[HN Gopher] US Supreme Court declines to hear appeals in Apple-E...
___________________________________________________________________
US Supreme Court declines to hear appeals in Apple-Epic Games legal
battle
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-01-16 15:48 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Covzire wrote:
| I wish we could use our powerful handheld computing devices as if
| we owned them again.
|
| Steam should make a smart phone, fully open under the hood,
| decent specs, no walled gardens except optional ones.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Side-loading apps is not the mecca you think it is. It's going
| to create even more walled gardens, except this time, companies
| like meta don't have a fear of being yanked from the app store
| when they engage in practices that are harmful to user privacy.
|
| Should a mega corp like apple be the gatekeepers for this kind
| of stuff? In an ideal world no, but at least they are the only
| ones doing it.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| And if/when that happens and in the interim, end user can
| install a proper VPN and firewall on their iDevice instead of
| what we have now.
|
| https://www.michaelhorowitz.com/VPNs.on.iOS.are.scam.php
| kelnos wrote:
| People could, y'know, just not install the Facebook app, if
| they're unhappy with Meta's privacy practices. Of course,
| given that Meta's privacy practices are already atrocious,
| and people still use Facebook, I guess maybe it just doesn't
| matter?
|
| I agree that side-loading apps is no panacea; I use Android,
| and while I do have the F-Droid store installed, and even
| side-load a small utility app or two that I've written myself
| but can't be bothered to make publicly available, I'm
| actually not sure I know anyone in person who uses anything
| but the Play Store.
|
| But having the option there, to me -- even if I didn't use it
| -- is huge. Hell, having the option to install a third-party
| OS on the phone (even though I don't do it, because it would
| involve too many compromises to my daily use) is huge.
|
| That should be the default, not this locked-down nonsense
| Apple forces on everyone. It's just sad to me that so many
| people accept it as ok and normal.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean the reason Apple took action against Facebook was
| because they were trying to get traction on their own Ads
| platform. They didn't stop tracking on iphone they just made
| it so they were the only ones that can do it.
|
| Aka they used their position to crush competition not to
| increase privacy. They absolutely could have taken the
| opportunity to improve privacy overall but that would have
| limited their own ads platform so they didn't.
| fsflover wrote:
| There are already GNU/Linux phones running a FLOSS, desktop OS,
| without walled gardens: Librem 5 and Pinephone.
| kelnos wrote:
| Unfortunately they don't have the market share to have the
| clout to do a lot of things users really want. I run Linux on
| my laptop as my daily-driver and sole OS; I've been mostly
| doing this for more than 20 years now (with some brief
| dalliances with macOS here and there that never stuck). But
| my phone runs Google's stock Pixel version of Android.
|
| While there are other examples, a single example I think
| suffices: Google Pay. I like contactless payments, and I like
| not having to fish around for a credit card (or just not
| having to bring a credit card, say if I'm out for a run).
| What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever
| appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Seems pretty slim to
| me.
|
| I'm not saying these phones have no value; clearly they do.
| And the world is better off with their existence. But they
| are not a realistic choice for most people.
| fsflover wrote:
| > I like contactless payments, and I like not having to
| fish around for a credit card
|
| Yes, unfortunately, if you want the freedom and control,
| you have to pay for that with some compromises.
|
| > What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app
| ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone?
|
| Waydroid allows to run Android apps. It works fine on my
| Librem 5.
| rstupek wrote:
| I'm wondering when that was ever true? Until the advent of the
| iphone, from my recollection phone devices didn't allow you to
| install whatever you wanted. In fact they were even more
| restrictive for developers than they are now
| hot_gril wrote:
| Steam is one of the most forceful things. It has to be open to
| launch any of your games, it sorta forces you to install
| updates to even launch your games (some asterisks there), it
| disallows downgrading them, and a solid number of games are
| Steam-only. It feels like a DRM system more than anything else.
| granzymes wrote:
| This leaves in place the bulk of the ruling favoring Apple, but
| also the elimination of the anti-steerage rules that Epic
| successfully challenged (sort of, the trial judge mostly did that
| on her own).
|
| So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the
| mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic
| wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple
| doesn't need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app
| purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent
| developers from informing consumers that lower prices are
| available outside of the app.
| voisin wrote:
| > due to California law
|
| Will this lead to a carve out for California users, similar to
| the carve out they are making for app stores in the EU?
| granzymes wrote:
| My understanding is "no" (Apple is enjoined against enforcing
| the rules on anyone), but if we wait a few days we'll know
| for sure.
