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

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-begins-the-search dept.

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."

12 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Only in America... by pete6677 · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Only in America... by dprimary · · Score: 2

      That and isn't circumventing DMR illegal. Or since REAL is/was a company it ok.

    2. Re:Only in America... by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

      No, it specifically states they need a plaintiff to continue. Apple just found a laughable way to get the current plaintiffs dismissed... I'm guessing it'll take them about half an hour to find a new one.

    3. Re:Only in America... by petermgreen · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    4. Re:Only in America... by QuasiSteve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "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.

    5. Re:Only in America... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:Only in America... by RazorSharp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You seem to be the one who needs to do a bit more reading on this case. The law firm created this suit because they wanted a huge payday from Apple -- so they used friends/family members who had iPods as their plaintiffs so they could create this class action lawsuit. Only problem is that their "plaintiffs" had the wrong iPods for their claims.

      This law firm is just attempting to extort money from Apple. It's what they do -- create class action lawsuits so they can demand large fees as part of the settlement. Oftentimes the companies that are the target of these types of suits settle out of court because it's cheaper to be extorted than to defend themselves against the lawsuit. It's no different than those scummy lawyers who advertise on TV saying, "Do you have such and such problem? Did you buy such and such between these dates? If so, you could be entitled to serious compensation!" The truth of the matter is, if they win, you'll get minor compensation (which you probably don't deserve in the first place) and the lawyers will walk away with millions.

      People tend to view corporation as villains so we tend to automatically side with the lawyers in these cases -- "serves them right" or something along those lines -- but frivolous lawsuits by scummy lawyers hurt everyone. Just look at the healthcare industry where costs continuously escalate year after year. Absurd class action suits like this one and patent troll suits hurt the tech industry, which hurts people who use technology.

      --
      "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
  2. Suit gains a plaintiff by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  3. What? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2

    "At the heart of the case is that Apple's use of DRM harmed customers by raising the price of the iPod"

    A couple of years ago I received an iPod Classic as a gift. At the time, the price was $259, which I consider to be ridiculous. Does this meant they were even more expensive previously?

    1. Re: What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  4. Re:So Charmingly Naive by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    Yes they'll delete files. At the heart of the problem was that RealPlayer took advantage of a bug that allowed their files to mimic FairPlay. If RealPlayer can do it, others can. So if they close the bug, they need to remove the files as Apple cannot be sure of the origin. Also if the files are useless, they are taking up space. However if you used the iPod as a storage device, it accepted the files but not a music file to be played.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  5. Re:Ambulance Chasing by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    At this point it's actually in Apple's interest to have the case resolved in their favor rather than dismissed. If the problem was that there wasn't a plaintiff, then another suit can be brought by another firm and another plaintiff which may take another 10 years. By this point most of the money has already been spent on the lawsuit. It was the same with SCO v IBM. IBM wanted it to go to trial so that they could make an example of SCO.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.