Music streaming app Musi says that its future on every single Apple device in the world was decided, in secret, “through backroom conversations” involving “Apple, YouTube and several music industry conglomerates”.
Because, Musi adds, while Apple positions itself as a “neutral party” when exercising the “unprecedented control” it enjoys over the Apple App Store, in fact it uses that control to favour the interests of certain companies over others.
This is according to Musi’s latest court filing in its legal battle with Apple, which began when the app was kicked out of Apple’s App Store in September. That was as a result of the secret deals between Apple and the music industry, says Musi, and means that the company’s growth has been halted - going from an average of 886,148 new users a month to zero
Musi now wants the courts to grant a preliminary injunction against Apple ordering it to immediately reinstate its app while the legal dispute is decided, during which process Musi hopes to show judges why its app should be permanently reinstated.
Musi went legal in October in a bid to get its app back into Apple’s store. Apple then responded insisting that it’s allowed to remove apps - including the Musi app - “at any time, with or without cause”, but that it only did so in this case following “numerous, credible complaints” that Musi was infringing copyright.
Musi operates by pulling in music from YouTube rather than having its own licensing deals in place for music, something that record labels and music publishers argue both infringes copyright and breaches YouTube’s terms, a position confirmed by YouTube itself.
Apple’s court filing last month ran through its correspondence with YouTube, record industry trade group IFPI and the US National Music Publishers Association, outlining the concerns that were raised by those organisations that justified its removal of Musi from the App Store.
Because Musi wasn’t party to many of those conversations, it claims that this is proof that Apple’s is not neutral when there are disputes in relation to apps, contrary to its claims otherwise, adding that Apple sided with the music industry without providing Musi an opportunity to properly respond to the allegations being made against it.
Apple also “consistently” told Musi that “it could not and would not arbitrate disputes”, and that Musi must work directly with any third party that raised concerns about its app. Which, says Musi, it did, whenever it was made aware of those concerns.
However, it claims, in the run up to Apple’s decision to evict the Musi app from the App Store it wasn't given the opportunity to work through the issues that had been raised, because, Apple “engaged in direct discussions” with YouTube “outside the app dispute process” and without involving or alerting Musi, something that was revealed in Apple’s recent court filings.
After those secret discussions, YouTube submitted a formal five word complaint about Musi to Apple. On the basis that Apple had said that it would not act as an arbiter in disputes, Musi then contacted YouTube to discuss its complaint.
However, “YouTube - as Apple well knew - refused to respond”, something that Musi alleges was because the two companies had already decided between themselves that Musi’s app would be removed from the App Store.
“Apple did not act in a neutral role”, and “did not follow the process it set up for itself in resolving app disputes”, says Musi, and in fact “acted as an arbiter” without “even informing Musi of this fact or providing it with an opportunity to respond”.
It’s based on these arguments that Musi wants the court to issue a preliminary injunction in its favour in the short term and to get its app permanently reinstated on the App Store in the longer term.