|
| Apple's cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the
| argument that's it's unfair that a lawsuit from one developer
| would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to
| _any_ developer.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Apple's cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically
| the argument that's it's unfair that a lawsuit from one
| developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from
| adhering to any developer._
|
| Regardless of the legality around this, I just don't get
| that kind of thinking. So anyone who wants to be able to
| exercise their legal right would have to, individually (or
| as a class, I guess) take Apple to court over this?
|
| That would actually be kinda fun, now that I think about
| it. Apple getting hit with thousands of lawsuits over the
| same thing, all of them settled case law, having to spend
| all that money on lawyers and court fees.
|
| This reminds me of a dumb quirk of Italian law. Italy
| offers citizenship to non-citizen foreigners who can prove
| an unbroken line of citizenship back to their most recent
| Italian ancestor who was an Italian citizen. (It's more
| complicated than that and there are some rules and caveats,
| but that's the basic idea.) There's a super-misogynistic
| part of that law that says citizenship cannot be passed
| through female ancestors prior to 1948. The Italian Supreme
| Court has ruled that part of the law unconstitutional. But
| the law is still on the books, and Italy's legislature has
| not updated it to remove the unconstitutional language, so
| anyone who wants to use that route to get citizenship has
| to go to court to do so. It's such a waste of everyone's
| time and money (well, the lawyers, as usual, make out quite
| well: a slam-dunk case for them that takes very little
| effort).
| bluish29 wrote:
| Maybe I'm totally wrong, but what actually happens if there is
| a federal court ruling that goes against a state (i.e. CA) law.
| Which things take precedent if the supreme court wouldn't take
| it. Maybe this is not the situation here and misunderstood it
| completely, but let's say then this is a theoretical question.
| granzymes wrote:
| A Federal judge applied California law (in this case, a law
| against unfair business conduct). That's normal, just like
| state courts can (sometimes) apply Federal law.
|
| Federal courts can "certify" questions of state law to the
| state courts if they don't know how they should be applying
| state law, but in this case neither the district court nor
| the 9th Circuit felt the need to ask for clarification. The
| Supreme Court has final say on questions of Federal and
| Constitutional law. State courts have final say on State law
| and State Constitutions.
|
| A State law that directly conflicts with a Federal law is
| preempted. There are also sometimes "zones" of preemption
| created by broad Federal laws. But, in this case, there is no
| conflict.
| lolinder wrote:
| It sounds like the anti-steerage rules are still in limbo--they
| have not yet taken effect while the appeal is ongoing, and the
| article doesn't indicate they're already officially set to take
| effect at a certain date.
|
| Does someone more familiar with the process know if it's a
| guarantee now that Apple will be forced to comply with that
| part of the original ruling, or is there room for them to get
| it removed or postponed indefinitely?
| granzymes wrote:
| The 9th Circuit stayed its mandate until the Supreme Court
| decided whether to grant cert. That stay expired this morning
| when the Supreme Court published its orders list.
|
| The 9th Circuit's mandate will now be sent down to the
| district court, and judgement entered (on just the anti-
| steerage provision) for Epic. It's a done deal at this point.
| alberth wrote:
| > "But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers
| from informing consumers that lower prices are available
| outside of the app."
|
| Is this CA law enforceable because Apple is HQ in CA, or simply
| because they do business there?
|
| - if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple
| geofence the entire state and only allow developers the option
| to steer consumers who are using their app within CA state
| lines?
|
| - if it's simply because Apple is HQ in CA, couldn't Apple
| simply move it's HQ (on paper) to another US state (like Texas,
| where a lot of other tech companies have moved HQs)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The location of a business's structure labeled "HQ" has no
| relevance to applicability of laws.
|
| If the business is conducting business with people within a
| given geographic boundary, then the laws of that geographic
| boundary apply to the business.
|
| > if simply due to operating business there, couldn't Apple
| geofence the entire state and only allow developers the
| option to steer consumers who are using their app within CA
| state lines?
|
| Yes.
| JeffSnazz wrote:
| > Apple does not have a monopoly in that market
|
| Why do we act like there is a "mobile game market" when there
| are clearly two distinct major private markets, both
| monopolized by definition of private control over basic aspects
| like pricing and content, including mandating a private tax
| rate?
| rurp wrote:
| Because the two giant companies that own those markets like
| it this way, and they spend millions per year on lawyers and
| lobbyists to keep that position.
