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Steve Jobs Deposition Video Shown in Ongoing iPod Class-Action Lawsuit

Apple did it right, by protecting their agreement with the record producers and ensuring a specific market. And Apple's corporate strategy is to create a closed ecosystem where they design the hardware and software to work effectively with one another. I for one am a big fan of this system. Bottom line this Lawsuit is a Joke!
 
I have an iPod I bought in this time frame covered by this lawsuit. :cool:

Do I win a prize?
 
Shows to what length the competition and labels will go to get some money to rescue their old distribution systems - or at least prolong it's life. Apple did the only ting viable at the time and freaking rescued the music industry by providing the first ever legal online store for music downloads. Otherwise people would have stopped buying music altogether. The music industry should pay them a fee for selling their products instead of Apple having to negotiate with them.
 
It actually sounds like Steve learned a lot from this experience as he pretty much had such strong tactics when dealing with Apple's suppliers.
 
How is this different from Apple locking down iPhone and forcing customers and developers to buy and sell apps only from its app store?
 
Wasn't the US law set up so that monopolies created by skill were legal, but big bad companies blocking competition weren't legal?

Apple's dominance in the mp3 player market was skill. Customers had the choice between iPod - and being forced to buy music from iTunes - or buying a competitor's product and being free to choose any source. Not a monopoly.

By the time Apple had the majority market share, they started opening iTunes and allowing music obtained elsewhere to be played. Not a monopoly.

SirCheese said:
Not all monopolies are legal.
Click to expand...
 
Michael Scrip said:
So in order to be legal... Apple has to allow DRM files from every online music store?

And if they don't do that... it's illegal?

Can you cite the specific law Apple broke?
Click to expand...

My point was just because a contract required you to do something, doesn't give you a pass for what you did.

I don't know whether or not there was a law broken. As I said, I would expect they are going after some antitrust issue. I wish the articles were more clear on that.

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IJ Reilly said:
Once again the basic issues are being confused. The trial is not about whether Apple "had a monopoly." Monopolies are perfectly legal.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

What is also interesting is that the issue is a specific player format (portable device).

There was still plenty of other ways that music got played (laptops and PCs) so it isn't as if was at the time a monopoly on the distribution.
 
Michael Scrip said:
So it sounds like Apple wasn't allowed let other stores' music onto the iPod without violating their contracts they had with the record labels. If true... that pretty much ends the case
.....
I don't think Apple was acting anti-competitively... they were just honoring the record labels' contracts.
Click to expand...

A contract with one company does not give Apple permission to break a law or cause harm, if that is what is the result of this case. (your argument = "b .. b...b b..because my contract said so!").

So, case not ended. Furthermore, as stated in many articles, such an agreement would facilitate unnecessarily high prices.
 
McDaddio said:
I don't think that it works like that.

The issue is whether or not Apple did something illegal, particularly around antitrust violations.

It doesn't matter what the contracts said, if what they did was illegal. If the contract said that Apple has to kill a puppy for every 1000 downloads, it doesn't mean that killing that puppy is legal because they were required to do so under the contract.

Now, if they are found to have done something illegal, the contract may come into play in the penalty phase.
Click to expand...

It doesn't work like that because intent is an issue.

There is a legal difference between doing an act for the purpose of hindering a competitor, and between doing an act for another reason, even this has the effect of hindering a competitor.

That's why there's testimony in iTunes improvements - was the update to fix bugs and make other iTunes improvements (which also broke compatibility), or was the update just to break compatibility?

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SirCheese said:
Not all monopolies are legal.
Click to expand...

Yes they are. There is no law making a monopoly illegal.

Bell wasn't broken up because it was a monopoly. Bell was broken up because - basically - it was using it's monopoly power to subsidize local service at the expense of long distance service.
 
NY Guitarist said:
I have an iPod I bought in this time frame covered by this lawsuit. :cool:

Do I win a prize?
Click to expand...

The usual class action settlement amounts, say $ 2.13 and maybe an iTunes gift card or 25% off a purchase.

The other 347 million go to the lawyers.
 
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FlatlinerG said:
Isn't DRM circumvention illegal and RealNetworks should really be the ones under scrutiny here?
Click to expand...

Realnetworks removed _their own_ DRM from the music you bought from Realnetworks, and tried to add Apple's DRM to them, but not quite successfully.

I think if you read about this and imagine that Apple is being accused of something that is genuinely unethical and try to understand what these guys are complaining about, you won't be getting anywhere. The whole case is just weird. Basically they are saying that Apple should be giving them hundreds of millions just because.

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alhedges said:
There is a legal difference between doing an act for the purpose of hindering a competitor, and between doing an act for another reason, even this has the effect of hindering a competitor.
Click to expand...

Hindering a competitor isn't (necessarily) a problem. You are supposed to compete with your competitors, and exploiting your strengths and weaknesses to hinder them is fine. What's not fine is preventing them from competing.

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gaanee said:
How is this different from Apple locking down iPhone and forcing customers and developers to buy and sell apps only from its app store?
Click to expand...

