Apple trial may have new plaintiff

The Courier ^ | Dec 9, 2014 9:01 PM PT

[Swordmaker]

OAKLAND, California (AP) — A billion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Apple will likely continue, after a 65-year-old Massachusetts business consultant read about the plaintiffs’ floundering case online and volunteered to represent consumers in the suit.

A federal judge said she’s tentatively satisfied with a proposal to add Barbara Bennett the new named plaintiff in the lawsuit over Apple’s iTunes software and the price of its iPods. Bennett, who sometimes used her iPod to listen to music while ice skating, boarded a plane early Tuesday and flew to California at the request of lawyers who are suing Apple Inc. on behalf of an estimated 8 million consumers who purchased iPods between 2006 and 2009.

[Swordmaker]

Tango-Loving Ice Dancer Recruited to Save Apple IPod Suit

"She said that after buying her Nano in 2006, she couldn’t always find the “rare music” she enjoys, including tango and Hungarian, for sale on iTunes. As a result, she had to buy CDs of the music and copy it onto her laptop before syncing with her Nano, she said.

“It was very cumbersome,” she said. “It cost me money and limited access to music for me.”

Bennett’s difficulties are at the heart of the lawsuit alleging that Apple, facing its first competition in digital music a decade ago, changed its technology so that songs it sold worked only on an iPod.

What this tango dancer's complaining about is not AT ALL what the law suit is about. . . and does not at all demonstrate she was injured in ANY way by Apple deleting songs from her iPod. She's upset that itunes did not have obscure Hungarian music and tangos she wanted to download available and had to resort to ripping them from CDs instead.

Oh, the humanity of it all! Her pain must have been unbearable. Apple didn't sell her type of music so she had to do some work to get it herself! I'm certain Apple also didn't carry Siberian Musk Ox herding songs either. . . should Siberian musk ox herders be allowed to sue because their favorite childhood lullaby wasn't immedi downloadable? GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWN! — PING

Apple Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[SES1066]

Do I smell an ambulance being chased here?

[dayglored]

With luck, this is actually a stealth move by the judge to make the entire suit a laughingstock. Which it is anyway.

[Dr. Sivana]

Do I smell an ambulance being chased here?

Hardly an ambulance, more like a Checker cab is urban traffic.

[IncPen]

If I’m not mistaken, the dancer has testified that Apple did not have a monopoly... and that her needs were served elsewhere by the market.

This helps the plaintiffs how?

[John O]

Let me see if I have this straight. People are suing Apple because the tunes sold at the APPLE ITunes store will only play on APPLE devices?

Or because music they want is NOT on the ITunes store?

I will admit to hating Apple as much as anyone (their computers suck. They are totally non-intuitive and impossible to make work the way I work) but this is insane.

There are tons of MP3 players out there and there are CDs available for purchase at just about every big store (not to mention on line).

If you don’t like how much apple charges for their product, DON’T BUY IT!

The world is overrun with liberal idiots (redundant I know)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Do I smell an ambulance being chased here?

That’s sort of like getting within 50 yards of a feedlot on the downwind side, and asking if you smell excrement.

[roadcat]

There are tons of MP3 players out there and there are CDs available for purchase at just about every big store (not to mention on line).

I have several MP3 players, including non-Apple players. Although I filled my 30gb iPod with many thousands of songs, very few of them were bought on iTunes. Most of them were ripped from CDs. And that is the way most people filled their MP3 players back in the day. And I had every one of those songs stored on my computers, because that's how you copied the songs into the iPod back then. No songs were ever lost. If you didn't like how iTunes sold songs, you didn't have to buy them. I rarely did. Now I'm reading that the old iPods are selling for more than they cost because Apple discontinued them. People clearly like them. Rather than sue, she should sell hers and make some money honestly.

[Swordmaker]

If I’m not mistaken, the dancer has testified that Apple did not have a monopoly... and that her needs were served elsewhere by the market.

This helps the plaintiffs how?

Uh, yeah (read that with a swoop in your voice.) What she is saying is that Apple DID provide a way to put competing music on the iPod. . . exactly what the plaintiff's attorneys are claiming they did not do. Which is it? This lawsuit is SOOOOO (Spoken with Valley Girl inflection ) Stupid!