Apple has been hit with a massive $5 billion class action lawsuit over selling e-books with its Apple Books app. The lawyers say Apple has been misleading customers into thinking they own the books they purchase instead of licensing them. Apple is hardly the only company that does this; Amazon and Rakuten Kobo do it, too, but Apple is the low-hanging fruit.
The proposed class action complaint explains that Apple is required to pull a digital book or audiobook from Apple Books if and when it loses a license to that content, resulting in the content no longer being available. As a result, the complaint alleges that some customers have unexpectedly found that digital books they previously purchased were no longer available to re-download, despite having paid for them.
One of the most damning parts of the lawsuit is that Apple does not link to any terms and conditions when purchasing a book for the first time or the hundredth time. The Apple Books app also has no splash screen or anything else that discloses that e-books are not purchased in perpetuity but only a license.
It remains to be seen if this will go to trial in San Jose, where it was filed. No judge has been assigned to the case, and a settlement is possible.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.