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Some might see a difference between "a developer who went public about their frustrations with the App Store" and a developer who deliberately violated the poli
by pwinnski 6y ago
Some might see a difference between "a developer who went public about their frustrations with the App Store" and a developer who deliberately violated the policies and then filed a lawsuit and started an extensive PR campaign.
- ProAm 6y ago> a developer who deliberately violated the policies Are you talking about Netflix?
- ascagnel_ 6y agoI'm unaware of any current legal action Netflix is taking against Apple.
- senko 6y agoThat's not what the parent said.
- pwinnski 6y agoI listed three conditions: "[1] violated the policies and then [2] filed a lawsuit and [3] started an extensive PR campaign" Netflix arguably did the first, but I don't recall them doing either of the other two things.
- ProAm 6y agoBecause they were not kicked from the app store for doing so.
- misnome 6y agoCome on, I don't think anyone is pretending that this wasn't a deliberate provocation by Epic
- arcticbull 6y agoI guess so, but so what? Deliberately provoking a potentially illegal act to litigate it is fair game. It doesn't legitimize the move by Apple, nor does it invalidate Epic's claim. If they want to play high-stakes poker, they better have good attorneys, but that's life in the American judicial system.
- misnome 6y agoBut... it does describe the difference between Netflix, which is what the thread is about?
- damnyou 6y agoSuffering a harm is how one gets standing to sue.
- naikrovek 6y agoSuffering harm is how one sues and wins, yes. Anyone can sue for anything and quickly lose, but to have any hope of winning, you must be harmed.
- burnte 6y agoIt was an invitation for Apple to screw up. They could have just banned the app. Instead they went full nuclear. Apple stepped in the trap.
- mirthflat83 6y agoA PR campaign geared towards kids... which is quite embarrassing
- jrhurst 6y agoAll that really will matter is how the government and courts see it. Those words will be used in court.
- modeless 6y agoEpic needed to demonstrate that they and consumers were harmed in order to have standing to sue. If Apple's policies are illegal then Epic is not bound to follow them and retaliation is unjustified. It won't be known until it's decided in court. That's why Epic's motion should be granted to prevent retaliation until the court decides.
- naikrovek 6y agoYes, this exactly. I hope everyone reads this.
- zip1234 6y agoHow would Apple's policies be illegal? Epic entered a contractual agreement with Apple and then knowingly and intentionally broke it in order to benefit themselves.
- laser 6y agoI'm not a lawyer, but presumably because there's US antitrust law, under which the courts may find Apple's contractual impositions to be illegal. They may also find they are legal, but if the court has any doubt they should grant Epic's request to stop retaliation.
- ChrisLomont 6y agoI doubt this is antitrust. There's a zillion other places to sell a game (as Epic has shown). If you want to claim the entire market in question to be Apple products, I doubt that will get very far. Everything is a monopoly when you make your market hyper specific.
- tc313 6y agoWell that’s Epic’s argument, so it’s the question that the courts will resolve in this case.
- ben-schaaf 6y ago
- yholio 6y agoYour sentence for today to write 100 times, Bart Simpson style, is: "I shall never use my monopoly power to restrict access to justice for my clients".
- AcerbicZero 6y agoIts a little surprising how effective that PR campaign has been so far.
- pldr2244 6y agoIt’s possible there are other forces at work here. Tencent is an owner in Epic Games/Fortnite. This may be a show of demonstrating their importance/reach to consumers, to proactively make Trump and the US government afraid of going after them to divest assets. Yet I still hope Trump forces them to divest assets. And I’m dumbfounded how anyone here could care to stand for Epic Games with their association to the CCP.
- 627467 6y agoSome might also see that to breakthrough a totalitarian platform good coordination of efforts (lawsuits, PR, etc) are needed.
- koboll 6y agoSome might. But Tim Cook seems not to, because his answer, "We do not retaliate or bully people", was unequivocal.
- victords 6y agoIt’s still retaliation. No way around that.
- nomel 6y agoSome would consider this enforcement, which is not the same as retaliation.
- manquer 6y agoHow so ? They are pulling access to all platforms including desktop, also unreal is sdk/library used by ton of third parties , all of them are impacted too
- judge2020 6y agoIt's equal enforcement among all developers. Every other time that a developer has intentionally broken app store guidelines Apple has terminated their entire Developer account.
- manquer 6y agoepic size orgs would not just use one account. It includes preview access and to clot products . In my experience , I usually sign different agreements with different products for such diverse access . Sometimes it is with different legal entities . I don’t know if Apple does an MSA which is the kind of document which covers the general engagement , so unless such a MSA exists and allows for this kind of termination , I am pretty sure this cannot be done for violating guidelines of single agreement to cancel other contracts in place. Apple probably has clauses to unilaterally terminate agreements and is invoking that, but that is not remotely the same as closing down a account for violating guidelines
- romanoderoma 6y agoWell mafia could say the same thing But if you use a gun like Apple did...
- fxtentacle 6y agoThe acceptable punishment part is when Apple closes the Fortnite developer account. The unacceptable retaliation is that Apple threatens to close the developer accounts of everyone working on the Unreal Engine, which is used in millions of projects in addition to Fortnite. What Apple is doing here is akin to mafia punching your sister to get you to pay up.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y agoWhy closing Fortnite developer account is acceptable? If they have one app that was banned for 'violating guidelines', and another one that doesn't violate anything, why should the second app be removed, too? Because the unruly developer must be punished?