iTunes Music Store customer sues Apple

Posted on 6 Jan 2005 at 10:09

Apple is being sued by a customer of its online music store. The plaintiff alleges that the fact that songs bought through iTunes music Store can only play on one type of portable player, Apple's iPod, is a breach of US anti-trust laws.

Californian Thomas Slattery filed the suit on Monday in the US District Court, San Jose. He complains that if he wants to take his music away from his computer, then he is forced to buy an iPod.

'Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa,' the suit alleges.

Legal experts told Reuters that the case is unlikely to succeed.

The key to such a lawsuit would be convincing a court that a single product brand like iTunes is a market in itself separate from the rest of the online music market, he told Reuters. However, this is plainly not the case as there are several alternatives, including MSN Music and Napster.

'As a practical matter, the lower courts have been highly skeptical of such claims,' said Ernest Gellhorn, an antitrust law professor at George Mason University.

Author: Simon Aughton

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