You are asking proof for something that is discussed in secrecy. Stop avoiding the problem to make a point.
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Epic Games Wins Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Play Store
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You are asking proof for something that is discussed in secrecy. Stop avoiding the problem to make a point.
The claim is 30% is too much. How exactly is it? If you say it’s too much, you must have proof.
This is not a science fare. If you had to pay 30% on top of everything you bought you would loose your mind. Stop protecting trillion dollar companies for being greeding by moving the focus away from the obvious facts. It is unfitting.
Virtue signalling is hard work eh? Please point to the illegal emulator in this list so I can avoid it.
List of terminal emulators - Wikipedia
Virtue signalling is hard work eh? Please point to the illegal emulator in this list so I can avoid it.
List of terminal emulators - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
You are not taking the context of the conversation into account. Here let me help you and hold your hand.
“Apple will open up so now I can install emulators and play games”
That act is illegal. You can install the emulator itself. But you CANNOT use it for ANYTHING. The act of USING the emulator is illegal. UNLESS you are the copyright owner or have explicit permission from the copyright owner to do so.
You can install the emulator and let it sit unused. But that is NOT the conversation.
There are many games that are public domain, open source, homebrew, etc that are played with emulators. You can keep squirming, but you are wrong. Your assumptions are wrong.
I certainly understand that you want to ignore court decisions that contradict your point. Juries establish facts in a civil trial. In the Apple trial, Apple and Epic stipulated to the facts, so no jury was necessary.
And yet, it was Google that lost and Apple that won. It's almost as if your own feelings of what you consider unfair are inconsistent with the legal threshold.
What are you talking about?
- 30% is only paid by less than 2% of developers.
- 15-30% is on the low end for retail commissions.
- The whole discussion is about billion dollar corporations taking a cut from trillion dollar corporations. Neither side is less "greedy".
I’m not squirming. When people talk about emulators, it’s typically around PS2 or Switch etc. THAT IS THE ILLEGAL PART. If you have a ROM and have permission from the owner of the software. That’s legal then.
how is this illegal? I thought its legal to sign a contract with a supplier to buy only from them? Is it illegal to sign a contract that my company will only buy computers from DELL for the next 3 years for a discounted price?
nah. Emulations is like from systems back in late 70s with atari 2600 including PC stuff like DOS games and Amiga
Whats wrong with making an exclusive deal?
Doesn't Apple have something like Google services to make iOS apps work on iOS devices?
quite literally everything when it comes to antitrust and complaining about a company being anti competitive. Spotify is one of the companies howling to the moon about how anticompetitive Apple is being, and it is pretty easy to be on Google's side while getting exclusive deals that no other developer has (besides a few that also have backdoor deals).
Did you even look at the lawsuit before commenting to me? How is it not anticompetitive for Google to ask Spotify if they don't do XYZ then they won't have to pay the 15/30% cut that everyone else has to while being promoted on the top charts.
Edit: let me also add, that both Google and Spotify are companies that have tried to claim that Apple and the Apple App Store is anti competitive, while no secret deals were made during Apple vs. Epic Games so unless it is discovered otherwise if you meet the criteria of 15% fee then everyone pays that or 30% if that meet that instead. Again, pretty easy to claim companies are being unfair while being unfair yourself
I suppose you agree with the rulings of every court case? I have simply been pointing out why I feel that a company (Apple) which blocks sideloading and alternative app stores is being more anticompetitive than a company (Google) that, while trying to incentivize companies to use their app store, doesn’t outright block sideloading and alternative app stores. At least Google still allows for the possibility of app access competition on Android, Apple doesn’t allow it on iOS.
"Do you really believe your own take?" is a tired joke. Same argument against you.
Of course not. But that's not what you did. You simply dismissed the result without any reasoning other than jury versus non-jury.
Sure. Your trying to equate your feelings with a legal definition even though your feelings were contradicted by the results of legal proceedings that were confirmed on appeal.
Do the Atari and DOS games have permission from the developer/copyright holder that they can be emulated?
There are no PS2 and Switch and GameCube emulators?
And as we have been trying to explain, that’s not what is being ruled here.
The specific scenario you are attempting to address is better off being tackled by new legislation being passed by congress, rather than try to legislate Apple into doing the right thing using existing anti-trust laws, because Apple apparently doesn’t seem to have broken any.
I am not saying the laws are perfect or that you have to like them. I am just saying that it is what it is. This is why legal decisions are not made on the basis of what people “feel” to be just or fair.
