Apple's Battle With Epic Over Fortnite Could Reach Jury Trial Next July (cnet.com) 31
Apple and Epic met in a virtual court hearing on Monday to debate whether Fortnite should be allowed to remain in Apple's App Store while the two fight an even bigger battle over whether Apple is violating federal antitrust law. From a report: California Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said didn't issue any update to her previous ruling, which upheld Apple's ban on Fortnite while the antitrust case is ongoing. Instead she said the companies should expect to hear from her in writing. Rogers said that it's likely that the case, which she added was "the frontier of antitrust law," will be heard in July 2021. She recommended a trial by jury in order that the final judgement reached would be more likely stand up to appeal, although said it's up to Apple or Epic to request this.
[...] In court on Monday, Rogers seemed less than impressed with the arguments put forward by Epic's legal team. She said that in the gaming industry, of which Epic is a part, it was standard practice for platforms to take 30% commission, as Apple does. She challenged Epic over its decision to circumvent Apple's policy in spite of its explicit contractual relations with the company, saying the company had "lied about it by omission." "You were not forthright," she said. "You were told you couldn't do it, and you did. There's an old saying, a rose by any other name is still a rose [...] There are plenty of people in the public could consider you guys heroes for what you did, but it's still not honest."
[...] In court on Monday, Rogers seemed less than impressed with the arguments put forward by Epic's legal team. She said that in the gaming industry, of which Epic is a part, it was standard practice for platforms to take 30% commission, as Apple does. She challenged Epic over its decision to circumvent Apple's policy in spite of its explicit contractual relations with the company, saying the company had "lied about it by omission." "You were not forthright," she said. "You were told you couldn't do it, and you did. There's an old saying, a rose by any other name is still a rose [...] There are plenty of people in the public could consider you guys heroes for what you did, but it's still not honest."
Missing from the summary: escrow account (Score:3, Informative)
Missing from the summary but mentioned in reporting elsewhere is that there are apparently talks to hold the 30% in escrow during the trial. More or less, Epic gets to come back, use their own credit card processing, and have 100% of the funds hit their account, just as they were before they got booted, but then 30% of those funds are put in escrow pending the results of the trial. It's theoretically a win-win, since Epic doesn't like losing 10% of Fortnite's revenue and Apple doesn't like this sort of PR.
Re: Missing from the summary: escrow account (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what the Judge said. Apple can choose to allow Epic back in under the same contract as before and put the 30% into escrow. Apple said we will think about it. Epic said it wasn't a compromise at all. Judge didn't care.
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Thanks for the correction. I clearly skimmed more than I realized.
Great (Score:3, Insightful)
So we're going to have to hear from Apple defenders and Epic defenders for at least another 10 months. Because 2020 wasn't bad enough.
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Re: Great (Score:1)
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So, don't pay attention to them?
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So we're going to have to hear from Apple defenders and Epic defenders for at least another 10 months. Because 2020 wasn't bad enough.
If you don't want to discuss legal issues affecting tech companies I honestly wonder why you would read Slashdot in the first place. This isn't new. This isn't Apple vs Epic. This is a question on what constitutes abuse of monopoly and enforceable contractual obligations affecting the entire industry.
Today it's Apple vs Epic. A few years ago Oracle vs Google. Before that IBM vs SCO. Welcome to Slashdot, a site where we discuss relevant shit like this.
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Re:This will end.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Google just played the epic Ace card by announcing that the new OS for their cell phone systems will allow for 3rd party payment processors and 3rd party App stores to compete with their own offerings.
Actually, Google said nothing of the sort [googleblog.com].
Contrary to your claim that they're allowing third-party payment processors, they're doing the exact opposite: they declared their intent to start enforcing their existing payment policy that all apps in the Play Store MUST use Google as their payment processor. That's been their policy all along, but they'll begin enforcing it next year. The reason you may be confused is because they also restated the fact that their Play Store policies do not and have never applied to third-party app stores.
Which brings us to the second thing you got wrong: Android already has third-party app store support. Epic was selling Fortnite out of their own store for years before they brought it to the Google Play Store, and they've continued selling it there since their spat with Google began. Likewise, Samsung has its own store. If the demand was there, these sorts of stores would already be in widespread use, but they aren't, which is why Epic eventually caved and brought Fortnite to Play. As for what Google actually announced, they are making it "even easier" to install third-party app stores in Android 12, due next year. That's it. No details what that means, and almost certainly no meaningful difference in practice, given that they aren't adding anything new in terms of what's already possible.
All of which is to say, rather than putting pressure on Apple to drop the 30% or add support for other app stores, this is Google saying that they think they're in a strong position with Play and that Apple has a strong enough case against Epic that they feel comfortable flexing their muscles a bit, putting the screws to Epic and Netflix and Spotify and others who are using their own payment processors, and demanding their 30% cut too, just like Apple does.
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All of which is to say, rather than putting pressure on Apple to drop the 30% or add support for other app stores, this is Google saying that they think they're in a strong position with Play and that Apple has a strong enough case against Epic that they feel comfortable flexing their muscles a bit,
Nope. They're saying that they think that THEY have a stronger position than Apple against potential antitrust action, because they already permit third-party app stores.
Much easier to just do. (Score:2)
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That's not anything like what's happening here though. Epic starting distributing apps on the iOS app store knowing full well what the conditions of doing that was. Apple hasn't changed anything regarding this. Epic have decided that they don't like the rules that they originally agreed to so they ignored them. And Apple followed the guidelines and fought back. As they should have. Epic don't have to distribute their apps on iOS, but if they do they need to follow the rules that other app developers have to
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No, because according to the judge, it's already a "standard practice for platforms to take 30% commission" so things are probably already the way you're hypothesizing.
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The lawsuit is about antitrust and anticompetitive practices, not the 30% rate.
The 10 allegations are focused around how Apple is (illegally) using their monopoly as the hardware vendor to create a secondary monopoly for the store, and they are (illegally) using their monopoly as the only permitted store to create a monopoly on payment processing.
And it doesn't matter if something has been a standard practice, what matters is if it violates antitrust law. If multiple business are all violating antitrust la
Except Apple isn't a monopoly (Score:2)
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"No, because according to the judge, it's already a "standard practice for platforms to take 30% commission"
Thanks for saying almost outright that it's basically collusion, judge!
Re: Here is why apple needs to be busted... (Score:3)
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The walled garden is a selling point, but locking people into it isn't. By the time they find out that they want something outside the garden, it's too late; they've bought apps, they've made a training investment in their device, and they're unlikely to switch. All their data is already in the one system and they don't want to have to go through a lot of trouble to move it to the other.
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If Windows had operated that way from the start it wouldn't be a problem. However, for them to do so after establishing their de facto monopoly would be very problematic. The problem wouldn't be that they had a walled garden or charged 30%—the problem would be that they pulled off a massive bait-and-switch. Too many industries are dependent on Windows for them to get away with that. It's not like with Apple where people can just switch to Android.
Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that as more things mov
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Chrome and Firefox are cost free ... so no idea what you want to say.
just because fashionista like the apple logo don't mean they should get a pass. ...
No one cares about the logo except Apple haters
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And why do you think that?
And what logo do you actually see when you hold a phone in your hand?
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Imagine if Microsoft pulled a version of Windows that only allowed to install applications from their store and... oh, wait! [wikipedia.org]
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Jury (Score:2)
Can I run my own store in Fortnite? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll support Epic's bid to force Apple to let other people run their own app stores when they let other people run their own digital shopfronts within Fortnite. I would also like to sell virtual doll clothes.