Apple Wins iPod Class-Action Antitrust Lawsuit - East Idaho News
News

Apple Wins iPod Class-Action Antitrust Lawsuit

  Published at  | Updated at

121614 iPodNano?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1418762154992Apple, Inc.(NEW YORK) — Apple has been found not liable in a decade-old class-action lawsuit alleging the company engaged in anti-competitive behavior by blocking songs sold by competing music stores from playing on its iPod music player.

The legal drama that played out over the course of a decade went to trial earlier this month. It was decided in a matter of hours by a California jury.

The plaintiffs claimed that Apple would only allow music bought from its iTunes store to play on iPods, requiring customers to keep buying iPods in order to keep their music.

The jury found that iTunes 7.0 was a genuine product improvement, according to the Wall Street Journal, meaning that Apple did not violate any anti-trust laws.

Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor at the University of Iowa and an expert in anti-trust law, told ABC News previous case law supports companies that make “an actual improvement” from antitrust violations, even if it makes some other products incompatible.

“The burden is on the plaintiff. They have to really prove it is not a legitimate innovation,” he said. “The decks are kind of stacked against the plaintiff if there is evidence customers liked the change and demand went up.”


Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION