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

Only in America...

[pete6677]

Only in America can you continue a lawsuit without a plantiff.

Re:Only in America...

[Cinder6]

"Plaintiffs didn't suffer damages" is a laughable reason?

Re:Only in America...

[QuasiSteve]

"Plaintiffs didn't suffer damages" is a laughable reason?

Yes. No. Sort of.

It is a fact that this has *potentially* affected N million people, and it is assumed that of those N million people, some M were truly affected. The suit was brought as a class action suit, essentially representing all those people.
But a suit needs plaintiffs, and in this case the plaintiffs were not among those affected. Or rather, one wasn't affected, and the other was kinda-sorta not affected because she didn't actually pay for the devices herself.

Dismissing the case based on just these 2 plaintiffs is 'laughable' in that it ignores the other N people, the other M people, and if nothing else, the other 1 person who purchased the products for that woman.
Would it not be equally laughable to suggest that in her specific case, that person also has no standing because while they may very well have purchased the device, they gifted it away and thus cannot have been affected?

The judge in this case made the right call - there's already been effort, time and money expended to get the case this far. Dismissing it and saying "bring another suit when you have new plaintiffs" would waste resources, not the least of which being the court's.

The plaintiffs - or rather their counsel - should have done their homework better and ensured that the plaintiffs had standing, though.. and I think the judge made that very clear in their highly public statements.

Re:Only in America...

[gstoddart]

You're only allowed to put music on these cassette tapes with officially branded cassette recorders. It is strictly forbidden to use another brand's recorder. Otherwise, our cassette player will erase the sections recorded by that other brand's recorder, just to make sure our brand is secure.

Or, alternately ... had you and I employed the described hack to circumvent Apple Fair Play, we would be facing criminal charges.

This has nothing to do with your screed, and everything to do with Real circumventing DRM.

But, hey, don't let that stop you from blaming Apple or making it about something else.

Suit gains a plaintiff

[Todd Knarr]

The article's behind the curve. The class has a plaintiff for the suit and it will continue.

Re:Suit gains a plaintiff

[Anonymous Coward]

It should just be thrown out.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...
 
160/260 = 62 cents a gig
 
64/100 = 64 cents a gig
 
I guess either you got robbed or you don't know what most expensive means in terms of capacity... or both.
 
In any case, Apple's hardware has the outward appearance of being a better grade of hardware and for the most part it is a better class of hardware. Maybe not the best but if you really go out and look at real premium hardware Apple generally isn't as expensive as most people claim.
 
And a bit of a yarn; I have a head unit that supports the 30pin Apple connector. I had a 80gb iPod (gen 5) fail that was over 1000 days out of warranty. Restoring the iPod didn't help. It seemed to be playing according to the screen but there was no audio from either the 30 pin connector or the headphone jack. I did a bit of Googling for it and found a ton of other people with the same problem. I contacted Apple and even as out of date as the unit was they replaced if free of charge citing a manufacturing defect. I didn't even have to ask, I told the kid on the phone what my iPod was doing and he offered to replace it without even going into some legalistic spiel. The other side of the coin is having a 2500 USD HP laptop fail on me 4 days after the end of warranty and having HP tell me to shove off. I had the same laptop repaired under warranty 6 months prior for the same issue, thermal degradation of the system board.
 
This is why I stick with Apple hardware where and when I can. Granted, this isn't a scientific finding but in an age where customer service is a sad joke it helps keep customers loyal.
 
Oh, and if anyone from HP is reading this... my rMBP is doing great. Thanks for beating down an ex-loyal customer... best laptop I've ever owned.