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Apple defeats anti-trust case over iPod software
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 17 December 2014
It took the jury in the big Apple anti-trust case less than three hours yesterday to rule that the IT giant had not behaved in an anti-competitive manner with the software updates it made to the iPod back in the big bad days of digital rights management on downloads.
As previously reported, a class action lawsuit alleged that Apple kept updating its FairPlay DRM system on the iPod in the latter half of the last decade so that only its iTunes store could sell DRM-protected tracks that would work on what was then the market-leader digital music player.
Some of its rivals, especially RealNetworks, tried to engineer their own versions of FairPlay so that they could sell DRMed music that would play on the iPod. But Apple’s software updates kept making those FakePlay tracks stop working (indeed it was alleged that software updates actually deleted unofficial tracks).
Apple claimed that the regular updates to its FairPlay software were to make the DRM system better, and that while they would have liked to allow other companies to use the software for their own download stores, opening it up to third-parties would have made the whole thing less efficient. One Apple exec cited how problematic Microsoft’s rival DRM software, which was opened up to third parties, quickly became.
The jurors hearing the case sided with Apple after hearing arguments from both sides. Updates to FairPlay were about making the system better, the ruled, and not a deliberate attempt to block out competitors and skew the market.
Welcoming the ruling, a spokesperson for Apple said yesterday: “We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world’s best way to listen to music. Every time we’ve updated those products – and every Apple product over the years – we’ve done it to make the user experience even better”.
One of the lawyers pursuing the case against Apple indicated his intent to appeal, though during the trial most of his actual clients – ie consumers claiming to have been negatively impacted by Apple’s alleged behaviour – were struck off the lawsuit as it was proven they hadn’t, in fact, been affected by any software updates. Indeed a new primary claimant had to be signed up at the last minute, with the case already approaching completion.
Of course, Apple’s FairPlay refinements ceased to be an issue once the major record companies finally agreed that DRM was not needed on downloads, meaning iTunes rivals could start selling unDRMed MP3s, which had always been playable on the iPod.
Then downloading became irrelevant, the streaming model came of age, the royalty issues all got solved, and everyone forgot about iTunes. Yeah, OK, none of that has quite happened yet. But given how long it took this case to get to court, by the time any appeal is through that’ll probably all be true.
