Apple Accused of Muscling Microsoft Out of Digital Music Market
In a case one blogger at Fortune notes is “rich in irony,” a San Diego lawyer has filed an antitrust suit against Apple, claiming it is illegally maintaining a monopoly because it doesn’t support Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio format.
Stacie Somers, who has retained class action counsel, claims in a suit (sub. req.) filed Monday in San Jose, Calif., that Apple dominates the market for online video, music, and digital music players in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, according to InformationWeek.
“Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice, and to restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets,” the complaint states.
The suit alleges Apple controls 75 percent of the online video market, 83 percent of the online music market, more than 90 percent of the hard-drive based music player market, and 70 percent of the Flash-based music player market, InformationWeek reports.
Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog notes that while Apple has been hit with antitrust suits before, this is the first claim that Apple is trying to edge Microsoft out of the market.
