A federal class action lawsuit against Apple in California appears to be on the verge of moving forward, now that a judge has dismissed a request from the iPhone maker to dismiss the lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez in Sacramento appeared sympathetic this week to plaintiff David Andino’s argument that Apple is misleading its customers too much by offering “Buy” and “Rent” options in the iTunes Store, for content such as TV shows and movies which Apple users then stream or download after purchase.
Andino’s argument is fairly straightforward. We all know what the “Buy” option really means. You haven’t really bought this season of Game of Thrones from the iTunes Store, the same way you buy a physical product like a gallon of milk at the grocery store. Once you take that milk home, of course, it’s up to you to do what you want with it. However, you can’t do what you want with that Game of Thrones season you just bought – like making copies. Really, you lease it in perpetuity, as long as you follow Apple’s terms and conditions. And the only difference between “buy” in this scenario and “rent” is that the content will disappear from your device after a while in the latter scenario.
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“Apple maintains that no ‘reasonable consumer would believe that the purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “But in common usage, the term ‘to buy’ means to acquire possession of something. It seems plausible, at least at the reject motion stage, that reasonable consumers expect that their access cannot be revoked. “
You can read the full Apple lawsuit here. Meanwhile, Amazon is also facing a similar lawsuit for purchases made through the Prime Video app. According to a GameSpot report, Amazon was sued in April of last year (again, in California). The text of this lawsuit reads, in part, as follows: “Amazon’s Prime Video service, which allows consumers to purchase video content for streaming or download, misleads consumers because sometimes this content video may subsequently become unavailable if a third-party rights holder revokes or modifies Amazon’s License. “
Some thoughts immediately spring to mind:
First, I would be surprised to see these lawsuits go through and not be resolved at some point while they are still in their early stages. It’s like the old saying goes – money talks and stuff works. Second, it’s tempting to think that we’ve all lived long enough in the smartphone age to understand what it means to buy a digital good, as opposed to buying something tangible from a retailer or e-commerce store like Amazon. Your own lack of understanding of how something works doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been duped.
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Andy is a reporter in Memphis who also contributes to media outlets like Fast Company and The Guardian. When he’s not writing about tech, he’s found leaning protectively over his burgeoning vinyl collection, in addition to honing his Whovianism and gorging himself on a variety of TV shows you probably don’t like. not.
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