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Florida Lawyer Sues Apple for Renting HD Movies on Non-HD Devices

I hate lawyers as much as the next guy but he does have a point. By their burying the Standard Rez version "under the button", iTunes made it very easy to pay that extra $ for HD when you just wanted to rent the standard version for economy and drive space on an iOS device. I doubt that was an accident.
 
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Yes, Apple is engaging in purposefully predatory practices confusing customers however if you just ask they'll refund it. This happened to me, they fixed it. This is not worth a class action lawsuit or any lawsuit. He is wasting the courts time out of greed. No surprise.
 
He knows he's not going anywhere with this case but he got what he wanted, his name in the paper. This will attract some gullible clients on the basis that he stands up to big corporations.
 
Wouldn't the class action lawsuit against stupid people include too many defendants.

Be easier to send them "You can't cure stupid" t-shirts.
 
Forgive me if this is already stated, but you could rent from an old iPod touch/3GS and then watch on your iMac, MacBook, or appletv, so I think he has no case whatsoever....
 
marksman said:
This seems baseless since you can play the content on multiple devices and might have plans to watch it on an HD device. Apple is not psychic.
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Apple's marketing of movies is misleading in this regard. You can transfer purchases but NOT rentals, which is NOT stated on the movies page, which advertises rentals. Even when you rent something, there is NO warning to inform you of that.
The fine print is that you can only transfer one way, but not the other, which defeats the whole it just works philosophy.
If anything, sue on those grounds.
 
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LastLine said:
In fairness while this is a bit frivolous, you have to agree to some extent with the logic that a non HD capable device shouldn't offer HD films. Kinda how your iPhone can't see iPad only apps :)

I'm sure a letter of complaint and request for a refund would have worked well enough though :p
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True. Still, nothing worth a lawsuit. Just ridiculous.
And of course it has to be a Florida lawyer.... Not surprising...

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macs4nw said:
That kind of publicity, is definitely not what he's looking for, lol, and something tells me, he's not gonne take APPLE up, on such a 'generous' offer. :D
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Someone put lawyer in a box and ship to North Korea...

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christophermdia said:
Forgive me if this is already stated, but you could rent from an old iPod touch/3GS and then watch on your iMac, MacBook, or appletv, so I think he has no case whatsoever....
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Yes, i want to be able to rent and buy on any device, even if it's unsupported, and watch later on my supported devices.

This just smells like scam all over.
Sadly, Florida is the crib of fraud, which affects its citizens. We have to pay higher home/auto/health, etc. insurance because of all these crooks.
 
anthony11 said:
FWIW option 1 above isn't much of an option, since it isn't easy to do, and in my experience Apple tends to ignore refund requests.
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In my experience apple has processed every one of my refund requests. Probably about 6 since I've started using iTunes.
 
madcran said:
I'm totally against frivolous lawsuits, but you should really check out the real reason she sued for hot coffee. It's not just about the scalding hot coffee to her legs and "other" areas (3rd degree burns), it's about how McDonald's business practices and their cover up of it that really won the lawsuit for the old lady. There's a good documentary about it.

http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com

It's on Netflix, http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Hot_Coffee/70167106
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Is still a frivolous load of balderdash. When the vast majority of people make hot drinks themselves they use boiling water, some use no milk which leaves nothing except time to cool it.
By this logic kettle manufatcurues should all, (I know some do recently), have a 'hot drinks' setting to prevent similar instances.

You boil the kettle, (as I'm sure Liebeck usually does), pour into a vessel, add milk and sugar to taste and then drink, or sip.
 
I got caught out with this too. I bought Lincoln in HD (1080p) but my 1st Gen AppleTV cant play it. In fairness I should of known but I saw HD and thought yeh ok. Only to be 'reminded' that I cant actually view it because my hardware cant handle it even though I am able to buy it on the device.

I do have an iPad 3 so I can view it on their and on my iMac but I really wanted to watch it on the TV. If it didnt show up on the ATV I wouldnt of bought it as I'm not getting value for money which I guess is where the lawsuit comes in. I'm not one for lawsuits and jumping on bandwagons but this one does have a bit of weight to it. :s
 
LastLine said:
In fairness while this is a bit frivolous, you have to agree to some extent with the logic that a non HD capable device shouldn't offer HD films. Kinda how your iPhone can't see iPad only apps :)

I'm sure a letter of complaint and request for a refund would have worked well enough though :p
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or you know, people could start using their brain instead of throwing responsibility on others
 
mumph said:
I got caught out with this too. I bought Lincoln in HD (1080p) but my 1st Gen AppleTV cant play it. In fairness I should of known but I saw HD and thought yeh ok. Only to be 'reminded' that I cant actually view it because my hardware cant handle it even though I am able to buy it on the device.

I do have an iPad 3 so I can view it on their and on my iMac but I really wanted to watch it on the TV. If it didnt show up on the ATV I wouldnt of bought it as I'm not getting value for money which I guess is where the lawsuit comes in. I'm not one for lawsuits and jumping on bandwagons but this one does have a bit of weight to it. :s
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It's like buying a blu ray - DVD set when you only have a DVD player
 
thedarkhalf said:
Correct me if i'm wrong, but just cause you buy the movie on one device, that doesn't mean it's only playable on said device. I thought you could buy something on the iPhone and it would be available on your iPad, Laptop and AppleTV as well.

Edit: Baldimac just answered my question :)
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Yep, and I do it often. He's basically complaining at a feature many people actually make use of.

Now, if he was complaining at certain HD purchases only available on the iPad while the desktop version only offers SD...
 
LastLine said:
In fairness while this is a bit frivolous, you have to agree to some extent with the logic that a non HD capable device shouldn't offer HD films. Kinda how your iPhone can't see iPad only apps :)

I'm sure a letter of complaint and request for a refund would have worked well enough though :p
Click to expand...

My old 2nd gen iPod touch doesn't allow me to buy HD movies. The only way I can see this happening is if he bought it on iTunes as HD and then tried to put it on.
 
mumph said:
I got caught out with this too. I bought Lincoln in HD (1080p) but my 1st Gen AppleTV cant play it. In fairness I should of known but I saw HD and thought yeh ok. Only to be 'reminded' that I cant actually view it because my hardware cant handle it even though I am able to buy it on the device.

I do have an iPad 3 so I can view it on their and on my iMac but I really wanted to watch it on the TV. If it didnt show up on the ATV I wouldnt of bought it as I'm not getting value for money which I guess is where the lawsuit comes in. I'm not one for lawsuits and jumping on bandwagons but this one does have a bit of weight to it. :s
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What would you do if Apple took your money for the hd copy but streamed you a copy in sd. I think that would piss you off a lot more than finding out you just can't watch it and fire an email off for a refund which you would get.

This joke of a lawsuit has to many holes in it. The t&c's clearly state he playback on compatable devices only with a list of exclusions added to the fact you can rent on any device for the ease of bein able to Que a movie to watch later on a compatable device.

Tbh if Apple changed it so I couldn't rent at work and view later that would annoy me. But tbh I'm not running an old iOS device so won't have this issue any time soon.
 
This just in, another lawyer shows how incredibly stupid they can be.

While I get the point, this hardly warrants another suit.
 
Gav2k said:
But tbh I'm not running an old iOS device so won't have this issue any time soon.
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But many of us are. Our iOS devices dont magically update their hardware, shame really because that would be cool hehe.

The point is that they are making available HD downloads on devices that cant utilise them. So if you only have an original iPad for example and download a HD movie because you were naive to the requirements (like many people unfortunately) then you would of wasted 9.99.

I downloaded my Lincoln example because I simply didnt think about it, i know the requirements, plus I do have devices capable of utilising the file so It didnt worry me too much.

My uncle or nan for example might tap on the HD option simply because it says 'buy now' quite correctly thinking that if its available to purchase on a device it should be able to utilise the file.

Why do Apple block iPad apps appearing for purchase on the iPhone? Because they wont work. Why dont they block HD films on none HD devices then?

I'm not saying this warrants a lawsuit, I'm just saying there is something behind it.
 
Stupid Lawsuit

These kinds of things are such a waste of time! If we launched class-action lawsuits every time someone freely purchased something they could not use the courts would be full and we would not be able to do anything or even enjoy life.

How about suing the oil companies, because you can put premium gas into your old clunker of an automobile that does not need premium and will run fine on regular gas!

How about suing the coffee shops for charging more for an Americano when you could just get a house coffee.

How about suing....... The list would never end.

Thank god for lawyers, without them we would have no idea how ridiculous our society is or how stupid some people can be.
 
I don't know about this lawyer...but in my household. I have both HD and SD ONly IOS devices. Which to me it a logical choice to buy the HD version so all my devices can see the vids.

Get a new phone you stupid lawyer
 
kevingaffney said:
Typical American attitude, sue
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We have download stores in the US, CA, AU, UK and SE. Guess which territory has the most awkward and demanding customers? You barely hear back from Aussies. American's? They go straight for the jugular, don't listen to reason and call their credit card company to get their money back (no other territory can do this as easily).

The problem over there is that 'satisfaction' seems to reside solely with the seller. The customer often takes zero responsibility. They are backed by their card company and easy litigation.
 
Well at least it isn't Apple vs Samsung again lol.....Seriously thoguht - shouldn't this be done via the Better Business Bureau, where they can have Apple pull the records and refund those who are affected, while they fix iTunes? I'm sure Apple will settle out of court. If this lawyer can't afford an iPhone that does HD he won't stand a chance against Apple's legal team.
 
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