Collective action: Apple should pay billions for “e-book consumer deception”

Apple is regularly confronted with collecting lawsuits – especially in the USA – in which customers claim that the group products are defective or even “consumer deception”. This happens regularly with deep pockets, often out -of -court settlement comes out and those affected are paid for smaller sums – plus legal fees. A special procedure against the iPhone manufacturer now started in California: a group of users wants to have billions, but not because of hardware problems, but because of the sale of e-books. Apple had deceived consumers because they could only be licensed and could not be acquired permanently. The procedure is not only interesting because of the high amount of complaint, but also because numerous corporations are exactly the same, also with software, music or videos.

General problem with digital content

The lawsuit about which Macrumors first reported was two Apple customers in the United States District Court Court Court California (5: 25-cv-2988) submitted. As usual, the judge still has to appreciate that she receives collective action status. Why only Apple was sued, whose e-book shop called Apple Books is significantly smaller than Amazon’s Kindle Store, was initially unclear. The damage amount is very high at $ 5 billion.

Apple’s type of sale of its e-books is by no means unusual. In the course of digitization, almost all providers rely on this business model on the Internet. For example, customers do not acquire an e-book forever, but- according to the terms of use and contract- purchase a license that the provider can also withdraw. As a result, the plaintiffs claim that some customers have lost access to their digital books – including reduced reduction, even though they had paid for it. “Apple removes books without warning and without reimbursement,” the lawsuit continues.

Content can disappear

In fact, the conditions of the US customers “Apple Media Services” The following section: “Even if it is unlikely, content may be removed from the services after purchase and can no longer be downloaded or accessed by Apple (for example, because Apple loses its right from the provider of the content to provide them).” Apple therefore advises to download all purchased content and create backups-but this is not always easy because e-books, for example, in the file system well -hidden are.

As mentioned, it is unclear whether the lawsuit really receives collective action and whether it is not rejected early. The plaintiffs requested that 5 billion dollars are paid as compensation, which are then to be paid out to all buyers of digital books – as well as digital audio books. Apple has not yet commented on the procedure. The judge’s election is still pending, writes Macrumors.