Apple Can Delist Apps 'With Or Without Cause,' Judge Says In Loss For Musi App (arstechnica.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Musi, a free music streaming app that had tens of millions of iPhone downloads and garnered plenty of controversy over its method of acquiring music, has lost an attempt to get back on Apple's App Store. A federal judge dismissed Musi's lawsuit against Apple with prejudice and sanctioned Musi's lawyers for "mak[ing] up facts to fill the perceived gaps in Musi's case."
Musi built a streaming service without striking its own deals with copyright holders. It did so by playing music from YouTube, writing in its 2024 lawsuit against Apple that "the Musi app plays or displays content based on the user's own interactions with YouTube and enhances the user experience via Musi's proprietary technology." Musi's app displayed its own ads but let users remove them for a one-time fee of $5.99. Musi claimed it complied with YouTube's terms, but Apple removed it from the App Store in September 2024. Musi does not offer an Android app. Musi alleged that Apple delisted its app based on "unsubstantiated" intellectual property claims from YouTube and that Apple violated its own Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA) by delisting the app.
Musi was handed a resounding defeat yesterday in two rulings from US District Judge Eumi Lee in the Northern District of California. Lee found that Apple can remove apps "with or without cause," as stipulated in the developer agreement. Lee wrote (PDF): "The plain language of the DPLA governs because it is clear and explicit: Apple may 'cease marketing, offering, and allowing download by end-users of the [Musi app] at any time, with or without cause, by providing notice of termination.' Based on this language, Apple had the right to cease offering the Musi app without cause if Apple provided notice to Musi. The complaint alleges, and Musi does not dispute, that Apple gave Musi the required notice. Therefore, Apple's decision to remove the Musi app from the App Store did not breach the DPLA."
Musi built a streaming service without striking its own deals with copyright holders. It did so by playing music from YouTube, writing in its 2024 lawsuit against Apple that "the Musi app plays or displays content based on the user's own interactions with YouTube and enhances the user experience via Musi's proprietary technology." Musi's app displayed its own ads but let users remove them for a one-time fee of $5.99. Musi claimed it complied with YouTube's terms, but Apple removed it from the App Store in September 2024. Musi does not offer an Android app. Musi alleged that Apple delisted its app based on "unsubstantiated" intellectual property claims from YouTube and that Apple violated its own Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA) by delisting the app.
Musi was handed a resounding defeat yesterday in two rulings from US District Judge Eumi Lee in the Northern District of California. Lee found that Apple can remove apps "with or without cause," as stipulated in the developer agreement. Lee wrote (PDF): "The plain language of the DPLA governs because it is clear and explicit: Apple may 'cease marketing, offering, and allowing download by end-users of the [Musi app] at any time, with or without cause, by providing notice of termination.' Based on this language, Apple had the right to cease offering the Musi app without cause if Apple provided notice to Musi. The complaint alleges, and Musi does not dispute, that Apple gave Musi the required notice. Therefore, Apple's decision to remove the Musi app from the App Store did not breach the DPLA."
Re:uhh duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is that Apple's fault? A company could choose to make Android-like phones, but w/ Graphene OS or Legacy OS or one of those Android variants, and then give it an app store that is more permissive than Google's or Apple's
Or Musi could have a website - including mobile website - that people could use to stream or download music, and not bother about any app store. Assuming that they couldn't get sideloading to work
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Any number of companies could have tried to replicate Apple & Google. We know that Microsoft did, and it bombed! Blackberry was there for a while, as well as several others
No, it's not the fault of Apple nor Google that others couldn't put together a viable alternative to both. Most industries are not duopolies. Even phone makers and computer makers aren't duopolies: there's no reason that this one had to be
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"Is that Apple's fault? "
Yes, it absolutely is.
"A company could choose to make Android-like phones, but w/ Graphene OS or Legacy OS or one of those Android variants, and then give it an app store that is more permissive than Google's or Apple's"
As if we need to discover all over again what a monopoly is just because it suits your narrative to pretend that issue has never been addressed before.
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Fault is irrelevant; it's not desirable and governments should thus take an active role in stopping it./p
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And then you face a lot of banking and/or government stuff that support iOS/Android only. Some guard against rooting or jailbreaking. Some even guard against 3rd party app stores and sideloading.
Using an "app" instead of SMS for 2-factor authentication is legit. But when that "app" dictates what phone you can buy, the situation changes. Ideally, banks and government shall either be regulated to be friendly to smartphone competitors outside Android-iOS duopoly, or Android and iOS be regulated to allow unc
Re:uhh duh (Score:4, Interesting)
So, a duopoly.
There are ways of dealing with monopolies/duopolies. Break them up. Probably can't do that effectively with Apple/Android. Then there's regulation. You place the entity(s) under the authority of some thing like a utilities commision. They want to make any changes to their pricing or terms of service, they have to seek approval from the commission. Such a situation is so onerous that those subject to it (even utilities) do everything in their power to weasel out from under it. And one obvious way would be to open up the platforms to third party app stores.
"But we can't! Muh security!" Wrong. There's nothing stopping the third party stores from implementing their own app vetting proceses. And allowing users to pick one tailored to their needs.
