Apple Sued For Dividing Final Season of Breaking Bad Into Two On iTunes 458
An anonymous reader writes "Last night's episode of Breaking Bad was one of the most intense in series history, but for those who haven't seen it yet, don't worry, I won't be putting out any spoilers. You see, today's Breaking Bad news has nothing to do with Walter White's slow transformation into Scarface, but rather with a legal suit filed against Apple by a Breaking Bad fan. In a lawsuit that many saw coming, an Ohio man named Noam Lazebnik recently filed a class action suit against Apple upon finding out that the $22.99 he forked over for a 'Season Pass' of Breaking Bad was only good for the first 8 episodes of the show's final season."
Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Funny)
They didn't make the Breaking Bad series, they're not the ones who decided to split up the season in two. What's next, suing Apple because the new pop music album is crap?
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are couple of problems with your quip. First, it seems this chap isn't going after money. The article suggests he is seeking only a refund... for all he deems swindled by this. Second, he doesn't seem to have sued more than his immediate interface in this chain of commerce. That is, he's simply trying to hold Apple to their apparently declared obligation.
Actually, however, there are a number of reasons to sue multiple parties in many cases regardless of the amount of money sought. Sometimes it's pretty clear who did you wrong. Here it seems rather clear that Apple made a particular promise prior to a proper appreciation or understanding of the intent of AMC. But often it's not entirely clear. Next, suing all involved parties forces them all to get their act together (individually and collectively) since if any party doesn't show at court judgement may default against them regardless of actual guilt/responsibility. Sadly, it seems litigation is often required to get multiple bureaucracies to work together... or against each other. Which brings us to another reason - getting your opponents' lawyers to do your work for you as they endeavour to show the other defendant guilty.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Interesting)
Pity this guy isn't in Australia. Apple would be forced to refund or give him both 'seasons' over here without any lawsuit.
We have a government organisation called the ACCC to keep companies in line with their advertising.
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Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are couple of problems with your quip. First, it seems this chap isn't going after money. The article suggests he is seeking only a refund... for all he deems swindled by this.
^^ This is insightful?
Are we supposed to believe that this guy is undertaking the effort and expense of litigation all in the name of recovering his $22.99?
NO!
There is an army of lawyers here, FUNDING and waiting upon the outcome of this case before launching similar class-actions that will net them millions of dollars and all the "swindled" customers a free season something.
Good god man. Wake up. Read between the lines.
Shrug. Sometimes it's a matter of principle. As the OP said, he's apparently seeking a refund for a product he purchased and didn't receive. Going after the retailer for this is entirely reasonable. If the retailer was unknowingly selling half-full boxes of product, it's then the retailer's job to sue the manufacturer. In the IT industry it's called "one throat to choke". When you deal with a distributor, the distributor is ultimately responsible to the customer for the product matching the description. In this case "season pass" for half a season is clearly receiving a half-full box.
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They're the ones who advertised "This Season Pass will contain all episodes of Breaking Bad, Season 5" without actually verifying they had the rights to offer all that content for that price.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple did not split the new season in 2 parts but they ARE the ones that sold it as a "season pass" and didn't say anywhere that the "season pass" is not good for the entire season.
To me its a fairly simple case of misleading advertizing.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. AMC's official stance is that this is one season of 16 episodes. For Apple to make the decision to consider it two "seasons" as far as "season passes" are concerned--well, I hope they've got some good fine print on that, otherwise they're boned. To me, "season pass" means "season pass," not "half a season pass." If Apple doesn't like it, they should take it up with AMC.
Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Apple is still the vendor and the vendor is responsible, even if they outsourced some of the work. If AMC broke Apple's rules then Apple should take action against AMC and refund their customers. If AMC didn't break Apple's rules then Apple's rules are ridiculous and Apple is responsible.
And yes, I would blame Best Buy or any other shop if they sold something as "Season 5" and then released "Season 5 Part 2". Any normal person would understand a "season" to be the complete season's set of episodes, not half
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Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
why is Apple being sued even if all they did was set down a box and say "hey consumers, good stuff will be in here" and "hey producers, stick your stuff in here". You'd think with that kind of setup they're doing nothing but acting as a middle man bringing consumers and producers together so they could engage in a transaction of goods for money.
