Yet more back and forth in the lively - and increasingly tetchy - legal battle between Apple and music app Musi. After kicking Musi out of its App Store last year, earlier this month Apple called for Musi to be sanctioned by the court due to its behaviour in the ongoing legal dispute between the two companies. Musi has now responded, and insists that, actually, it’s Apple that should be sanctioned… mainly for trying to get Musi sanctioned.
Back at the start of the month Apple claimed that an amended lawsuit filed by Musi in this dispute included already disproven allegations and misrepresented past conversations between the two companies. Musi and its lawyers should be sanctioned for that, Apple argued via what is known as a ‘rule eleven motion’, on the basis their conduct violated rule eleven of the US Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure.
However, according to a new court filing from Musi, rule eleven motions are “often used as a tactic of intimidation and harassment” by lawyers employing “hardball litigation techniques”. And that’s what has happened here. Apple’s motion, Musi claims, joins a “shameful lineage” of court filings where big companies employ legal technicalities in a bid to intimidate the other side.
“Apple fails to show that Musi or its counsel should be sanctioned”, Musi argues in its new filing. Which means Apple’s rule eleven motion should be rejected plus, because the tech giant’s motion is “baseless, relying on mischaracterisations of Musi’s allegations and the evidence”, Musi should also “be awarded costs and attorneys’ fees incurred in responding”.
Musi sued Apple in a bid to get its app restored to the App Store. The app sources its music from YouTube, rather than by entering into deals with the music industry, a controversial approach that probably breaches YouTube’s terms of service, and likely infringes the music industry’s copyrights.
As a result, there have been plenty of calls over the years from record labels and music publishers, and their trade bodies, for Apple to kick Musi out of its App Store. However, it was ultimately a complaint from YouTube itself that led to Apple removing the Musi app.
Or was it? Musi claims that, although YouTube had filed a complaint with Apple about its app in 2023, the Google company failed to follow up on that, prompting Apple to classify the complaint as ‘resolved’. But then Apple actively encouraged YouTube to reopen the complaint in 2024, basically because it was looking for an excuse to kick Musi out of the App Store, mainly to keep Sony Music happy.
Summarising this allegation in its new legal filing, Musi writes, “There is evidence that Apple reached out to YouTube precisely because of a request from Jeff Walker, an executive at Sony Music, directly to Elizabeth Miles, Apple’s Senior Legal Director, to ‘help us identify a path forward in our efforts to have the Musi app removed from the Apple App Store’”.
Apple argues that documents already shared during discovery in this case disprove the allegation that it was trying to “cook up a scheme” with YouTube to remove Musi.
For starters, it didn’t need any such scheme, because - according to the terms of its app developer agreements - Apple didn’t need a reason to remove Musi from the App Store. And anyway, multiple complaints had been filed by the music industry as well as YouTube, which together were grounds for removal. And, it says, Musi failed to mention these things in its amended lawsuit.
However, in its response, Musi insists its allegation regarding Apple pushing YouTube to re-open an old complaint is “directly supported by documents and the sworn testimony of Apple’s own employees”, primarily Arun Singh, Apple’s Senior Manager Of Worldwide Developer Relations.
And, it notes, all that is required for Musi and its lawyers to avoid a rule eleven sanction is “some credible evidence” - which can include “circumstantial evidence” - to back up their claims.
And so the back and forth continues, with Apple wanting Musi to be sanctioned, and Musi wanting Apple to be sanctioned for wanting Musi to be sanctioned.