Apple sued for iTunes technology
Apple Inc. was sued Wednesday over allegations its iTunes online music store and iPod music players are illegally using a patented method for distributing digital media over the Internet. Atlanta-based ZapMedia Services Inc. sued Apple in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, accusing the Cupertino-based company of violating two ZapMedia patents. ZapMedia wants royalties on Apple’s sales of iPods and iTunes music, which reached nearly $11 billion last year. The success of iTunes has helped make Apple the No. 2 music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to market researcher NPD Group.
The patents in question cover a way of sending music and other digital content from servers to multiple media players, a broad description that could also apply to a wide swath of other companies selling digital media and the devices to play it. ZapMedia applied for the patents in 1999. One was granted in March 2006, the other on Tuesday. ZapMedia said it met with Apple to discuss licensing, but Apple rebuffed the offer. “When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us,” Robert Frohwein, ZapMedia’s general counsel, said in a statement. An Apple spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits.
Source: CNN, AP
Comments(45)
God damn…Apple will get through this !!
The patent system is fubar’d.
They deserve it, it hope they loose billions.
Creative sued/are still in the process of sueing them as well because they stole their ideas.
When we download for free, they don`t like and want to sue us.
When they make a mistake, it`s fine…
O.o
Regardless of my dislike for Apple (caused by all the fanboys), this seems like just one more of these companies that apply for patents just to be able to sue big companies for using it later. The US patent system sure is f’ed up.
Hate apple, but come on, this law suit is a joke! The patent system all togather is a joke in US and EU.
“They deserve it, it hope they loose billions.
Creative sued/are still in the process of sueing them as well because they stole their ideas.”
Damn straight. Apple fail horribly.
MONEYFEVER written all over it.
I’m so tired of all this bull.
A company hits it major one year, another company notice this and they milk money of it by sueing it.
Of course, right is right and wrong is wrong but still… It never ends, it makes me wanna burn all their paper and say ‘oops! but you stole my thoughts, it’s MY BRAIN, MY WORDS, MY IDEA.’
If it was because of moral standings I would back it up, especially when it comes to plagiarism but it doesn’t seem that way.. not when it goes beyond five 0s
Oh as FuXXing IF
no F chance…its a cheap shot. Apple will wipe them away, they’re one of the most litigious hi-tech companies out there..their lawyers will make minced meat of it.
When I saw the title I thought someone was suing Apple over the fact that iTunes is a resource hogging piece of malware.
I applied for a patent in 1936 covering all future non-invented ways devices playing, distributing and making content (including OS, applications, music, video etc.) excluding analog radio and analog television.
I am still waiting for an answer but oh boy, when it is approved…..
LOL @ people who hate apple and saying this company steal ideas from others.
In fact, those same people love M$ that has a BIG history of stealing and copying from others.
@6/x0054:
>The patent system all togather is a joke in US and EU.
You’re obviously American with no knowledge of the EU system…
@12
such a bullsh!t. i hate apple because of those fanboys and the quality that gets more f’up with every year. and still i dont like m$
@13
its nearly the same. Our system is not much better, we have silly patents too. Mostly i like that one which describes a tesla generator from command & conquer (the russian ones or were that the nods?) and other non working machines and ideas. Never understood why you havn’t to show a working prototype when patenting something or something to show how it aktually works for real.
other question: Does this patent also include Multicast Radiostreams or any traffic over a cable or similar?
If so, i want a patent for Windowframes(the real ones not that one from MS).
What a freaking joke. An idea is nothing if you don’t put it to work. I looked at zapMedia’s website and they have no products even relating to electronics. The patent system needs to only give patents to companies/people who actually have the service/product/etc they are filing for period. There is an infinite amount of ideas…even a 4yr old can give you an endless amount of ideas.
this is an absolute joke! how often is apple getting sued?? what is it with americans and suing? its like second nature for u guys its ridiculous. instead of zapmedia claiming its their idea, put it into practice, sorry but apple beat you to it fair and square!
wat i find the most amusing is zapmedia wanting royalties on ipod and itunes music sales. zapmedia is a joke!
