Posted on 12/07/2014 12:35:26 AM PST by Swordmaker
“Apple Inc said it discovered that the lead consumer in a $1 billion group antitrust lawsuit over the iPod didn’t buy a device in the time period covered by the case, which could derail a trial now under way,” Karen Gullo reports for Bloomberg.
“Bill Isaacson, Apple’s attorney, told U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers that plaintiff Marianna Rosen’s iPod was purchased in July 2009, three months after a deadline for iPod owners to be included in the case. The case, filed in 2005, is over claims that Apple sought to thwart rival music stores to maintain a monopoly over digital players,” Gullo reports. “‘I am concerned that I don’t have a plaintiff,’ Rogers said in court today while the jury was on a break in the third day of trial in Oakland, California. ‘That’s a problem.'”
“Bonny Sweeney, Rosen’s attorney, told Rogers she hadn’t yet reviewed Apple’s claims. The only other named plaintiff in the case didn’t purchase an iPod during the period covered by the lawsuit, she said.,” Gullo reports. “A named plaintiff in a class action has to be an individual who was injured by the conduct being challenged in the lawsuit, said Vikram Amar, a law professor at University of California at Davis. Another person could take Rosen’s place as a named plaintiff under procedures approved by Rogers, he said.”
I think you meant, "Klaatu Barada Nikto."
Then there was ‘Bush2001’ (I think that was his handle) who was a shill for Microsoft.
There’s a way to speil that?
Who knew?
Thank you grammar nazi...
/s
Gort?
Sword runs the apple ping list which includes hundreds of folks interested in being pinged to apple news.
There are many different ping lists on FR, covering a wide variety of interests from quantum mechanics to cats. This is just another one of many. If you don't care about reading about apple products, click other links instead.
Well, Bettyprob, it could be because I maintain the Freerepublic PING list for over 600 Freepers members who are interested in news articles about Apple. They have ASKED me to post articles about Apple. Do you think that might be a good reason?
LOL I’m not on the ping list but been a proud cult member since Mac+
By your logic, you would be a member of the Free Republic Cult, because almost all the conversation here centers around grass roots conservatism.
Sorry, you and this article are legally wrong. Apple was under contract to do what they did and was required to delete the music.
Apple routinely informed iPod users that unauthorized and unsupported Digital Rights Managed (DRM) songs may not be retained after an update. Apple was constrained heavily by the Millennium Copy Right Act of 1998 under which DRM was empowered. The customers were warned that there were no guarantees that songs purchased from other vendors who used a different DRM system were not and could not be supported.
The only ones that were "deleted" were those that used hacked means to get their songs on the iPad by spoofing the DRM the music companies REQUIRED for Apple to be able to sell their music and taking advantage of a vulnerability in Apple's security to add their own unauthorized DRM to iTunes and the iPod which put Apple's contracts in jeopardy. If Apple did not close those vulnerabilities within a specified time frame, the music publishers would pull their music from the iTunes stores. Apple HAD to patch the vulnerabilities which, when patched caused the spoofed music to no longer work.
The only way that Realnetwork's music got onto an iPod in the first place was by breaking Apple's DRM security by hacking, which could have been considered, essentially, a Federal criminal act. Apple was required by their contract to fix any vulnerabilities found in the DRM within 30 days or the music would be pulled from their stores by the big four music publishers which published 80% of the music.
When Apple closed the vulnerabilities in iPod's OS 7.0 through 7.4 in 2007 thru 2009, RealNetworks repeated hacks stopped working. At which point the RealNetwork DRM prevented the music from playing on the iPod because the hack no longer worked. It was Real's DRM that stopped the music from running. Playlists would not move on from the Real songs. . . and the iPod froze. The only fix, since the update overwrote the hack that enabled the Real DRM, was to restore the iPod to factory condition and resync the user's music, which without the hack, could not load the DRMed RealNetwork music which restored all non-DRM MP3s, purchased iTunes DRM music and ripped music and re-estabished functionality. The only thing missing would be the hacked music. Apple did not delete the music although the result was essentially the same.
The bar that Apple has to go over to show they did not act criminally in this trial is that the updates were not just to prevent competition, but also for other legal purposes and to provide updates to their software. That is easily done as each update included major changes to the software.
Most likely, after wasting the courts time for nine years, the judge will dismiss with prejudice. They will forever be forbidden from bringing this case again.
I can add you to the ping list, if you would like to be.
It’s ok sword. I am here often enough I catch more than I can pay attention to.
I d appreciate tech threads and you have kept me up-to-date regardless.
The computer for the rest of us.
——Apple 1985
Plaintiff Marianna Rosen, the plaintiff whose iPod was purchased too late to be included in the class of devices for her to have been injured by not being able to buy RealNetwork’s music and have it disappear from her iPod, is the wife of one of the partners in the law firm that started this lawsuit! Strange. . . can you say contrived by lawyers for the entire benefit of lawyers?
