Another day, another lawsuit filed against Apple. This time around, the Cupertino company is facing a California lawsuit accusing it of violating the state’s false advertising law and other consumer laws. The lawsuit claims Apple intentionally mislead customers into thinking that they are actually purchasing digital e-books from the Apple Books app in perpetuity.
However, for Apple Book users, this process is merely an illusion, one where consumers are led to believe they are purchasing the book, just like a physical book, but in reality the consumer is only purchasing only a revokable license to access that book – which means that access can be revoked at any time.
The lawsuit, Morehouse et al v. Apple, Inc., was filed in a U.S. district court in San Jose on Tuesday by law firm Siri & Glimstad LLP.
The proposed class action complaint explains that Apple is required to pull a digital book or audiobook from the Apple Books app if and when it loses a license to that content. This can result in a Books user logging into the app and finding that the content is no longer available. The complaint alleges that some customers have unexpectedly found that digital books they previously purchased were no longer available to again download, despite having paid for them. Books can disappear without warning, and without Apple refunding the price of the digital books, the complaint adds.
The complaint notes that the purchase screen in the Apple Books app doesn’t include a link to any terms of service or licensing information. However, Apple device users are required to agree to Apple’s various software license agreements before being allowed to setup the device, all of which state the following:
By using this software in connection with an Apple Account, or other Apple Services, you agree to the applicable terms of service, such as the latest Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
Meanwhile, a portion of the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions states the following:
Purchased Content will generally remain available for you to download, redownload, or otherwise access from Apple. Though it is unlikely, subsequent to your purchase, Content may be removed from the Services and become unavailable for further download or access from Apple (for instance, because Apple loses its right from the Content provider to make it available). To ensure your ability to continue enjoying Content, we encourage you to download all purchased Content to a device in your possession and to back it up.
The plaintiffs are seeking as much as $5 billion in damages, for a proposed class of all individuals who purchased a digital book or audiobook from the Apple Books store within the to-be-determined class period. A judge has not yet been assigned to the case, nor has the class action lawsuit been certified.
(Via MacRumors)