| pipes wrote:
| Or because those two companies created those platforms. I
| don't see why they owe it to other companies to lower their
| prices.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It's both. They lobbied to keep it that way. I'm glad
| they did.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why do we act like there is a "mobile game market" when
| there are clearly two distinct major private markets_
|
| Are you talking about the App Stores?
| judge2020 wrote:
| the entire iPhone experience is the product. While
| technically we know that other app stores can and do work on
| it (Cydia, Trollstore, etc), from a US legal sense there's no
| separation between the App Store and the iPhone being
| distinct things.
| Arnt wrote:
| https://archive.is/gPaPr
| xoa wrote:
| "Snubs" doesn't really seem appropriate here as prose. There are
| plenty of issues with SCOTUS and the US judiciary one could
| complain about, but a simple one is simply that at the end of the
| day there is one supreme court of 9 people and they physically
| can only handle so many cases per year. _LOTS_ or cases of way
| more fundamental importance then this one get declined every year
| because only a fraction of those seeking appeal to SCOTUS can
| possibly get it even if they thought all of them were worthy,
| which they aren 't. At the end of the day this particular case
| doesn't really seem to rise to that level. There's no big circuit
| split, no deep constitutional issues, no enormous injustice to
| individual people, lower courts don't seem to have gotten
| anything particularly wrong given the current state of the law,
| and Congress could certainly step in if it wanted in ways much
| more fine tuned. Each company has plenty of money to be made out
| of it but that's about it. Neither side got everything they
| wanted.
|
| I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first,
| where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to
| add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust
| that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all
| of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with
| that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing
| power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on
| developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture
| forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus
| on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work
| out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the
| broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas
| small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure
| open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so
| much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden"
| like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to
| everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| We have millions of people talking about this case today. I
| find it absurd to argue that it isn't interesting enough to be
| worth the time.
| granzymes wrote:
| The Supreme Court does not decide cases: it decides
| questions. Whether or not the _case_ is interesting, the
| _legal questions_ the parties asked the Court to resolve were
| evidently not worth its time.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| What does "interesting" have to do with it? Millions of
| people talk about all sorts of stupid shit that happens in
| current pop culture (including me!).
|
| I am very interested in the outcome of this case. I also
| absolutely do not care for the idea of the Supreme Court
| wasting one hour on it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _absurd to argue that it isn 't interesting enough to be
| worth the time_
|
| This is why "snubs" is misleading. This case has been
| extensively argued. SCOTUS is saying no novel legal questions
| are apparent to it; the appeals court is affirmed.
| mrandish wrote:
| The POV you express is quite common but it's mistaken in that
| it assumes the role of the courts is to "fix" things, when it
| is not. Their role is to apply the law as written
| consistently.
|
| While the word "fairly" is often used in place of
| "consistently", that can lead to confusion because some
| people mistake the word "fairness" in this context as meaning
| "morally fair" judicial outcomes. While "moral fairness" does
| sometimes happen as a result of applying the law
| consistently, it's not the primary goal or purpose of courts.
| When things in society are happening that are unfair or
| otherwise wrong, blaming the courts is like blaming the CPU
| instead of the programmer. In the US, the "programmer" is
| congress (the legislative branch). They write the code. The
| courts in this analogy are the CPU. Their job is to run the
| code as written correctly and consistently. If the outcomes
| aren't satisfactory, it's either a bug, missing feature or
| unhandled exception in the code.
|
| The Supreme Court's primary job is to fix system bugs at the
| micro-code and kernel levels, stuff like scope violations,
| etc, when the system runs correct code improperly. It's very
| rare for the issue behind "bad or unexpected outcomes" to be
| due to the micro-code or kernel but it can happen. Those rare
| times are when you call the Supremes. When the Supremes pass
| on accepting a case without comment, it's like rejecting a
| bug report, often due to it being a bug in the application-
| level code. In those cases passing is like responding "Not
| our Bug." Other times they are basically saying the issue is
| due to a program using system-level APIs in undefined ways.
| From their perspective, the system responding to ill-defined
| or undefined instructions with unexpected or inconsistent
| results is actually correct, so they respond with "Won't Fix
| (GiGO)". No one wants the CPU making up how to correctly
| respond to undefined instructions on its own. This is why the
| phrase "Courts don't make they law, they apply the law" is
| such a mantra.
|
| In this case, congress hasn't yet written any code designed
| to directly address this use case. If we want to "fix" things
| we need to get the feature approved and on the legislative
| backlog to be addressed in a future sprint.
