Judge James Ware of the US District Court for the Northern
District of California, dismissed three claims brought by aggrieved
iPod owner Thomas Slattery earlier this month; but he allowed
others to survive Apple's challenge.
Slattery complains that he was forced to buy an iPod to listen
to his iTunes purchases on the move.
The Digital
Rights Management (DRM) software of the iTunes music store allows
songs to play on iPods, PCs, or to be burned to CD for playing on a
home stereo or personal CD player. But iTunes tracks are not
compatible with rival MP3 players like Sony's new Walkman.
Slattery sued in January, accusing Apple of unlawfully bundling,
tying and/or leveraging its monopoly in the market for the sale of
legal online digital music recordings "to thwart competition in the
separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and
vice-versa."
According to AppleInsider, the surviving claims include
allegations that Apple possesses monopoly power and has coerced
customers into purchasing both iPods and iTunes files.
A similar
argument was dismissed by the French Competition Council in
November.
That case followed a complaint from the French division of
internet retailer Virgin Mega alleging that Apple acted
anti-competitively in failing to license the DRM software in its
iPod.
Basing its reasoning on principles of European competition law,
the Competition Council said that access to Apple's DRM software
was not essential in order to support the development of the
on-line download market.