Not a cult. I’m on Swordmaker’s ping list, because I happen to own Apple products and am interested in articles about such. I also own many other manufacturer’s products, which in my opinion are not as good as those made by Apple. And my job was supporting those other products, as an IT systems engineer. Early on, I had several MP3 music players. Best one was an Archos Jukebox, had it around 2001. The OS sucked so I installed a 3rd-party Rockbox interface. But the Jukebox was clunky and the interface was so-so, like other MP3 players of the day. Then the Apple iPod came along and I bought one. It’s streamlined design and elegant thumbwheel design simply blew other players away. It’s not a cult when someone builds a better mousetrap, it’s progress. I still have the Jukebox, but it fell into disuse. No one runs a ping list about it.
Therefore sleazy, unethical lawyers will find ways to separate Apple from some of that money.
So they did not delete content? Or they were legally obligated to delete the content? Which is it?
Amazon is a legal player in the digital download sales of today.
It is a monopoly that Apple was trying to enforce. I don’t think they have that isolated control of the market for songs on ipods today.
and greeneyes always posts threads on... gasp “gardening”
Apple essentially de-activated the unauthorized content when the software updates were installed. They rightfully overwrote the original OS with the updates which replaced the one that had been compromised with RealNetwork's hack of the one that had a vulnerability that had allowed Real to add their DRM into it so that RealNetwork songs to play. After the update, playlists that included RealNetwork songs would hang when they encountered the unauthorized songs and could not continue and the iPod stopped working correctly. To solve this problem, the iPod had to be restored to factory status and resynced. ALL music was deleted in a reset of the iPod to factory condition to restore functionality when the deactivated music refused to play for lack of the correct RealNetwork DRM decoder that was no longer on the iPod. Without the RealNetwork hack, the RealNetwork music could not be reloaded, because it failed the DRM checks. . . which is WHY the music was recorded with Digital Rights Management in the first place BY RealNetworks, who also had contracts with the same big four suppliers that Apple had. Why do you think RealNetwork is NOT a party, or anyone connected to them is a witness, in this lawsuit???
Amazon is a legal player in the digital download sales of today.
And Amazon's music would play fine on iPods. . . and Apple did not block it. . . nor, did they block RealNetwork's music. REALNETWORK blocked their own music! Get it through your head. . . the only thing that kept RealNetwork's music off the iPod was RealNetwork's Digital Rights Management scheme. Apple was under no obligation to modify their player to accept Real's DRM in their player. RealNetwork HACKED their way in, which in law, was a crime.
Computer fraud . . . will result in obtaining a benefit by:RealNetwork's activities vis-a-vis altering the stored software in iTunes and on the operating system in the iPod meets all three of the criteria for Computer Fraud in one form or another to gain a benefit for themselves. It violates the Federal anti-hacking laws by breaking security intended to keep hackers out. . . regardless of their motives. Keep in mind that the owner of the iPod does NOT own the operating system, Apple owns it. The iPod owner merely has a license to use that software, and, under federal law cannot give permission to alter that software in any way. Apple states in the license that the software may not be modified in any way. RealNetwork modified the software.
- Altering, destroying, suppressing, or stealing output, usually to conceal unauthorized transactions. This is difficult to detect;
- Altering or deleting stored data;
- Altering or misusing existing system tools or software packages, or altering or writing code for fraudulent purposes.
People have been claiming that RealNetwork "reverse engineered" Apple's DRM, which is not what they did. They did not "reverse engineer" anything. They hacked into Apple's iTunes and iPod OS, adding foreign code, an activity essentially no different from a hacker adding malicious content that steals credit card numbers or identity information, and inserted their own DRM decoders to allow their own songs to be played on the iPod.
In the instance of inserting their code into iTunes, RealNetworks certainly COULD have stolen such important identity information as credit card information as it is attached to the Apple iTunes Store! The vulnerability they used HAD to be closed. If Real could use it to insert their code, anyone could use it to insert THEIR code for more nefarious purposes. Apple closed it. It is a monopoly that Apple was trying to enforce. I don’t think they have that isolated control of the market for songs on ipods today.
Exactly what "monopoly" was that? Music? Apple was not in charge of the music industry. They were under the control of the contracts they had with the big four Music publishers who were the ones who had prescribed the DRM dosages. Apple had tried to eliminate it. Read Steve Jobs' open letter of 2007 demanding the music industry drop DRM. Look at the history of Steve jobs' attempts to negotiate with the Music Publishers to even HAVE digital downloads. You mentioned Amazon. . . the Music Publishers gave DRM free music to Amazon nine months before they would allow Apple to sell DRM free music and Apple had to threaten to sue for restraint of trade before even that was allowed. . . and people STILL blame Apple. . . not where the blame actually where the blame belongs. Monopoly my a$$.
So they deleted content from competing licensed vendors.
No. They deleted nothing. Read the full explanation in what I wrote. They system removed inoperable, unauthorized files that were placed on the device in violation of the Millinnium Copyright Act of 1998, which would not play without the proper DRM codex illegally installed on the device by hacking, in violation of the license and Federal Copyright law. If you want to keep beating your dead horse, you go right ahead, but I'm done responding to stupid responses.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.