...

[petermgreen]

AIUI ipods are meant to play two classes of media files, non-drm files and files protected with apple drm*.

AIUI circumventing protections on access to a copyrighted work is illegal in the US but that isn't what real did. They found a way to put their own DRM media on ipods without undrming it by convincing the ipod that the file was using apple drm.

* Yes I know apple no longer uses drm for music sold on itunes but afaict they still use it for videos, previously purchased music that was not upgraded and some audiobooks. At one stage they were also still using it for music giveaways after they stopped using it for music sales, not sure if that is still the case.