I’ve tried to post something thrice now but it won’t load, what’s wrong with the site?
AAAAH poor Apple getting sued again? What injustice! Just like the Iphone battery that all of a sudden was revealed to last 8 months only and which wasn’t covered in the warranty and the Apple Ipods whose batteries on average lasted a year and a half. Such injustice, it makes me weep that such a big firm that isntalls malware and spyware named Itunes on your PC’s gets sued for infringement of copyrights because it hits it big after stealing other peoples idea’s. I hate people who then, subsequently, sue thieves like Apple for theft.
I’d just like to state I love Apple, I love their backwards fanboys who like their computers to “Just work” without a problem and like sending their machines back everytime they want something and have to pay huge amounts of money for the replacement of a hard disk. Congratulations for defending a useless company that was on the verge of bankruptcy before switching to Intel CPU’s and motherboards because their own hardware was a joke.
And yes, the EU and US patent system are totally messed up. That’s why the US haven’t been able to touch Microsoft while the EU just fined them 1.2b for violating an EU directive. Exxon Valdez will probably never have to pay a penny in fines because of their stupidity in their Alaska disaster while the EU crushes companies who think the EU will bend over for them. A collection of states ran by corporations for corporations, that’s the EU… oh wait… it’s the US.
If you want to criticise the EU at least to it right because the posters who claimed the EU was as weak as the US just totally phailed.
this is totally bogus lawsuit. The company sueing apple sounds like nothing more than a patent holding company who’s sole purpose as a company is to apply and get retroactive tech/software patents on popular things and then try to get the other company to settle out of court so to avoid the embarrassement of the press. And wouldn’t you think that transfering data over firewire or USB is PRIOR ART! It’s not a new idea to download information and copy it to disk/storage device. The only difference is Apple primarily uses its own desktop application rather than using a Web site via browser. So does this company have the right to sue any company that sends data to mobile devices? What about every cell phone carrier in the world? This thing stinks bad and I hope Apple’s lawyers can bury this lil bs company. I visit Atlanta a lot so I may go try to stop by this business to see what they are all about(zapmedia).
DJ Fayt
ZAPMEDIA is a net marketing firm! Are we sure this isn’t Apple pulling a stunt?
give zapmedia a call. The number is: (404)875-8550.
That is the atlanta hq #.
Ya, US and their lawsauits, most of the time when I read about those things going on over there I’m not even sure if it’s a joke or not, just because it’s so rediculous.
Should be a law that you gotta have a working prototype to prove your idea before beeing able to apply for patent too.
And it’s redicalous that they come out and claim it’s their idea now and not earlier. I mean, they’re totaly abusing the system: They waited for apple to earn a lot of money before they even said anything. I hardly believe that they found out about iTunes and Ipods yesterday
I find it odd that the same people on here bashing Apple are the same people in other posts that bash Microsoft. Why even bother with computing at all. In fact Apple does its own share of suing way back when it sued Microsoft for copying its OS, you know all those new fancy features in Vista do you really think that they are really original. Big companies borrow, or steal, ideas from other companies all the times. When in fact most people on here are doing just that taking, or sharing other people’s things. The music and the movies that are shared between people are the same process but when a big company who is breaking through barriers, who would of though Apple could compete with the mighty Walmart, we look down upon them. This lawsuit in fact a break of patent as you can find from any amount of research into the subject. So those of you you frowning upon Apple you might as well get used to us because we arent going anywhere, and slowly but surely we are inching our way up from our 7% of the market and eating into Microsoft Shares. I mean come on all you Mac haters you have to admit that Vista was a total bomb, XP was a long awaited update to the previous failed OS. Do you really have an argument?
Anyone who whines about the quality of mac products, using tragic little pi55y examples like batteries knows NOTHING about it.
We have 2 mac pros and a mac book and two pc’s and the macs are totally F awesome.
Vista is junk and Leopard is only mildly better. Tiger remains the best OS out there. FACT
more fat cats fighting in a cloud of dust.
woulja kill, woulja kill, woulja kill, woulja kill
fo’ dem hundred dolla biills yaa’ll?!
