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A comment on Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th. Parent comment

Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by modeless on Monday August 17, 2020 @05:38PM (#24192492)
Epic 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.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by zip1234 on Monday August 17, 2020 @08:46PM (#24194098)
How 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.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by laser on Monday August 17, 2020 @09:14PM (#24194304)
I'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.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by ChrisLomont on Monday August 17, 2020 @09:32PM (#24194398)
I 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.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by ben-schaaf on Monday August 17, 2020 @11:39PM (#24195019)
This isn't some hyper specific market. Mobile games are a $76 billion industry (and rising) with the overwhelming majority of users only having access through either the Google play store or Apple store.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by ChrisLomont on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @08:21AM (#24197748)
$76B is world market. US law doesn't apply to a significant part of that.

Neither Apple nor Google is a monopoly in mobile games. By revenue Apple has about 60%. Check [1], search threshold to see what cases often require.

Taken together they would be, but then you cannot prosecute Apple and win without showing collusion between them and prosecute them both for collusion.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by tc313 on Monday August 17, 2020 @10:53PM (#24194785)
Well that’s Epic’s argument, so it’s the question that the courts will resolve in this case.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by modeless on Monday August 17, 2020 @10:21PM (#24194638)
Epic is specifically arguing that Apple's policies violate the Sherman Act, the California Cartwright Act, and the Unfair Competition Law of California. For more information, refer to the complaint: https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/apple-complaint-734589783.pdf
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by Sebguer on Monday August 17, 2020 @10:26PM (#24194667)
You realize that contracts don't override the law, right?
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by romanoderoma on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @07:33AM (#24197462)
If we sign an agreement where in exchange for my services you have to give me your first daughter, you can break the contract and refuse to pay, even if you signed it, because it's illegal.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by greggyb on Thursday August 20, 2020 @01:57PM (#24226282)
In legal terms, a contract is an enforceable agreement; by definition if it is illegal or void or unenforceable, it is not a contract. Breach is a thing you do to a contract. Therefore you can't breach an illegal contract - you never had a contract.
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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by pwinnski on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @03:57PM (#24203591)
Epic's motion is to allow them to continue to deliberately flout the rules of the App Store, which opens up a lot of other issues.

Apple has signaled that Epic is welcome to submit a version of their app which does not violate their rules, and they will approve that. They're walking a fine line, but I think their legal argument is sound on that score.

We can agree or disagree about the overall right or wrong of Apple's rules, that's separate from the issue of Epic's motion, which is absolute nonsense.

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Re:Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th by naikrovek on Monday August 17, 2020 @07:13PM (#24193406)
Yes, this exactly. I hope everyone reads this.
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