However, they didn't do this - to each side they said "we'll handle this", and charged a tidy sum for the privilege, Consumers don't see who produces the goods, and producers don;'t see who purchases them - Apple sticks a great big wall in between so that they, and only they, are the ones taking the big fat cut. As a result, the consumer has no-one else to sue - his business was with Apple.
now, Apple might well decide to sue the producer in turn for not supplying the described product, but I fear that Apple, in their greed simply set up the box like I first described and left them to it - in order to make as much money as possible with the least amount of effort. And this is the result, no-one to blame but themselves.
Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
why is Apple being sued even if all they did was set down a box and say "hey consumers, good stuff will be in here" and "hey producers, stick your stuff in here".
I would argue that the customer shouldn't have to dig to find out who is responsible. From the customer's point of view Apple sold him the content and was the point where the text was presented. Now whether it is Apple or the publishers behind, is for Apple to decide whether they pass the buck.
In the example of Best Buy the relationship between the box and the store is a bit clearer, but if Best Buy has an advert saying something that incorrect and it has the Best Buy logo on it, then it is Best Buy's responsibility, even it was the publisher behind changing the offering.
Re: Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. Basic consumer law is that you enter into an agreement with the vendor that sells you the product, not the supplier. If you were to buy a program on iTunes and it never downloaded, that would be something you take up with Apple, not AMC. Same principle.
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If best buy advertised as "Buy the whole 5th season for 22 bucks" yeah it's best buys fault. They didn't advertise correctly. The problem with apple isn't that they sold half the season it's that they sold the full season and then it was broken up and you only got the first half. It's a bait and switch they should get a refund or the second half which they thought they were paying for in the first place.
If AMC screwed apple then apple could turn around and sue their pants off for damages to them caused b
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Midleading Advertisements CAN be countered by fine print.
Nearly every commercial that mentions a percentage or dollar figure will have a star(*).. and either a 1/16th inch print paragraph will follow(for tv), or one of the 100 fastest talkers in the world will chime in (saying the paragraph in 5 seconds)
Both of which, while 100% unintelligible to 99% of the population, are legal defenses in court.
And there's more ways they can get around misleading advertising. My favorite is the "I think/I Feel/I Like"....
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Depends where the fine print is. Fine print often occurs on the cover of things, on the face. I've seen things starred and crossed and otherwise marked where you had to get *inside* to see the fine print, or where I've searched everything and not found the fine print anywhere but it was buried somewhere inconvenient and unnecessarily difficult to find. Fine print that's in legal documents that you have to read in full can be considered misleading.
In my example, if the TOS says somewhere buried deep in
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There's a distinction between ambiguous and misleading.
If I say that something is "20% better", the first question you would want to ask is "better how?", since 'better' is not necessarily easy to define. The fine print can clarify what I mean by 'better', because 'better' is ambiguous.
If I say 12 pack of Awesome Brand beer for $10, and when you get it home and open it up there's only 6 beers in there, then you would be rightfully pissed. The fine print can't say "by 12 we mean 6". Fine print can't outri
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By you own definition "season" is ambiguous not misleading. As there is no standardized number of episodes in a "season".
Not really. Just because one season may have 13 episodes and another 16 episodes doesn't mean that there's any confusion about what is or isn't part of season 5. AMC last summer phrased the now current episodes as "the second half of season 5". They have at no point described it as season 6. And from TFA:
The complaint further notes that consumers who purchased the first eight episodes "were specifically informed in writing that they were paying for 'all current and future' episodes of Season 5."
This isn't a case of 'better' or 'more satisfying' being inherently vague terms. The content promised is fairly specific, and does not match up with what was delivered.
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Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's true. However that doesn't explain the network's distribution. Personally I hate this trend of splitting seasons into Season 5.1 and Season 5.2 or Season 5 (Spring) or Season 5 (Fall). The BBC experimented with splitting series up for DVD sales or Schedule pigeonholing (make the season last despite the lack of episodes).
In AMC's case, they either didn't want to delay the Season 5 premiere by waiting on the second half of the season to finish production or (and) they wanted to milk the cash cow as long as possible by having the new episodes spread out into two half seasons.
To AMC's credit, they didn't label the second half of the distribution as "Season 6" but as "The final season". I think this has more to do with AMC's right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing than Apple or Amazon wanting to confuse or frustrate their customers.
