When you buy a movie or a song from Apple do you get to keep it? Maybe yes, maybe no.
A lawsuit filed last month accuses Apple of misleading consumers into thinking that buying media actually means owning it. It is the third lawsuit filed on this issue. All three seek to be declared class action.
The only content, the suit says, that Apple can actually sell, is content that Apple itself actually creates.
All other content is owned by whichever company created it and Apple simply licenses it.
And the creator of that content can revoke that license, requiring Apple to delete it from customer accounts.
What’s even worse, says the suit, is that customers can purchase identical products cheaper and actually own them.
For instance, Apple is now “selling” the Sonic the Hedgehog movie for $14.99, while Target is selling that same movie, which a consumer truly owns and can keep forever, for $9.99.
Apple responded to previous suits claiming that “no reasonable consumer would believe” that the media was purchased forever.
However, a federal judge, John Mendez, threw out that defense, saying “that in common usage, the term ‘buy’ means to acquire possession over something.”
Lawyers in the latest suit gave the following example:
“In the event that a consumer desires to “Rent” Movie Content, Defendant advertises that, for a fee of around $5.99, the consumer will have access to the Movie Content for 30 days and then for 48 hours after the consumer first starts to watch the Movie Content.
“For a much higher fee of around $19.99, Defendant offers the option to “Buy” the Movie Content.
“Reasonable consumers will expect that Defendant is using the words “Buy” and “Purchased” throughout the iTunes Store and apps in the same manner as those words are used, and understood, by the hundreds of millions of people throughout the world that speak English; that is, to “Buy” means to acquire possession over something, and once the “Buy” transaction has been completed, that “something” is then considered to have been “Purchased.”
“Unfortunately for those consumers who chose the “Buy” option, this is deceptive and untrue.
“Rather, the ugly truth is that Defendant does not own all of the Digital Content it purports to sell. In fact, a portion of the Digital Content it claims to sell is actually owned by others who license it to Defendant, thereby making Apple a sublicensor of Digital Content.”