That's no problem because Apple can't force you to buy and sell apps only from the Apple app store. You can buy an Android phone, which we are always told is killing the iPhone in market share, and live happily without any app from the Apple app store.
 
Michael Scrip said:
So in order to be legal... Apple has to allow DRM files from every online music store?

And if they don't do that... it's illegal?
Click to expand...

Which would be rather stupid because of the nature of DRM. Apple shouldn't be even capable of playing any music that uses someone else's DRM. It's not a matter of "allowing". For example, if Apple had wanted to allow music with Microsoft's "PlayForSure", Apple would have had to license the technology from Microsoft, and would have made the iPod compatible with Microsoft's rather strict technical requirements for "PlayForSure" players.
 
SirCheese said:
Not all monopolies are legal.
Click to expand...

Monopolies are perfectly legal. In fact they are created by law and protected by the police power. What is actually not legal is understood by almost nobody, which is why we get so many misleading articles and so much uninformed commentary.

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Michael Scrip said:
So in order to be legal... Apple has to allow DRM files from every online music store?

And if they don't do that... it's illegal?

Can you cite the specific law Apple broke?
Click to expand...

The short answer is we don't know yet. The specific laws Apple is alleged to have violated are the Sherman and Clayton acts. It's all in the complaint.
 
McDaddio said:
Exactly.

What is also interesting is that the issue is a specific player format (portable device).

There was still plenty of other ways that music got played (laptops and PCs) so it isn't as if was at the time a monopoly on the distribution.
Click to expand...

The issue is more than simply the device, it was the linking of DRM to the device. The plaintiffs allege that the tie between the iPod and FairPlay allowed Apple to charge more for iPods than they might have been able to do if consumers could move their iTMS tracks to other devices of their choosing. The argument we hear so often that "so long as consumers had a choice" (even if it involved ditching all the music they'd already purchased and buying it a second time), is wrongheaded. This is not the question covered by antitrust laws. Antitrust law is interested in whether this created an unfair competitive advantage for Apple. I don't claim to know the answer to that question but I know the question is not whether Apple "had a monopoly," at least not by the definition of the term most people use when they say it.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Monopolies are perfectly legal. In fact they are created by law and protected by the police power. What is actually not legal is understood by almost nobody, which is why we get so many misleading articles and so much uninformed commentary.

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The short answer is we don't know yet. The specific laws Apple is alleged to have violated are the Sherman and Clayton acts. It's all in the complaint.
Click to expand...
What part of, all monopolies are not legal, did you not understand?

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alhedges said:
It doesn't work like that because intent is an issue.

There is a legal difference between doing an act for the purpose of hindering a competitor, and between doing an act for another reason, even this has the effect of hindering a competitor.

That's why there's testimony in iTunes improvements - was the update to fix bugs and make other iTunes improvements (which also broke compatibility), or was the update just to break compatibility?

----------



Yes they are. There is no law making a monopoly illegal.

Bell wasn't broken up because it was a monopoly. Bell was broken up because - basically - it was using it's monopoly power to subsidize local service at the expense of long distance service.
Click to expand...
Again, NOT ALL MONOPOLIES ARE LEGAL.


"A monopoly is when a company has exclusive control over a good or service in a particular market. Not all monopolies are illegal; for example, businesses that produce a superior product or are well managed may disadvantage their competitors while not violating antitrust law."

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alhedges said:
It doesn't work like that because intent is an issue.

There is a legal difference between doing an act for the purpose of hindering a competitor, and between doing an act for another reason, even this has the effect of hindering a competitor.

That's why there's testimony in iTunes improvements - was the update to fix bugs and make other iTunes improvements (which also broke compatibility), or was the update just to break compatibility?

----------



Yes they are. There is no law making a monopoly illegal.

Bell wasn't broken up because it was a monopoly. Bell was broken up because - basically - it was using it's monopoly power to subsidize local service at the expense of long distance service.
Click to expand...
No, they aren't, no matter how many times you and others say ALL monopolies are legal, the fact is not all are legal.
 
SirCheese said:
"A monopoly is when a company has exclusive control over a goods or service in a particular market. Not all monopolies are illegal; for example, businesses that produce a superior product or are well managed may disadvantage their competitors while not violating antitrust law.....
Click to expand...

Apple neither had full control of Music or Music service at that time. There has always been other means to purchase digital music other than iTunes/iPod.

Apple just had a better mouse trap so they had a bigger market share. NOT illegal.

Now if the plaintiffs can prove Apple used their market share to force the Music industry to only sell to them. THEN that would be illegal.
 
What is the issue here?

Some one is upset because he couldn't include music from others sources than itunes in his iPod?

Thats a disadvantage to the device not an advantage. That is like saying my Galaxy S will only work with Samsung memory cards. Then don't buy that phone, buy Nexus, it will work with anything.

Then again, Microsoft got sued because they included their own browser for being a monopoly. Microsoft could have rebutted and said, just buy a Mac or run Linux. Not sure how that was monopolistic
 
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