• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 8, 2008

Apple is facing another antitrust lawsuit accusing it of unfairly tying its iPod portable music player to its iTunes digital entertainment store.

The lawsuit, quietly filed last week in federal court in the northern district of California, charges Apple with creating a monopoly by "placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products." The case was brought by San Diego resident Stacie Somers, who is seeking class-action status on behalf of all consumers who purchased iPods or iTunes music or videos since Dec. 31, 2003.

The complaint alleges that Apple has linked its iPod to the iTunes music store in two different ways. First, according to the complaint, the iPod is not compatible with much of the music sold at other online stores because it doesn't support tracks encoded with Windows digital rights management software, aimed at preventing piracy. "By preventing the iPod from playing WMA [Windows Media Audio] or any other protected music format besides [Apple's] FairPlay-modified AAC format, iPod owners' only option to purchase online music is to purchase from Apple's Music Store," charges the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also charges that music purchased at iTunes is inoperable on rivals' portable music players, because iTunes uses its own digital rights management software that is generally incompatible with other companies' portable players.

But it's not clear that either allegation will hold up in court. Both presume that online music comes bundled with digital rights management software that prevents people from making copies or freely transferring it to a variety of devices. But increasingly, that is no longer the case--as all four major record labels have said they will begin selling music in MP3 format, without such restrictions.

Monday, Sony BMG became the last major label to announce a plan to sell tracks and albums in MP3 format, with a new online music site set to launch Jan. 15. While Apple's iTunes still sells most major label tracks with DRM protections, last April the store also began selling songs from EMI and independent labels in MP3 format.

The putative class-action filed last week is at least the fourth antitrust action that has been brought against Apple in the United States in the last three years. The other lawsuits--which also charged Apple with unlawfully tying iPods to the iTunes store--are also pending in federal court in the northern district of California.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.