The suit has been filed by Thomas Slattery in the US District Court in San Jose, and says that Apple has "unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition".
The iTunes store was launched in 2003, two years after the first iPods appeared. Slattery's argument is that, unlike other online music stores, iTunes are sold in a format that is only compatible with iPod and not any other portable music player.
Reports say that his case will rely on convincing a court that iTunes has created a separate market to the rest of the online music industry, such as Napster.
Separately, Apple faces investigation in Europe after a complaint about the pricing of iTunes in the UK, which costs more than for users in Germany and France. The case has been passed by the Office of Fair Trading in the UK to the European Commission.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
