A district court dealt Apple a major legal blow by ruling against the company's attempt to dismiss a class action lawsuit against Apple for false advertising and unfair competition for advertising the ability to "buy" digital movies.
The issue, of course, is that Apple does not actually allow to purchase digital movies but rather grants you a reversible license to access the digital files and has removed said access to the files numerous times over the years.
Apple's argument in its action to dismiss the lawsuit (which has David Andino as the lead plaintiff) is that no reasonable consumer actually believes that "buy" in this context means that they would get a permanent ownership of the product. U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez disagreed, noting, "Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely. But in common usage, the term 'buy' means to acquire possession over something. It seems plausible, at least at the motion to dismiss stage, that reasonable consumers would expect their access couldn’t be revoked."
Apple's other major argument was that there was no actual injury to the plaintiffs, but Mendez shut that down, as well, explaining, "Apple argues that Plaintiff’s alleged injury — which it describes as the possibility that the purchased content may one day disappear — is not concrete but rather speculative. [T]he injury Plaintiff alleges is not, as Apple contends, that he may someday lose access to his purchased content. Rather, the injury is that at the time of purchase, he paid either too much for the product or spent money he would not have but for the misrepresentation. This economic injury is concrete and actual, not speculative as Apple contends, satisfying the injury in fact requirement of Article III."
All this does, though, is allow the lawsuit to continue. The plaintiffs will still need to prove their case in court, but allowing it to continue is a major blow to Apple and could perhaps lead to a settlement in the future and perhaps a change in how Apple describes the "buy" option in its list of digital movies.
Amazon Prime is in the midst of a similar lawsuit over the same basic concept, telling consumers they can "buy" digital movies while really only giving them a reversible license.
Source: Hollywood Reporter