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"But we can't! Muh security!" Wrong. There's nothing stopping the third party stores from implementing their own app vetting proceses. And allowing users to pick one tailored to their needs.
Agreed. This wouldn't even break their duopoly, and it's unlikely to have much impact on their bottom line. Sure, some people would go to the alt stores, but most people would use the official store for most things.
Take Linux distos as an example - I'll add a couple additional apt sources for specific things, but I stick to the main repos for most packages. I rarely use Windows, but I suspect users behave similarly overall - using the Windows store for most things, since that means it's vetted and will be p
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So, a duopoly.
There are ways of dealing with monopolies/duopolies. Break them up. Probably can't do that effectively with Apple/Android. Then there's regulation. You place the entity(s) under the authority of some thing like a utilities commision. They want to make any changes to their pricing or terms of service, they have to seek approval from the commission. Such a situation is so onerous that those subject to it (even utilities) do everything in their power to weasel out from under it. And one obvious way would be to open up the platforms to third party app stores.
"But we can't! Muh security!" Wrong. There's nothing stopping the third party stores from implementing their own app vetting proceses. And allowing users to pick one tailored to their needs.
The problem isn't that there is not a way to deal with this, the problem is America, specifically the overriding belief that "government bad, company good" despite all evidence to the contrary.
They fail to understand why the EU regulating tech giants is so important and why Europeans agree with it... and that it's pretty much the only thing protecting them and still they'll rally against any attempt to reign in the unchecked power of large corporations.
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Genuine question - How is this the case when you can sideload? How is it any different than software not being in the Microsoft Store or in a Linux distro's default repositories?
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Seems to me that Google's move may be in violation of competition laws (although it seems you can still do it after a 24 hour wait?), so they may end up having to walk that back. Either way, that doesn't answer my question of how currently - before this change is put into place - banning an app means your software will be banned from the "smartphone" ecosystem, and ho
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Not true: refusing service based on a protected status is or disability is not permitted.
>But Musi isn't part of a protected class!!1
So don't say "I can deny service for any reason"
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I can trespass anyone on my private property for any reason. Because you're gay doesn't mean you have the right to come into my house.
A gay person absolutely has that right if you actually offer a service to let people into your house and yet explicitly deny this person exclusively due to being gay.
But why do you offer services for people to come to your house? What kind of an establishment are you running there?
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Not if your "private property" is a business licensed by the state.
"Because you're gay doesn't mean you have the right to come into my house."
But only you are talking about your house, the entire rest of the conversation is about business.
Also, try "trespassing" the police from your private property or tell them they have no right to come into your house.
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No it isn't. Single statements never stand alone in rulings. There's a reason rulings by judges go many pages, every word is important and specifically related to the claims made during the case. Just because the judge ruled against Musi in this case doesn't mean Apple has a free pass to break other existing laws.
Actually the real ruling here is on the stupidity of the legal arguments. Musi claimed that Apple broke their own agreement, which the judge ruled they didn't. Instead they should have claimed that
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If I owned a brick and mortar store, I can refuse or chose to carry anything I want, and deny service to any person for any reason.
Where do you get that idea?
"carry anything I want" - try stocking fentanyl and heroin. ... anything I want" - run a restaurant without a choking poster, or run afoul of OSHA safety issues.
"deny service to any person for any reason" - run a diner and try denying service based on race, color, or creed.
"refuse
There's also Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018). Though the supreme court found the cake shop could refuse to make a custom cake based on religious grounds, it was a narrow ru
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There are many other music streaming apps allowed on the store, so discriminating against one of them should, IMO, require more justification than, "with or without cause", don't you think?
Not if you look at how Musi actually worked.
Um... would that not venture into "with cause"? That's a whole other can of worms, and it doesn't sound like that was tested at all for this decision.
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That's what the court says. Court cases are rarely decided for the reason they claim they are decided.
If the obvious “cause” everyone knows is up was something the judge really didn't like, suddenly that “without cause” idea would be looked at with a lot more scrutiny.
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Sorry... what are you trying to say? Are you saying the court cited a cause? (I haven't see that) What cause would that even be, while Apple and Musi are the only participants in this suit?
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Bake the cake, bigot!
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When you have government-granted monopolies in the form of copyright and patent law, the rules should be very different from the ones your neighborhood grocery store is subject to.
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But Apple is far more than an online "brick and mortar" store, it controls the entire platform. A brick and mortar store cannot prevent you from going to another store, Apple does.
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“To any person for any reason?”, in some countries maybe. In many countries that is illegal based on the “public offer” idea. By advertising oneself as such a store one makes a public offer that people accept by walking in. The idea is that by advertising oneself as a store one implies that people can walk in there to do groceries against the listed prices.
Furthermore, the Apple store is becoming close to a monopoly which honestly makes this situation unhealthy. I do not believe that
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You wanted this.
Me?
Walled Garden (Score:3)
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-trust is dead, long live monopolies! Competition is for "losers"
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I'd agree if Musi were offering a different product, and not just repackaging an existing product owned by someone else while collecting fees.