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TV.com [tv.com] also lists them as a single, sixteen episode season.
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Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Insightful)
It did say, however, that the season pass was valid for all season 5 episodes aired in 2012.
a) It did not say this at the time that I purchased Season 5. It was added later.
b) If you read the text of the suit, you will see that some Apple CSRs told customers would be getting all 16 episodes.
c) Another AMC series, Walking Dead, had a mid-season break and included all of the episodes for the season, before and after the break (which was split across calendar years), as part of the 'Season Pass'.
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Specifically, it said "This Season Pass includes all current and future episodes of Breaking Bad, The Final Season."
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Even 16 episodes for $22.99 is way too much. You think AMC makes that much off cable viewers? No way.
For that kind of price you could get the DVDs. This is why I wait for shows to be on Netflix.
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Even 16 episodes for $22.99 is way too much. You think AMC makes that much off cable viewers? No way.
For that kind of price you could get the DVDs. This is why I wait for shows to be on Netflix.
22.99 is for the high-def version; would you consider that an acceptable price for the Blu-ray disks? It's $14.99 for the standard definition. It is a complete rip-off for only 8 episodes, but seems like a decent price for 16.
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For 16 episodes $15 would be fine if that was the HD price. For SD so long as it is 480P and in 16x9 I might be ok with it.
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Not possible.
Show some math.
AMC gets at most a couple dollars a month out of a cable viewer, and has to provide far more shows than just this one.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:5, Insightful)
No but they are the ones who are selling a season pass for half a season.
Maybe things are different in the US, but in the UK at least the onus is on the retailer to make sure the products they sell are correctly advertised.
If it's genuinely not Apple's fault, then Apple gets to sue onwards to the provider of the product to recoup their costs, but either way the consumer's purchase contract was with Apple, so the consumer is right to take it up against Apple.
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The rules probably aren't as strict in the US. However, this is such an egregious example, that it's going to be a slam dunk. I'm guessing that Apple will wind up settling as half of a season isn't the same as a season. Especially if previous seasons were sold at a similar price.
It does get a bit funny as it's relatively common for cable series to do 2 seasons a year rather than one long season, so that's a potential out. However, if that's a change from previous seasons, which it sounds like it was, then t
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Hey if we are going the bullshit route, why not 22 seasons, one for each week with 4 episodes each season, you know the chunks between designated commercial breaks.
This is a straight up warning, paying before delivery from a modern corporation is a mugs game. The more they get, the more likely they are to lie, cheat and steal to get more.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Informative)
If it's genuinely not Apple's fault, then Apple gets to sue onwards to the provider of the product to recoup their costs, but either way the consumer's purchase contract was with Apple, so the consumer is right to take it up against Apple.
Normally that is not how it works. Apple can request that they are excluded from the suit and the court can agree. The court has to determine this based on a number of factors. If Apple is simply a middleman or distributor selling a product based on the content holder's wishes they are more likely to be dismissed from the case. Also if competitors have the exact same arrangement, it is more likely the content holder is the one who has to address the suit.
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Sounds like an excellent way for companies to avoid any responsibility for the products they sell. Pass the responsibility up the chain to some foreign company incorporated in the Kayman Islands, or to some factory in China. Someone you can't really sue, or who will simply declare bankruptcy and set up a new shell company the same day.
The UK way is better. Hold the seller responsible for what they sell, and then it's up to them to sue their suppliers. Make it easier and cheaper for the individual consumer t
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It's a concept in law called "liability.". And in life as well. People can't get judgments against you based on what your neighbors do. In this case what is Apple guilty of doing? If Apple took upon themselves to split the seasons, then they have more liability. If they are selling "as-is", then what should the courts do?
If you get some tainted ground beef, what is the store's liability to you? The answer is: it depends on the store's involvement. Did they properly handle the beef? Did they reprocess
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In the UK there is no such thing as selling something "as-is" or "sold as seen". Your consumer rights always apply, so unless something is sold as "scrap" or "spares/repairs, non-working" you can expect it to both work and last a reasonable length of time, as well as come with the statutory warranty even if it is marked "as-is".
