Ipod Owners In Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple - Portfolio.com (blog)

May 09 2012 3:51pm EDT

Monochrome screen generations. 2001, 1G scroll wheel; 2002, 2G touch wheel; 2003, 3G touch button and wheel; 2004, 4G click wheel.

Image: Flickr/Raneko

Remember how cheated you felt back in 2004 when Apple blocked RealNetwork’s Harmony product from selling songs on the iPod? No? Well, not many people do, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t impacted by what a new lawsuit claims is a monopoly created by Apple's iPod and iTunes.

And today several reports are coming in that owners of the iPod purchased between September 12, 2006 and March 31, 2009 are now officially part of a class-action lawsuit against Apple.

“The lawsuit claims that Apple violated federal and state laws by issuing software updates in 2006 for its iPod that prevented iPods from playing songs not purchased on iTunes. The lawsuit claims that the software updates caused iPod prices to be higher than they otherwise would have been,” according to the site set up for the suit.

Ars Technica reported:

The case in question was filed by RealNetworks against Apple in 2004. At the time, Real had just introduced a new product called Harmony that allowed DRM'd music purchased from the RealPlayer Music Store to play on the iPod. (Apple had restricted the iPod to only play FairPlay DRM'd music from iTunes or unprotected formats, like MP3. This is still true of the iPod and Apple's other iDevice products today.) Harmony allowed Real to convert its own DRM'd files into FairPlay files, essentially working its way around Apple's own DRM scheme in order to put songs on the iPod. This displeased Apple, and the company eventually put out an iPod firmware update that blocked out Real's workaround.

Although no official statement by Apple has yet been released, the same site said, “Apple denies that it did anything wrong and asserts that the software updates challenged by plaintiffs improved its products, were good for consumers, and had no effect on iPod prices."

Regardless of the outcome of the suit, the iPods covered include iPod nanos (first, second, third, and fourth generations), iPod touches (second and third generations), iPod shuffles (first, second, and third generations), and classic iPods.

If you’re the proud owner of one of these products and don’t mind being included in the suit, then you don’t have to do a darn thing. But if you think you’d rather go after Apple all on your lonesome, you must file a request to be excluded from the class before July 30, 2012.

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Michael del Castillo is a freelance reporter for Portfolio.com.