The problem in this case has less to do with what Musi was doing, and more to do with the means of enforcement.
Honestly, I'd agree that the app itself was problematic in what it was doing. I might even agree that there should have been an injunction against Musi.
That, however, isn't the problem.
The problem is that Youtube went to Apple and said "de-list this app for us because it violates *our* TOS"...and Apple said "sure thing". Apple didn't say "give us a court order and we will comply with the court orde
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Even if proper support arrives on both platforms, user proficiency in finding them will be a massive hurdle for any developer who wants to avoid the walled garden. This is a market failure happening right in front of us.
I hope that, someday, a group of large app makers (Microsoft, Adobe, Meta, ... anyone not Apple and Google) bans together and removes their products from the official stores - though that will require reasonably good support for at least one 3rd party app store for them to move to. People would move quickly and in mass. They haven't pissed everyone off enough just yet, and maybe they'll avoid it, especially as web based apps continue to improve and would be much harder to block.
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Indeed. From what I can gather from 5 mins of searching, this Musi app was essentially a YouTube wrapper. It streamed music directly from YouTube without actually showing any YouTube assets or - more importantly - ads.
Calling themselves a streaming service seems like a stretch. What they did was stream YouTube's content and place their own ads over it. Apparently they made over $100M in one year doing this.
You can argue about the actual legality of what they were doing, but it definitely breached YouTube's
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The other thing would be, "no Android app". Which while not entirely surprising, is still somewhat of a surprise which the judge noted. They made their gravy train off Apple, but didn't do anything on Android, so it was hard to blame Apple for cutting them off instead of trying to broaden their market.
Anyhow, the actual article itself is actually far more interesting a read because the summary tries to slant it as "Apple bad!" when the article is really more of "they creatively interpreted everything to the
Gatekeeping (Score:3)
On one hand, I think a company should do what they want.
Oh the other....a company of any size should not be able to dictate the market by abusing it's power.
Re:Gatekeeping (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why capitalism requires regulation - without it, the dominant player simply dominates and the market is no longer free. If you are the player, or someone on their payroll, you probably approve of this. If you're the vast majority of the population, you should be very angry this happens.
But Musi's a scam, repackaging someone else's work and replacing the ads with their own.
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Established players use their position to prevent new players from entering the market. Without regulation, competition is quickly stifled.
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Established players have large compliance teams and are able to amortize the costs of regulation over a larger install base.
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"I disagree with this sentiment and would argue that regulation is what usually ends up causing the problems you decry..."
You would argue that because you are willfully ignorant of history.
"That just reduces redundancy."
A Muskian description of "free market". And you are sad excuse for a human being.
It doesn't work like that for everyone (Score:2)
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Risk Is High With iOS Development (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't understand the mindset of getting involved in the iOS app market today. It made more sense in the early days ...
In the early days, there was no app store. Only pre-installed Apple apps, and Jobs intended for devs to create web-based apps. No joke.
In the early days of the App Store, they were quite strict about restricting any apps that competed with their own (ex. Mail and Safari).
There have been active lawsuits related to such behavior since then.
And now you say:
... but now the market is highly entrenched and Apple can either delist your app for no reason or release a competing app that doesn't have the usual restrictions of third-party developers.
That doesn't seem all that different.
The risk to reward ratio seems to have drifted way too far.
TFA says Musi made over $100M in a year. Though I disagree with their rules and behavior (the risk), the reward has al
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I remember. Then when the App Store came out and Apple could get a 30% cut of every app sale, he said that web-based apps were inferior because they lacked a cohesive appearance/behavior and their performance was limited compared to native apps.
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FWIW, I disagree with nearly all delistings and rejections for the app store. If something is crawling with $BAD_STUFF, sure; Otherwise, let it be, even if it competes directly with Apple's own apps. The only thing I disagree with is that this situation is new or significantly different from the previous risk positions.
TFA says Musi made over $100M in a year. ...
I've never heard of that app, but it sounds like it's far more successful than most.
"Never heard of (Musi)?" It's in the page title and the subject of this discussion!
Maybe you meant before today? In that case, me neither! I kinda hope they make a web based one now just to s
Re:Risk Is High With iOS Development (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand the mindset of getting involved in the iOS app market today.
$3bn. Does that help? It's how much money Tiktok made largely on the back of getting involved in the iOS app market. For every incompetent scam app crying about getting kicked off there's plenty of other apps that render their developers shitton of money.
I mean sure you *could* ignore 1.56billion potential customers. But I suspect that would be quite silly of you.
billows and billows of spume (Score:1)
Man, remember when the internet was all cool sites ppl made that didn't make money and not just the same five or six shitheads billowing their spume
Risk vs reward (Score:2)
People keep asking why bother submitting apps for iOS if Apple can just de-list or reject anything they like, at any time.
The obvious answer is that you stand to make a lot of profit and considerable brand recognition if your app is listed there and becomes popular.
The reality is, Apple isn't just going around, randomly kicking apps or app developers out of their store, though. They have actual reasons. People usually just happen to disagree with them.
I'm not familiar with this Musi app, but from the Slashd
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