Let’s let the lawyers deal with this – and no you braindead people =).
itunes sucks anyway, i hope it goes away
FAIL
Did I say M$ were any better? If I did please show me. What I said was that Apple have been rightfully sued many times in the past few years for making inferiour products and not telling consumers about flaws untill many have either been sold or ordered and paid for.
Vista is a joke as was ME. There will be no alternative to XP for another few years to come as there was no alternative for 98 untill XP arrived. Vista is a hyped up useless piece of software that only looks good as long as your PC is stable and it doesn’t crash and it does that more than often enough.
Also what kind of ridiculous point of view have some of you got? Because some criticise Apple those people should criticise M$? Someone please explain the logic in that to me because it’s just ignorent and you do nothing but prove the invalidity of your own point.
Mac Pro, Mac Notebooks are all based on Intel technology and not on their own CPU’s and motherboards and the only reason they are so called ‘awesome’ is because of the software which can be ported onto the PC and which is lacking compared to Windows. XP is superiour to Mac OS’s due to the simple fact that there is more software for them, not because the coding is better. If you want to tout coding then compare Mac OS to Linux, or better not because Linux outperforms both when it comes to quality.
We do infringe on copyrights but we do it not because we’re thieves but because the companies we ’steal’ off rip us off by overpricing music and films just to squeeze more money out of us. If you don’t agree then don’t come on this site so don’t waste your breathe with backwards arguements. Apple and $ony are no different and that’s why I hate both those firms and will refuse to buy products made by either.
By the way, I never knew exploding batteries and lies about lifetime were legitimate ways of doing business, it must be something I’m missing about ethics. I mean it’s perfectly normal to buy a phone for four hundred Euro’s then be told that the battery isn’t covered by warranty and that I will have to replace it myself in eight months time because it’s inferious. I wonder what the people who were seriously injured by exploding batteries would say about your support for those firms and their defect products. It’s a shame it’s never happened to you fanboy.
Lawsuits being a joke? Oh come on, someone here sued God, and well, God is being represented by an attorney haha. You really can’t get worse than that. (I know the purpose of suing god was to prove we have a messed up system).
This is what you do, brainstorm for things that we will be needing in about 5-10 years. Anything you might have heard that is still in a concept phase. Now, go file patents for it, file hundreds of them. One will be vague enough to match something someone did to become filthy rich, you might even make a big score. Think of it like domain squatting, but with patents.
what’s up with all the hate? where is that coming from? apple is providing a nice technology. it obviously works. why are people hating? cause they`re not different to the other multibillion corporate companies? stop hating. it only makes you look stupid…
oh yeah, well microsoft in fact did a very cool thing. they’ve donated half of their asset for the research of aids… and this they’ve done to get a distance between them and the hypocritical high society…
OH NOES John, M$ did something spectacularly good? Is William III leaving most of his cash to AIDS research and other charities when he dies? Is Apple doing the same? Eh… no? Apple fanboys to the rescue!!
“Vista was a total bomb, XP was a long awaited update to the previous failed OS. Do you really have an argument?”
Complete bullsh1t!
XP was designed to replace Win2K which, at that time was the most desired OS MS had ever made. Due to piblic inacceptance of XP and refusal to adopt it, MS was forced to extend product support for 2K an additional 2 years. 2 years after XP was released people STARTED to adopt it, grudgingly. It was to date the most insecure, unstable and botched OS release from MS (even when compared to Windows ME). When XP was released, everyone stuck with Win2K and said they were going to skip XP and wait for Longhorn (now renamed Vista).
When Vista came out, it was more secure than XP when releases, was more stable than when XP was released and more relable as an OS. XP had a horrible HCL that was forcign major corporations to spend millions in hardware, the IT staff were worked to the bone after hours patching it etc.
In essence, your comments were 100% unqualified, utter and complete crap. Not a single supportable statement made. Have a seat.
US>EU in every respect other then the patent system. The patent system in US is equally bad to the EU system. This law suit is still a joke and is going to be crushed.
