Solicitors in - Volume Case

Apple off the hook over iPod volumes

Apple won a legal victory today when a US appeals court ruled that the American technology group was not to blame if iPod owners damage their hearing by playing their music too loudly.

The judge upheld a 2008 ruling that the iPod was not directly responsible for hearing loss despite users being able to crank up the volume to a potentially dangerous level of 115 decibels.

He said that the two claimants in the case had not proved that hearing loss was "actual or imminent" when using an iPod and had not alleged that the music player had failed to do anything that it had been designed to do.

The complaint was initially filed by the aptly named Joseph Birdsong in Louisiana before another complainant, Bruce Waggoner, also joined the suit.

The pair had argued that the iPod's earphones were designed to be placed in the ear canal rather than over the ears, increasing the prospects of hearing loss, and that the popular music device lacked any noise isolating or cancelling properties.

However, the judge presiding over the appeal in Northern California ruled that all the plaintiffs had proved was that iPod users could use the device in a risky way if they chose to, effectively placing the burden of responsibility for any hearing loss on the customer.

The ruling is yet more positive news for Apple, which has sold 220 million iPods since it launched the digital music player in 2001, and comes in advance of its expected launch of the iSlate "tablet" computer in January.

The California-based company's shares hit a record high this week on hope that a touch-screen handheld computer on which Apple has been working for several years under the supervision of its chief executive, Steve Jobs, will prove the latest technology sensation for the company.

Since its resurgence a decade ago after the launch of the iMac range of computers, Apple has gone from strength to strength after its success with the iPod and the iTunes music service and its rapid growth in the telecoms market with the launch of the iPhone.

The only blot on the landscape for Apple is an increasingly acrimonious legal spat with Nokia, the world's largest phone maker, after the Finnish company upped the ante this week by complaining to the US International Trade Commission that Apple's iPhone violates virtually all of its intellectual property rights.

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Article Reference: business.timesonline .co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6972473.ece

Photo: warwick .ac.uk/fac/sci/whri/conferences/ipod-touch.jpg