In this case unless Apple clearly labelled it "batch of episodes, may not be the complete season" then UK consumers have a right to expect it to be the entire season. The official se
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If they are the ones doing the advertising they have shared liability. Calling it a season pass, means you are selling a season full of shows. Otherwise they should advertise it as a half season pass.
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I would hope it does make amazon just as liable.
A reasonable person does not expect them to break one season in half and call it two seasons. Maybe they should have waited 6 months between airing them.
Re:Why is Apple the one being sued? (Score:4, Informative)
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Traditional seasons are falling by the wayside. A "season" used to basically follow the traditional U.S. school year. New shows in the fall, running through the spring - with summers of re-runs. Usually 22 shows or so.
Look at shows like the walking dead. Premiered on the last day of October. Ran for only only 7 episodes, then a long break until the following October. Shows like Supernatural and Smallville traditionally kept their summer reruns going well into fall, often debuting the new "season" in late De
Bloom County did it first, in the 1980s (Score:3)
You apparently missed the "Bloom County" comic strip from the 1980s in which sleezebag attorney Steve Dallas advises Opus the penguin, who has just been punched in the nose by actor Sean Penn, to sue Nikon - the maker of the camera he used. Because, deep pockets.
Bloom County won a Pulitzer 1987. If newspapers today ran full comic pages with new Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side, I'd subscribe to a newspaper again.
absence of malice (Score:3, Funny)
Abense of Malice (Score:2)
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I'm not sure what the person's problem is. It works fine for me when I hold it using my thumb, middle finger and pinky.
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Personally I was glad to see the Hobbit movie split up. They skipped way too much in the Lord of the ring series.
I have no interest in Harry Potter so I never watched those.
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Personally I was glad to see the Hobbit movie split up. They skipped way too much in the Lord of the ring series.
I have no interest in Harry Potter so I never watched those.
The Potter movies are about the same: Lots of stuff left out to make the movie fit in under two hours. At least, for the last one, they made two movies so we get a more detailed view of what's in the book (which is anyway quite bigger than the previous ones)
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Do little kids even care?
I figured the potter movies target the same audience that read the books, children. Which are not knowing for being that picky with movies.
Amazon, others doing it too (Score:5, Informative)
Counterpoint (Score:5, Interesting)
If the price is $3 per episode, why bother paying $23 for 8 episodes... to save $1?
Re: Counterpoint (Score:2)
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That's understandable; however, the problem likely resides with their selling it as a "season pass."
I wonder when it was that AMC informed its content clients (such as Apple) that it was going 16 episodes this season ;).
To be honest, from a legal point of view this will come down to whether or not Apple defined "season pass" specifically in relation to episodes.
I wouldn't be aggrieved by this (nor would you most likely) because I'd understand that I was getting episodes x normal price - discount, but people
Re:Amazon, others doing it too (Score:4, Informative)
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They do however have to deal with what a reasonable person would call a $X. You can't advertise or sell a BRAND NEW CAR, excludes tires, motor and windshield in tiny print. This is because those things are part of a car to a reasonable person.
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I am not sure, but they likely should warn viewers. Perhaps a simple system would be to include the dates in the season pass; Season 5 season pass, includes all episodes that air from DATE_X to DATE_Y. Another approach might be to warn that this is a very short season.
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Yeah, but Amazon is really clear when you buy a season pass that you're paying $(n * 2.87) for the n episodes that have already been aired and $2.87 for each future episode as it comes out. It's very clear there's a per-episode price, and splitting it into multiple seasons has no effect on the total price paid.
I have no idea if iTunes is as clear; I don't order from them.
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As usual, the legit users get punished (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the people who just download the series through torrents have no such problem.
Call Them (Score:3)
AMC split season 5 (Score:2, Insightful)
Might be related to the fact that AMC split the fifth season into two sets of episodes that were aired at different times. For example, when the new episodes began airing last month, it was halfway through the final season making the one season feel like two. Perhaps someone at Apple made the mistake of thinking they were two separate seasons.
Re:AMC split season 5 (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps someone at Apple made the mistake of thinking they were two separate seasons.
The studio sure seems to be encouraging that mistake. They are selling DVDs saying "The Fifth Season [amazon.com]" on the packaging with no hint that it is half of a season [amazon.com]
Re:AMC split season 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy means never having to deal with this kind of BS. Hint to companies: don't make piracy easier/better than watching legally. We have choices we never had before.