Apple didn't, by any reasonable interpretation, lose its case against Epic. It lost on one count and may have to make a minor change to its policies. But it won on the antitrust counts that really mattered, it won on its counterclaim, and it won when it came to the pivotal legal determination - i.e., is iOS app distribution (or some similiarly defined market) in itself a relevant antitrust market.
Epic didn't get what it wanted. It wanted to be able to put its own app store in Apple's App Store and sell apps through that app store. It didn't even get alternative in-app payment options. All it got was the ability for developers to direct users out of apps to alternative payment options. Such payment options already existed and were used quite extensively by some developers. It's just that developers may soon be able to tell people about those options in their apps. Apple would (for understandable reasons) prefer that not be the case, but it's not nearly as problematic as the other possibilities Apple faced through the case.
Further, Epic's ability to take advantage of the minor victory it had is limited because Apple won on the contract breach issue. The courts determined that Apple was justified in terminating Epic's developer account and now it's Apple's choice - not Epic's choice, as you suggest - whether Fortnite is allowed back in the App Store.
Your last sentence is also incorrect. The courts said nothing of the sort, even implicitly. They actually acknowledged the opposite. IP-compensation is a procompetitive rationale. The courts explicitly recognized that, even if Apple had been ordered to allow alternative IAP options, it would still be entitled to its 30% commission. This is one of the reasons Epic lost some aspects of the case. It failed to demonstrate a least restrictive means by which Apple could achieve its legitimate business goal of collecting compensation for the use of its IP.
With purchases made outside of apps - and payments not processed by Apple - Apple may (to avoid illegal tying concerns) need to reduce its commission some (e.g., to account for the cost of payment processing), but it will still be entitled to collect a commission for the use of its IP. Collecting that commission will just be more cumbersome and some parties may try to conceal what they really owe.
I'm happy to delve further into what the courts actually said on this issue, and what that means for Apple, if you're interested. But Apple's right to collect a commission was never really in jeopardy in this case.
As to 1, the courts have not said that Apple must allow apps to do what Fortnite did. Fortnite, as you indicate, added an alternate IAP option. Apple still doesn't have to allow that; the courts were explicit on that point. What Apple has to allow is for developers to, within their apps, direct users to outside payment options.
As to 2, I'd agree that the Supreme Court is likely to decline Apple's cert petition. But it wouldn't need to disturb California's interpretation of its UCL in order to (grant the cert petition) and rule in Apple's favor. There are other significant legal questions involved and Apple isn't even asking the Supreme Court to overturn the lower courts as regards their interpretations of the Californial UCL or its application to Apple's policies.
The things and services we buy - whether we're, e.g., consumers or businesses or organizations - typically have various costs built into them. A retailer, e.g., typically needs to sell things for more than it paid for those things to cover various expenses and provide for some profit. A hammer maker needs to incorporate the cost of the materials it needs to make its hammers. A mug maker would need to account for what it would need to pay Disney for the right to print images of Disney characters on its mugs.
Apple owns certain IP. Others want to use some of that IP to, e.g., make apps which work in iOS. It's not unreasonable for Apple to expect compensation for the use of that IP and to require would-be users to comply with various rules when it comes to the use of that IP. It has a legal monopoly on the use of its IP. It doesn't have to allow anyone to use it. We don't have to allow others to use our property for free. We, as consumers, pay an effective premium for products because they use third-party IP all the time. Such costs are built into much of what we buy.
1. A rather meaningless number, when you’re ignoring not only the number of free apps but also the market or revenue share of those to 2% developers.
A bit like replying „but 99% of all US sports leagues negotiate their TV/streaming rights competitively” when (just the five of) NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB and MLS have formed a cartel aimed at driving such prices up.
2. It’s much higher than the retail margin Apple allows resellers in sales of their hardware products (at the same prices).
3. But one or two are the gatekeepers controlling the market and delivery platform between developers and consumers.
Just to be clear, that's not why the Epic / Apple trial had no jury.
Parties do sometimes stipulate to some facts, but if there were no facts left in dispute then there wouldn't be much reason for an actual trial. A judge could just, e.g., issue a summary judgment pursuant to the parties legal arguments. There were certainly facts in dispute in the Epic / Apple case and Judge Rogers made numerous findings of fact in her post-trial opinion.
Under different circumstances it might have been a jury making those findings of fact. But Epic only requested equitable relief (e.g., an injunction against Apple) for its antitrust claims so Apple wasn't entitled to the jury trial it asked for. Apple asked for legal relief (e.g., a damages award) in its counterclaim, but insisting on a jury for that would have meant separate trials for its claims and Epics claims.