Apple calls Epic Games 'self-serving' in Australia hearing
Apple has described "Fortnite" developer Epic Games as a Goliath whose Australia case is not aimed at helping local developers, but is rather a "self-serving" attempt to change the App Store.
Still from Epic Games "Free Fortnite" video
In the latest stage of the long-running dispute between Epic Games and Apple, Australia's federal court is determining whether to postpone a case. Apple has previously asked for the case there to be dismissed entirely, but is now asking for at least a stay. At stake is whether Australian authorities will postpone their case until after the US one is concluded.
According to The Guardian, the court held a session on Tuesday to hear arguments from both parties. Epic Games argued that it is challenging Apple on behalf of app developers everywhere, including Australia. Central to Apple's position is that Epic Games had previously agreed to litigate in America.
"You have a sophisticated commercial entity that sought and obtained access to Apple's intellectual property and all of the benefits of access to Apple's software and hardware, exploited that opportunity to great effect for many years," Apple's barrister, Stephen Free SC said, "and the essence of the dispute... is that Epic wants to redefine the terms of access in quite fundamental and self-serving ways."
"Epic wants to ignore its... contractual promise to litigate only in the northern district of California," he continued. He further said that the App Store changes Epic Games sought would fundamentally affect Apple's business model, which is built "around prioritising quality, security, and privacy of these operating systems."
In return, Epic Games barrister Neil Young QC, spoke to the issue of litigating only in the northern district of California. "Mandatory and protective laws of this forum... override any private choice of jurisdiction," he said.
"The issue is the impact on Australian markets and whether the requirements of our law are satisfied," he continued. "It is a pretty straightforward case, and we would think the evidence is clear this conduct is going to substantially impact these markets in the way we allege."
The court has yet to decide on whether to postpone the case. However, Justice Nye Perram said that he would deliver his decision "pretty promptly."
Apple versus Epic Games is due to go to trial in the US on May 3.
Still from Epic Games "Free Fortnite" video
In the latest stage of the long-running dispute between Epic Games and Apple, Australia's federal court is determining whether to postpone a case. Apple has previously asked for the case there to be dismissed entirely, but is now asking for at least a stay. At stake is whether Australian authorities will postpone their case until after the US one is concluded.
According to The Guardian, the court held a session on Tuesday to hear arguments from both parties. Epic Games argued that it is challenging Apple on behalf of app developers everywhere, including Australia. Central to Apple's position is that Epic Games had previously agreed to litigate in America.
"You have a sophisticated commercial entity that sought and obtained access to Apple's intellectual property and all of the benefits of access to Apple's software and hardware, exploited that opportunity to great effect for many years," Apple's barrister, Stephen Free SC said, "and the essence of the dispute... is that Epic wants to redefine the terms of access in quite fundamental and self-serving ways."
"Epic wants to ignore its... contractual promise to litigate only in the northern district of California," he continued. He further said that the App Store changes Epic Games sought would fundamentally affect Apple's business model, which is built "around prioritising quality, security, and privacy of these operating systems."
In return, Epic Games barrister Neil Young QC, spoke to the issue of litigating only in the northern district of California. "Mandatory and protective laws of this forum... override any private choice of jurisdiction," he said.
"The issue is the impact on Australian markets and whether the requirements of our law are satisfied," he continued. "It is a pretty straightforward case, and we would think the evidence is clear this conduct is going to substantially impact these markets in the way we allege."
The court has yet to decide on whether to postpone the case. However, Justice Nye Perram said that he would deliver his decision "pretty promptly."
Apple versus Epic Games is due to go to trial in the US on May 3.
Comments
Only server based apps are immune.
Epic’s play is entirely self serving.
The US Supreme Court can make boneheaded rulings Another 5-4 one was the now infamous Kelo v. City of New London. All these years later then the promised economic development has not materialized and the city is out the property taxes it would have earned over the years.
Funny oxymorons in this one.
Says the self-serving CEO who’s richer than the CEO of Apple, who runs a multi-billion dollar business, who was angry that he couldn’t use Apple’s inventions without paying.