“US>EU in every respect…
LOL, OMG !! US<any other hole on Earth, in every respect except for large piles of unhealthy food.
Man, where do you guys GET such an attitude from? You ever been past the corner store? Obviously you haven’t left the country before.
How do they actually get people to believe such crap, is it school that teaches you such tripe???? US is one of the most undesireable places to be on Earth these days, get with the program.
And yet, Americans get pissed when told they are arrogant, that’s ripe! Man, pull your head out of your ass and look around you for once, try looking at the horrors within your own borders for a change, that’s what everyone else is seeing.
Nice to see Apple getting sued instead of Microsoft for a change. But the lawsuit will probably go nowhere and the only ones making money will be the lawyers.
As far as Vista is concerned, whether you like it or not, there are already more Vista systems in the world than all the MACs combined. Not bad for a ‘failure’ of an OS!
The patent system should be changed.
ZapMedia applied for the patent in 1999, and they’re getting it now!!
Apple wasn’t even given the option to pay for the patent back in 1999 because it didn’t exist yet.
The system needs to be simple. It can’t possibly cover every new aspect in the digital revolution.
While at the same time, people should be rewarded for their ideas, not have to fight for them.
I’m sure they won’t win anything. They don’t have enough money to win a courtcase against a giant like Apple with such a weak case. Even their website sucks and reeks of 90’s web design. It is ironic that their site is so poor considering that they refer to themselves as “hardcore netizens” and “creative geniuses” on their company information page. On their website it doesn’t even talk about their ‘work’, it just has an email address where you can contact them to ask about it.
0/10 for effort, I hope these douches lose a bunch of money in court.
I’m going to sue all americans that sue too damn much…
apple sucks. until i can run every peice of software that i choose to run in the course of a week (im a dj/producer and also edit video, flash my phone, psp homebrew, etc etc) it will always suck. until i can build my own mac and install leopard/tiger on everything i want it sucks. they, just like ms, have been sued many a time, its there idea that there so big they will steal a copyright and just pay for it later. really, who can compare a company that makes software to a company that make computers and software (ms compared to apple) unless your comparing the macbook pro (which is a gorgeous peice of tech) to the xbox360 (best gaming console out). i totally agree with who ever said f apple and f sony, they are the same forcing there own one off uncompatible bs on people. how is it so hard for you fools to believe that apple stole this? they stole the interface from creative and they stole the click wheel from another company and will lose both of those law suits. when will you all relieze that bill and steve are really the same person and they crap on us both, apple people are just less computer savy and need more protection from the fecal matter (and have deeper pockets)?
oh and to the guy who said america sucks, what other country can you possibly compare us too? look inside our own borders? we might be arogant and stuck up and think our ish dont stink (and loud and vulgar and fat), but everyone wants to come here and dont think for a minute that isnt true. i could be completely wrong but id like you to show me a country ( and corresponding numbers) that has more legal and illegal immigrants come to it each year, id like to know where i could go and have a better life and a better chance at being some dumb average jackass and still make a million dollars. dont even try comparing use to some country the size of texas either, i dont want to hear it. keep talking like that and we’ll invade you next, looking for wmd;s, just because we want to, because you and all your neighboring countries couldnt stop us if you wanted. america is a bully, and maybe even a villan, but most americans like it that way. WE’RE THE ONES YOU RUN FROM NOT COME FOR.
Ohhhhh, the bitter truth dj! The US will stomp and crush any pathetic country that stands in our way. Its a known fact. Its as you said, also a known fact of many many people beg to live here. God how I love the envy masked as pity towards the US. I piss on you all, you filthy foreigners!
“April 15 2008; Apple buys ZapMedia Services Inc..”
when ur on top everyone wants a piece of you eh?
poor zapmadia, after years of itunes success they finally realized that one of the biggest online music purchasing software was using their idea all along.
i could imagine how zapmedia wudve dominated if apple wasnt around. they probably had created their own ipods ready to sell and to rock n roll until they were beaten to it by apple