It's called an unconscionable contract. Epic's argument is that you cannot enforce unfair things even if you signed on it. Of course, the court is going to decide if it's really unfair, neither Epic nor Apple.
Unconscionable is not the same as "unfair" in the commonly understood sense.
I would be interested to see a solid case decided on unconscionability where both parties are multi-billion dollar companies with substantial resources to spend on negotiating contracts.
If "I really want what you're selling, but it's kinda expensive" is the new standard for unconscionability, then we're all in big trouble.
Sounds like, at least temporarily, the court believes the agreement to be enforceable.
>In a ruling late last month, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers largely rejected similar arguments Epic made in seeking a restraining order against Apple regarding Fortnite development on iOS. There was no "irreparable harm" to Epic, Rogers wrote, because "the current predicament appears of [Epic's] own making."
> "Your client created this situation," Rogers told lawyers for Epic in an August hearing. "Your client does not come to this action with clean hands... in my view, you cannot have irreparable harm when you create the harm yourself."
> "The court recommended that Epic comply with the App Store guidelines while their case moves forward, guidelines they’ve followed for the past decade until they created this situation," Apple said in a statement earlier this month." Epic has refused. Instead they "repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines of the App Store."
EDIT: @gpm The status quo you refer to is Epic abiding by the agreement they argue is unenforceable. I have to be mindful about my reply quantity, HN throttles me otherwise, hence the edit.
Irreparable harm here means no harm that would be caused by not granting a temporary restraining order that could not be fixed by granting a preliminarily injunction later, or cured in a final ruling. It does not mean there is no harm (edit: Or that the agreement is enforceable).
The idea is just that the judge is generally going to maintain the status quo during the TRO phase (this policy exists because there has been such little time for legal argument at the point that a TRO is requested).
I don't see that any of these quotes are at all responsive to the person you are responding to.
> EDIT: @gpm The status quo is Epic abiding by the agreement they argue unenforcable.
Heh, just so you know you can reply to new comments by clicking on the timestamp and then clicking reply.
Anyways, I think I must be missing your point? The person you replied to appeared to be arguing about what the final ruling should be not about whether or not a TRO should be granted (which is where the status quo arguments come in).
That something is written on a contract does not means that is enforceable. If not I will create a contract that says you are now the president and you will still not be.
Apple’s contract is completely normal though. Resale distribution channels for locked in platforms aren’t new: Ticketmaster, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, etc
The only difference is people want to change the rules because they feel Apple (and Google) have won the game forever and App Stores should now be regulated like utilities.
The analogy with videogame console is i think the best one. I hate Apple rules on the app store, but i’ve always wondered if they hadn’t just copied the gaming console business models.
Which makes me wonder : is there any way to distribute your own game to playstation users, without having to ask or pay anything to sony ?
What physical property of Apple's is involved here? There's intellectual property, but at the end of the day the purpose of their Intellectual Property Rights in this scenario is to ensure that after paying them $1000 for a phone they still get to collect 30% of all the purchases you make using that phone in perpetuity (as long as they can get away with it), while also limiting what you can do with your Physical Property that you paid for.
I suppose if you don't like it you can go buy an Android phone and just give away all your data in addition to the 30%.
Also worth considering: How much of Apple's intellectual property here could exist without them harvesting decades of free/open software development history unpaid? And now they're complaining that someone used their SDK after paying the license fees?
