Class action: Apple to pay billions for "e-book consumer deception"
In the past, people used to buy physical media, but today they only buy licenses for them. Apple has therefore now been sued in California.
Icon from Apple Books: Typical business model.
(Image: Apple)
Apple is – regularly confronted with class action lawsuits, particularly in the USA –, in which customers claim that the company's products are defective or even "consumer fraud". This happens regularly to companies with deep pockets, often resulting in out-of-court settlements and smaller sums being paid to those affected – plus legal fees. In California, a special lawsuit has now been launched against the iPhone manufacturer: a group of users wants billions, not because of hardware problems, but because of the sale of e-books. Apple had deceived consumers because these could only be licensed and not purchased permanently. The lawsuit is not only interesting because of the high claim amount, but also because numerous companies are proceeding in exactly the same way, including with software, music and videos.
General problem with digital content
The lawsuit, which was first reported by Macrumors, was filed by two Apple customers in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (5:25-cv-2988). As usual, the judge has yet to approve class action status. It initially remained unclear why only Apple, whose e-book store Apple Books is significantly smaller than Amazon's Kindle Store, was sued. The amount of damages is set very high at 5 billion US dollars.
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Apple's method of selling its e-books is by no means unusual. In the course of digitization, almost all providers of content sold over the Internet rely on this business model. For example, customers do not purchase an e-book forever, but rather acquire – a license according to the terms of use and contract –, which the provider can also withdraw. As a result, the plaintiffs claim that some customers have already lost access to their digital books – including being denied redownloads, even though they had paid for them. "Apple removes books without warning and without refund," the lawsuit continues.
Content can disappear
In fact, the terms and conditions of the "Apple Media Services" applicable to US customers contain the following section: "Although unlikely, content may be removed from the Services after purchase and may no longer be downloadable or accessible from Apple (for example, because Apple loses its right from the content provider to make it available)." Apple therefore recommends downloading all purchased content and creating backups –, which is not always easy because e-books, for example, are well hidden in the file system.
As mentioned, it is unclear whether the lawsuit will actually be granted class action status and whether it will be dismissed at an early stage. The plaintiffs are demanding the aforementioned 5 billion dollars in damages, which are to be paid out to all buyers of digital books – as well as digital audio books –. Apple has not yet commented on the proceedings. Macrumors writes that the judge has not yet been chosen.
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