| riwsky wrote:
| [delayed]
| mrandish wrote:
| I agree that SCOTUS passing is correct and with everything else
| in your first paragraph as to why.
|
| Addressing the issue would certainly be the job of the
| legislative branch but I question whether they _should_ try to
| address this with a law. My feelings on this are a bit
| conflicted because I truly hate "Jailed Gardens" and wish they
| didn't exist. However, I also know that it's extremely
| difficult, if not impossible, to draft legislation that
| responds to dynamic, rapidly evolving problems in open-ended
| domains like high tech. It almost always ends up being
| ineffective, subverted or causing unintended consequences
| downstream.
|
| As much as I hate it, in areas of governance often the only
| viable options are all non-optimal in various ways. In this
| case, I think the 'least bad' approach is to let Apple have
| their jailed garden and run it the way they want to (short of
| demonstrable anti-trust, of course). Personally, I opted out of
| Apple devices a long time ago for this very reason and use
| Android devices I can root and modify however I want. After
| all, some people _like_ living in the iOS jailed garden and
| appreciate the benevolent dictator keeping them safe and making
| their decisions for them (or are at least willing to tolerate
| the costs for the benefits). For my part, this is just another
| of those things I really don 't like but for which reflexively
| calling "Thar oughtta be a LAW!" would be ineffective or make
| things worse. The road to dystopias is paved with the good
| intentions of those trying to legislatively enforce idyllic
| utopias. It's annoying but maxing broad freedom to choose often
| requires tolerating the annoying behavior of others maxing
| their freedom to choose (including those selling time-shares in
| an idyllic garden-jail).
| kelnos wrote:
| Also, more simply put, SCOTUS declining to review a case is a
| tacit (and somewhat weak) way for them to state, "the lower
| court is probably right about this and we don't think we need
| to get involved".
|
| Even for a hugely important issue, they might decline to hear
| the case on those grounds, if they think the lower court got it
| right. For some types of hugely important issues, of course,
| they might choose to take the case anyway (even if just to
| affirm the lower courts ruling), in order to establish binding
| precedent over _all_ federal circuit districts (and below).
| cubefox wrote:
| > The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
| upheld much of Rogers' decision in 2023, finding that Epic had
| "failed to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive
| alternatives" to Apple's system.
|
| What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?
| granzymes wrote:
| It means that Epic failed to identify a better way for Apple to
| collect its 30%/15% fee than mandating developers use its in-
| app purchase system.
|
| Epic's cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the
| argument that it's unfair that their identified solution needed
| to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned
| them away.
| cubefox wrote:
| To be clear, equally or less burdensome for whom?
| granzymes wrote:
| For Apple, since the court found that they have a right to
| collect their fee.
| kelnos wrote:
| I assume they mean that you can use an Android phone, instead.
|
| Which I think is preposterous, but... there we are.
| elpool2 wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how far the anti-steering ruling
| actually goes. Will Apple still be able to block _links_ to a
| alternative payment options? Or what if the link contains a token
| that logs you in automatically and goes straight to a payment
| form that's almost indistinguishable from an in-app form?
| somenameforme wrote:
| It seems easy to kind of shrug at this, but this does seem quite
| significant because of many mobile apps are 'free to play.' Apple
| pocketing 30% of all of these transactions, and forcing
| users/devs to go through Apple, is a major part of its revenue.
| And all of those apps now have the option to direct users to
| alternative payment methods, where they can both charge users
| substantially less and make more profit doing so. Should be
| interesting to see what happens!
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm curious to see what devs do.
|
| On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There
| is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel.
|
| On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low
| enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?
|
| Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU
| only) and we're in for some shaking out of what is and is not a
| good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone
| options in the mix.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is
| it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card?_
|
| An excellent question. I think the thing is that for the
| prices that often show up in apps, maybe not? Like, for a $3
| app I don't think I'm going to go visit some website, go
| through their flow, and get out my credit card if I'm only
| going to save $1. (Ok, I'd probably do it on principle at
| this point to stick it to Apple, but that's not the same
| thing.)
|
| If I were going to shell out $100, I'd certainly go to the
| extra trouble to pay $70 instead, though.
|
| The dangerous thing is that with all these mobile games that
| slowly siphon money from you, you might over time end up
| spending many tens or even hundreds of dollars (where 30% off
| might be a significant amount of money). But if each
| transaction is small, you might not think much of the
| difference of a dollar or so per transaction.
