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Title: Musi Says Evidence Shows Apple Conspired With Music Industry On App
Store Ban

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/27/21122...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For millions of music
fans, the most controversial app ban of the past year was not the brief
TikTok outage but the ongoing delisting of Musi from Apple's App Store. Those
users are holding out hope that Musi can defeat Apple in court and soon be
reinstated. However, rather than coming to any sort of resolution, that court
fight has intensified over the past month, with both sides now seeking
sanctions, TorrentFreak reported. [...] For Musi, the App Store removal came
as an existential threat, prompting a lawsuit after Musi's attempts to work
out the dispute with Apple outside of court failed. The music-streaming app
has alleged that the Apple ban did not come at YouTube's request but at the
request of Apple's apparent music industry friends who allegedly asked Apple
to find a way to get the app removed -- prompting Apple to push YouTube to re-
open a supposedly resolved complaint. In a court filing, Apple claimed that
this "conspiracy theory," as well as other "baseless" claims, were "false and
misleading allegations" warranting sanctions. "Discovery thoroughly disproved
Musi's baseless conspiracy theory that Apple schemed to eliminate the Musi
app from the App Store to benefit 'friends' in the music industry," Apple
argued. But Musi fired back over the weekend, calling (PDF) Apple's motion
for sanctions "frivolous" and demanding sanctions be ordered instead against
Apple for allegedly abusing the sanctions rule as a "tactic of intimidation
and harassment." Musi noted that Apple's requested sanctions against Musi
"are not appropriate if there is even 'some credible evidence,'" then
included internal emails and references to testimony from Apple's own
employees that seemingly met this low bar. Most likely, this part of the
dispute will not be settled until July 30, when a hearing is scheduled on the
motions for sanctions. Apple is seemingly hoping that the court will agree
that Musi's complaint misrepresents the facts and is so misleading that the
complaint must be struck entirely, perhaps cutting out the heart of Musi's
argument. However, Musi pointed out that Apple previously sought sanctions
and withdrew that fight, allegedly recognizing that its bid for sanctions was
"baseless." To convince the court that this second bid is "equally
frivolous," Musi shared receipts, attaching internal communications from
Apple employees that Apple allegedly worked hard to keep out of the
courtroom.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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