Some thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously, its a problem when "Season Pass" doesn't actually get you the whole season. If I hadn't RTFA'd I might have presumed that the guy was complaining that he didn't get access to either all 16 episodes including the ones that weren't even played yet (that would be absurd) or that he didn't get access to the first 8 + the ones that have been played already (not absurd but I wouldn't be on his side)
If Apple's intention was that buying a season pass to season 5 of breaking bad would get you the first 8 episodes now, and the last 8 episodes when they were released to dvd/bluray/download, it would just be a matter of patience and I'd still be on Apple's side on this one.
Except from the sounds of it, Apple was selling a season pass to "Season 5" and not listing it as "The first 8 episodes of season 5." They had no intention of ever giving him access to the last 8 episodes of Season 5 for that price, making it "Not really a season pass." Clearly this is a problem and the guy just wants his money back for misleading advertising. If I were him, I'd be ok with a gift card in the amount of the price of the first 8 episodes, since the second 8 will presumably be priced the same anyway, effectively getting me what was advertised. The whole season for one price.
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The point is that he's not being given access to the whole season, just the first 8 episodes with no provision for getting the rest of the season. And being charged basically the same price as if he bought the shows individually. Which tends to reduce the point of buying a season pass as there's usually an episode or two that you don't really want in a season.
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You keep repeating this all over this story like you know something the rest of us dont.
Please explain to me how this guy is supposed to sue AMC, a company he has not had any direct contact with in the purchase of this "Season Pass"? AMC might be making the content, but Apple is selling it. If I buy an apple from the grocery store and get home to discover its plastic and not an actual apple, I dont ask the grocery store who they get their apples from, I go complain to the grocery store.
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It's called liability. If you have a problem with a national brand item that you got at your local store, who do you sue? You sue the store and the brand. If the store only sold you the product as-is and your problem is with the product, the store most of the time will petition to be dismissed from the suit. If you can prove the store altered or tampered with said product, you can keep them in the suit.
In this case, Apple is a store for AMC. They don't control pricing. They don't control what constit
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Better Call Saul! (Score:5, Funny)
Xbox Video did this too with Dr. Who (Score:2)
Won't get far (Score:2)
I doubt any plaintiff could have any sort of standing without having already signed several mandatory arbitration clauses.
Define Season (Score:2)
You know which site did not do that? (Score:2)
primewire.ag and bunch of other sites.
I felt cheated as well, but (Score:3)
I felt cheated as well, when I found out I needed another Season Pass. But this feeling passed quickly when I noticed that Season 5 was significantly cheaper than previous seasons. The per-episode price didn't really change.
Re:First World Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you can be taken for an extra $20 in third world countries as well. Swindlers exist everywhere.
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I seriously doubt this was apple!s decision. Wrong party to sue.
Re:First World Problems (Score:5, Informative)
*I seriously doubt this was apple!s decision. Wrong party to sue.*
well apple sure was the party that sold the season pass... even if apple wasn't the party to decide that the final season is actually two seasons.
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do you not remember who controls the itunes store?
Re:First World Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
There's probably already a rule for this, but I'm going to go ahead and state that as a general rule, any one line objections raised about a story within the first 15 minutes of the story going up on slashdot are probably not really that insightful. If you think you've found a gaping hole in a legal strategy, maybe consider that the strategy is more complex than the headline suggests. If it's a story about a scientific study, and you don't bother reading the actual published paper, maybe don't bother spouting a one line rejection of it.
Perhaps it takes some slashdotters less than 15 minutes to read a scientific paper, digest it, and crystalize a major problem to one line, maybe there are slashdot lawyers out there who pull up the documents online and read through a court case and then explain in one single sentence the glaring flaw. But I doubt it has ever actually worked like that.
Re:First World Problems (Score:4, Informative)
I seriously doubt this was apple!s decision. Wrong party to sue.
Very basic principle of consumer law: sale is a contract between retailer and customer. If I buy a phone and the box is missing a vital component (perhaps even the handset), it's the retailer's responsibility to supply me with the missing goods -- he can't just fob me off with "that's what the manufacturer sent us".
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You could at least wait until tomorrow, my friend/troll. And by the end of the month you'll be sick of hearing about the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.
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He bagged CatWoman?
Spoiler alert!
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