| eszed wrote:
| I would expect from a developer's perspective it makes
| sense to stick with Apple's mechanism until ARR * 0.30 =
| whatever it costs to run your own solution. (More power to
| you if you're the developer who can do that from the start,
| but that won't be most people.) I wonder, though, if the
| slow siphon becomes more obvious if it's attributed, in a
| customer's credit card statement, to [Game Co.] instead of
| [APPL]. I won't be sad if fewer people spend money on those
| types of games.
| MBCook wrote:
| I agree for the developer. But there's the cost of users
| who don't want to go outside Apple that you'd need to
| account for.
|
| And right now we don't know how big (or small) that
| effect is.
| hot_gril wrote:
| "But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit
| card?"
|
| Well, Apple Pay makes that way easier. But that brings them
| back to Apple.
| bloppe wrote:
| At least apps can provide transparent options now. Your
| payment page could have a "pay us through the App Store"
| button that costs 30% more than the "pay us through our
| website" button, and explain why the numbers are different.
| Safari supports ApplePay, so your app could link you to a
| website which has a one-click payment option: no entering
| credit card details required.
|
| Would be hilarious is Apple decided to make ApplePay less
| convenient in Safari now to hobble the competition.
| nsagent wrote:
| I wonder if this will open the floodgate for more apps to offer
| free trials through the App Store, with an in-app paywall linking
| to an external payment processor with lower fees. Basically,
| Apple gets stuck with the obligation to maintain the App Store,
| while taking a considerably smaller chunk of the overall pie.
| Might make them rethink the value proposition of a closed
| ecosystem if they can't recoup enough of the cost for running the
| store.
| Uvix wrote:
| Not sure why that would lead Apple to opening their devices up.
| I'd first expect Apple to start charging developers fees for
| bandwidth usage not tied to a purchase.
| misnome wrote:
| As I understood this ruling at the time, one major caveat was
| that they have to open up payment options but are still allowed
| to demand 30% of the third-party payments, thus making it mostly
| irrelevant.
|
| This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation
| overly pessimistic?
| newprint wrote:
| From what I understand, ruling is saying: Apple can't block
| developers from displaying notification that the app can be
| bought cheaper elsewhere.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Pretty sure wrong. Apple cannot tax you for buying things on
| the game's website. It's just in app purchases that they have a
| monopoly on. So it's annoying but it is possible. Hopefully
| developers make use of this and other regulation finishes the
| job
| saurik wrote:
| The argument was that Apple can use a business model similar
| to Epic's business model for Unreal Engine: no matter where /
| how you sell your game, Epic's licensing terms have you pay
| them a cut of your revenue.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Today's denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has
| mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App
| Store policies now that multiple courts have found its "anti-
| steering" language anticompetitive.
|
| So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.
| SllX wrote:
| A court found that Apple used a specific business practice
| found to be anticompetitive, this was upheld on appeal and
| SCOTUS declined to address any legal questions. So, to restate
| what you said more correctly: a court has found Apple used an
| anticompetitive practice and an Appeals court upheld it or
| "agreed" if you prefer.
|
| Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical
| intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
| MBCook wrote:
| > So the courts agree that Apple uses _AN_ anticompetitive
| _PRACTICE_.
|
| Fixed it. They said not allowing developers to say it was
| possible to pay externally was against the law. I think a
| California law?
|
| They did not say that about Apple's fee, the existence of only
| Apple's App Store, or anything else.
|
| It was limited to anti-steering.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Yes, that's correct. Hopefully some of their other anti-
| competitiveness practices get ruled against but for now it's
| rather limited to some of their most flagrant behavior.
| kelnos wrote:
| As siblings point out, the courts agree to one single anti-
| competitive practice.
|
| The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly
| clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is
| good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an
| unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and
| doesn't conflict with any federal law.
|
| The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were
| related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped
| would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution
| monopoly.
| beaned wrote:
| Does this mean there are separate rulings for Google and Apple?
| Does that mean the law is inconsistent?
| dagmx wrote:
| No it doesn't, because the cases are completely different.
|
| Google engaged in anti competitive practices by discouraging
| competing stores. Apple doesn't have competing stores so
| there's nothing to compete against.
|
| The law is consistent in that regard because of the scope of
| the subject matter.
| chairhairair wrote:
| Insanity, or satire. Can't tell.
| dagmx wrote:
| Or you could just read the individual cases and understand
| them instead.
| asah wrote:
| Pretty sweet for Android users...
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