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Comment by dkonofalski | Hacker News Reader

That would be a completely legitimate argument except that people buy their devices with the understanding that APple is the sole controller of what they can install. It's not monopolistic behavior because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. The only unique thing in this lawsuit is that Cydia is claiming to be a competitor to the App Store and I firmly believe that it'll be tossed because Cydia's entire existence is predicated on a process that, at the time it was operating, is illegal and violates the DMCA. I don't necessarily think Cydia is bad and people should be able to jailbreak their devices if they want but that can't be used as the basis for a lawsuit that alleges monopolistic behavior or even anti-trust.

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Jailbreaking absolutely does not violate the DMCA, nor is it illegal. Circumvention that isn't related to copyright infringement is not covered under the DMCA, and jailbreaking mobile devices has been ruled explicitly exempt on those grounds:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-2...

Stop spreading fud.

I'm not spreading FUD. That decision was made in 2018. At the time of Cydia's release, in 2008, it was a violation of the DMCA. You can't apply a ruling that happened 10 years later to argue that.

Before the decision, jailbreaking was not considered a violation of the DMCA. Apple sued and lost trying to make it one. So your premise that Cydia was somehow in violation of DMCA at the time is completely false.

It was not made in 2018, that's just the latest renewal of the ruling (which was originally made in 2010). Apple's attempts to make it illegal were denied at the time too, because even without the ruling it fairly obviously falls under exemption.

The ruling also just makes it explicit, the DMCA already doesn't cover things like jailbreaking because they don't relate to copyright, and do relate to the user enabling interoperability of their device with legally obtained software (17 U.S. Code § 1201 (f)). These rulings are not proclamations in contrast with the law, they are bound by it and must be valid interpretations of it. Apple's attempts to classify it otherwise were a clear attempt to abuse copyright law and were rejected as illegitimate.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

The Copyright Office didn't construct an exemption out of whole cloth - they cannot do that, and they'd be overruled by Congress if they did. It's a recognition of the underlying fact that the DMCA does not cover TPMs that do not control access to a copyrighted work. The actual text of the law says that.

Not only was it not illegal as the other commenters have mentioned, I believe Jay specifically went to the exemption discussions for it with Cydia as then example of why it should be legal. And this isn't what's being argued here regardless.

Do "people" really have that understanding? I'd posit that that vast majority of Apple's userbase has given zero consideration to the issue at all.

I suggest that if presented the choice of

When you buy a phone would you rather ... A. that the maker of the phone has total and final control over what apps are available for you to install via it's own store. B. that the maker of the phone has a store pre-installed for you to install apps from, but you have the the choice to install apps from other 3rd party stores or directly yourself

I'm pretty sure if put in that type of context most people would choose B. But they are never given that choice. The choice they get is over the maker of the device, Apple and option A or an Android based device that has some variation of B.

That's not true though, Apple does make the devices, but the user owns them, and therefore has the legal right to install whatever they wish. Apple does not have control over this, as evidenced by the legality ruling of jailbreaking.

>Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set.

This is false. As proven time and time again, the Device Owner has full legal control after purchase.

It is monopolistic behavior due to the scope of the control from Apple. The devices are the owner's property, and it is monopolistic for them to implement software/policies/hardware blocks, that prevent users from using the devices as they see fit.

Take a simplistic example, Keurig. Keurig tried to prevent users from using any other coffee pod besides theirs. There is precedent to these monopoly lawsuits.

https://time.com/2913062/k-cups-war/

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro....

>has the legal right to install whatever they wish

Absolutely. But people buy the devices knowing that that's not an option. It's not like Apple locked down these devices and changed them after people bought them. You can absolutely jailbreak your device and put whatever you want on it and I fully support that. That doesn't make Apple's behavior monopolistic or an anti-trust violation.

Your Keurig example isn't relatable or similar at all since Keurig both did have a monopoly on single-use coffee pods and that was the single purpose of the device. An optional App Store is not the same thing at all.

>But people buy the devices knowing that that's not an option.

A manufacturer cannot dictate the consumer's options regarding the owned devices, even though they have it in their terms and conditions. Apple is currently being gobsmacked by right to repair claims under this very principle.

You are right that the legal owner has the right to install whatever they want.

However Apple is under no obligation to do the work to build a mechanism to help them do so.

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