(I know I missed a lot more)
It seems to me that they have this somewhat figured out on the MacOS side of the house. Do you think what is going on with MacOS a fair comparison? I know historically it hasn't been locked down like iOS. Although I could be wrong, I seem to recall MacOS asking me what level of security I want in this regard.
I personally am a fan of the security of the App Store and iOS in general, but think the writing is on the wall on this issue.
It will come to if you side load an app and it bricks your iphone or ipad, you are on your own.
Apple needs to protect their property!!
https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/silver-sparrow-40000-macs-infected-by-mysterious-m1-native-malware/
No matter how high you set your security on MacOS (OS X), hackers will find a way to get their malware installed on to your Mac, without you knowing it. Have you been reading about all the Zero Day security flaws that's been popping up lately on Mac OS? You are not protected from these security flaws as Apple didn't know about it, until it was discovered, but the hackers knew about it. And often, it was only discovered because they found the hackers already exploiting them. All software have security flaws. And hackers often can find them faster, than the software owner can.
iOS is not any different, there are probally security flaws that hackers knows about and Apple have yet to discover. The one thing iOS has going for it in terms of protection against security flaws that Apple don't know about, is that iOS do not allow the installation of software from the internet. Thus hackers can not install their malware that takes advantage of security flaws, through the internet. They have to install their malware through the Apple App Store. Which is much tougher to do, though some have succeeded, if only for a short time. (Plus with the App Store, Apple can stop the downloading of the app with malware, once discovered. How long will it take to stop users from unknowingly downloading the app with malware from maybe dozens of sites on the internet?) But hackers wouldn't need to go through the Apple App Store if iOS was capable of installing software from the internet. It doesn't matter how careful one is about security when on the internet with iOS, if you can install software off the internet, so can the hackers. The only real safe security setting in this case would be to never go on the internet.
The way I see it, if the developers can't or just maybe too lazy to, get their apps Apple App Store certified, then their apps don't deserve to be on my iDevice. And I'm sure as Hell not going to pay for it by using a method, other than my secure iTunes account.
First of all, the anti-trust case against Apple dealing with the iBook Store had absolutely nothing to do with how Apple was running their iBook Store. It had to do with Apple and 5 large publishers conspiring to set the price of eBooks above what Amazon was selling them for. Amazon was selling eBooks at a lost or near lost because they were able to make up the lost by selling Kindles.
If each of the 5 publishers had signed up with Apple iBook Store independently, there would be no anti-trust case at all. But the 5 publishers organized as one to fight against Amazon and that was the heart of the anti-trust case against the publishers and Apple.
In fact, Amazon is now operating their eBook store the same way Apple has always been doing it with their iBook Store. By letting the publisher set the price and Amazon gets a 30% commission on the sale (sound familiar?), by using the "Agency Model" instead of the "Wholesale Model". With the Wholesale model, Amazon could set its own price after paying the publishers the discounted wholesale price. The agency model is how the Appel App Store operates since its beginning and it's the same way the stores on MS and Sony game consoles are operating.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/23/20991659/ebook-amazon-kindle-ereader-department-of-justice-publishing-lawsuit-apple-ipad
Plus as mentioned already, the Apple vs Pepper case had nothing to do with anti-trust against Apple. All the ruling did was to allow class action lawsuits against Apple, that might involve anti-trust violations pertaining to the Apple App Store.
None of these 2 cases has anything to do within anti-trust violations pertaining to how Apple ran and has continue to run, their iBook Store or App Store. Absolutely nothing has changed after these 2 rulings, in regards to how Apple run their online stores. The iTunes Music Store has been operating the same for nearly 20 years now.
Apple’s integrated App Store/OS model serves us real customers better.
I think the writing on the wall is more about general oversight and regulation happening more often for the tech industry, not anything else. Per Epic, law is heavily oriented around precedent and there aren't really any legal precedents that support the idea that an individual OS should be considered an isolated market for app development. Plus, is there really much in the way of industry or consumer behavior that supports that idea? Multiplatform games and apps are fairly standard, with Fortnite itself being an example of that. Epic even created advertisements that urged iOS users to play Fornite on a different device, which means Epic themselves expect their customers to have access to more than one OS to play their games.