> I hope this puts a permanent stop to all the thread on HN arguing one way or another whether Apple is a monopoly.
Why would it? The court basically dodged the question, so we still don't have an answer provided by the court system. Until that happens, we can discuss it to death if we want!
Edit: excerpt from the ruling is:
"Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. (...) The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist."
Hmm. I'm reading "the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws" as "we cannot decide on this matter". Is this not the right interpretation?
That is not the right interpretation. They didn’t say they cannot conclude one way or the other - they said they cannot conclude that Apple is a monopolist, period - meaning that they have concluded Apple is not a monopolist (under current state and federal laws).
They did not say “we cannot ultimately conclude whether Apple is a monopolist” which would be your interpretation.
[edit] Given the downvotes (really?) I suppose I should add the nuance that all of this is based on this specific case and evidence presented; the case did not conclude that Apple can never be a monopoly (in another case, with other evidence) but that in this case, it isn’t.
They literally did, at the bottom of page 1 of the ruling
> Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. [snip explanation] The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal
monopolist.
Bialpio has a reasonable interpretation for court-speak. The fuller relevant quote is this:
"Having defined the relevant market as digital global gaming transactions, the Court next evaluated Apple's conduct in that market. Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. While the Court finds that Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinarily high profit margins, these factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal. The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market. The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist."
Borski's interpretation is right under the "innocent until proven guilty" burden-of-proof in criminal cases. Bialpo's interpretation is correct in that this Court has not made, as a finding of fact, that Apple is not a monopoly, only that the evidence brought by Epic to this trial does not prove Apple is a monopoly (i.e. another case on this topic may be brought if more compelling evidence is available).
The judge found that Apple is not a monopoly _in the market for payment processors for mobile games_, not that Apple is categorically not a monopoly.
> “The relevant market here is digital mobile gaming transactions, not gaming generally and not Apple’s own internal operating systems related to the App Store,” Gonzalez-Rogers wrote.
> Under that market definition, “the court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws,” she continued.
My main point of surprise is that anti-trust was even relevant in a lawsuit between two private parties. I thought this would only be relevant if the state were trying an anti-trust case.
Why twist the words straight from the ruling ? If they “concluded Apple is not a monopolist” they would have said so. They deliberately choose a different turn of phrase for these words, let’s respect the nuance they cared to put there.
The judge issued a injunction based on another law that didn't require Apple be a monopoly, found that the record did not prove that Apple was a monopoly (and thus against Epic on that theory), but took the time to clarify that Apple might be a monopoly, it just wasn't proved.
I seem to recall reporting around some Supreme Court ruling that was phrased as "there is a ruling but the question is still undecided". It may have been Google v. Oracle, where it didn't say APIs are copyrightable or not, but Google's use fell under fair use irrespective of that. So just the existence of a ruling doesn't mean there is an answer to the question that was asked.
"the Court concludes that Apple is a monopolist under federal / state antitrust laws"
"the Court concludes that Apple is not a monopolist under neither federal nor state antitrust laws"
Instead, the court went with the third, which to me means "we have not ruled on whether Apple is a monopolist or not, lawsuits welcome". Is that not the right way to look at it?
Why would it? The court basically dodged the question, so we still don't have an answer provided by the court system. Until that happens, we can discuss it to death if we want!
Edit: excerpt from the ruling is: "Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. (...) The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist."