Well the lawsuit has to place so many conditions. While it is true that FairPlay files on worked on iPods, users could have transcoded their files to MP3 with some loss of fidelity. Also the plaintiffs did not disclose the fact that the iPod didn't play PlaysForSure files either (and some players didn't).

If millions are affected how would you suppose that the millions get their day in court? Each of them filling millions of lawsuits in thousands of jurisdictions overloading the legal system? Well, thankfully in the current system, a handful of representatives are used to represent the entire class. By the way class action require at least one individual not exactly one individual.

Considering the suit started 10 years ago, I think if you cannot keep accurate documentation after you file a suit, the trial is the least of your concerns. The court should overlook this?

Not sure what you are trying to say but the plaintiffs must establish that there was at least person suffered damages. The discovery is about both the individual and the millions.

In any lawsuit that is dependent on the host of factors including the skill of the plaintiffs. In this case, it's not starting well.

Ok . . . so "remedies" mean nothing to you then?

Again that depends on the skill of the plaintiff's lawyers. Considering some class action suits are more about the lawyers getting rich than the plaintiffs getting relief, this does happen but in this case I highly doubt that the lawyers are being altruistic.

Which is why the judge did not dismiss the suit but disqualified the plaintiff. The was the OP's complaint: that the plaintiff should not have been disqualified even if she didn't technically purchase an iPod. No, that is a legitimate reason to dismiss a plaintiff: she has no standing.

The rest of your post presupposes that Apple will be found liable.

You missed the whole point of a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit; at least one person has to represent the entire class. If by your logic, millions have been affected then find it shouldn't be hard to find someone. In this case the lawyers simply didn't do their homework to make sure their plaintiffs were eligible.

At this point it's actually in Apple's interest to have the case resolved in their favor rather than dismissed. If the problem was that there wasn't a plaintiff, then another suit can be brought by another firm and another plaintiff which may take another 10 years. By this point most of the money has already been spent on the lawsuit. It was the same with SCO v IBM. IBM wanted it to go to trial so that they could make an example of SCO.

If your claim as a plaintiff is that you were damaged because your iPod cost more than it should have, you need to prove that you actually paid for the iPod. Again, that's the plaintiff's claim not Apple's claim.

They were slightly less expensive if I recall. Back then the tradeoff was convenience or cost. With Apple's ecosystem things were seamless and worked with minimal effort but was more expensive. Other competing ecosystems were not as user friendly but they were cheaper. Since Amazon used MP3 their music system actually fit in best with using an iPod compared to others. All iTunes needed to know was which directory you kept your Amazon music and it would sync to it.

Yes they'll delete files. At the heart of the problem was that RealPlayer took advantage of a bug that allowed their files to mimic FairPlay. If RealPlayer can do it, others can. So if they close the bug, they need to remove the files as Apple cannot be sure of the origin. Also if the files are useless, they are taking up space. However if you used the iPod as a storage device, it accepted the files but not a music file to be played.

If you read the summary, the plaintiff's claim that the damage done was that consumers had to pay more for iPods due to the DRM during a certain time period. Therefore it is important that the plaintiff must have purchased said iPod during the time period.

And the case for Office is actually somewhat reasonable: some companies need variable number of licenses every year. They may not want to pay for X number licenses if the next year they need X - 50 or X +100 depending on hiring/firing, etc.

I think this was the reason for the seemingly illogical reason to force Metro onto desktop users. It was to force consumers to accept their mobile UI because they were not going to simply purchase it on their own. Sales figures can attest to that.