[ad_1]
If you love court drama with twists and turns, make sure your calendar is marked for May 3, 2021. Is that when we expect a new TV series to air? Not quite. On that date, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California will begin a court trial to Epic Games v Apple, Inc. A bench trial is one without a jury and is decided by the presiding judge. The trial will be brought forward from July to avoid scheduling conflicts with jury trials. The test begins at 8:30 am PT (11:30 am ET).
The Epic Games trial through Apple will begin on May 3 unless some sort of agreement is reached.
>
In August, those who downloaded Fortnite from the App Store had the option to pay for in-app purchases through Epic’s own internal payment system at a 20% discount. This violated Apple’s regulations that require all in-app purchases for App Store apps to be routed through Apple’s own payment platform for in-app purchases. The firm takes a 30% cut from these transactions. As punishment, Apple removed the popular game from the App Store and also closed Epic’s iOS and macOS developer accounts.
Epic has consistently raised the idea that Apple is acting as a monopoly by forcing developers to use its in-app payment system. The developer continues to raise this in hopes that the judge will call Apple anti-competitive when it comes to app distribution (iOS users cannot access third-party app stores) and in-app payment processing.
So far, Epic has been criticized by Judge González Rogers for knowing exactly what Apple would do if the game’s developer did not comply with the agreement that both parties signed. Therefore, the judge says that Epic itself created the problems it faces (including removing Fortnite from the App Store). Additionally, Apple has said that it would allow Fortnite to return to the App Store if Epic closes its in-app payment port. Epic has said that without the court issuing a preliminary injunction against Apple preventing it from removing Fortnite from the App Store, the developer will suffer irreparable harm. To reiterate, the judge and Apple have pointed out that the game’s developer brought all of this alone. As Judge Rogers told Epic attorney Katherine Forrest, “In my opinion, you cannot suffer irreparable harm when you create the harm yourself.”
Apple originally said it preferred the case be decided by a jury, but accepted a bench judgment to speed up the process. On the other hand, the judge originally wanted a jury trial because of the case that, according to her, “is important enough to understand what real people think.” We know what Apple thinks, and that is that Epic’s entire strategy is to create advertising for Fortnite to compensate for the drop in game sales.
Meanwhile, Epic succeeded in getting the court to issue a temporary restraining order preventing Apple from removing Epic’s Unreal Engine game engine from its platform. Developers use the game engine to help them create 3D graphics for a game. The judge has already called Apple’s attack on the Unreal Engine “an overreach.”
