Nik Rawlinson
Common sense prevails as US court rules against claims of hearing loss.
The law is an ass, said Dickens. Or, more accurately, ‘a ass’, as Mr Bumble spoke it. To that, I would add ‘sometimes’. Most often it’s actually pretty spot on. No doubt you could name me half a dozen miscarriages of justice – or more – without reference to any third source, but that’s because we remember such things. What we don’t remember are the judgements that are fair, just and accurate, unless the alleged crime is committed on so spectacular a level that the judgement becomes a footnote to the evil that earned it.
So, let me draw your attention to a ruling that disproves the ass rule: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and its judgement on Apple’s liability for hearing loss. Specifically potential hearing loss, for the plaintiffs, Birdsong and Waggoner, didn’t claim to have had their hearing impaired or to know anyone who had. Yet, according to Reuters, they ‘sought financial damages and an order requiring Apple to improve safety and disclosures, provide better headphones and test iPod users for hearing loss’.
I’m with them on the issue of better headphones, but until Apple finds itself up against someone who can prove hearing loss as a direct result of using an iPod and its supplied earbuds, which could not have been caused by any other personal audio player, then compensation should not even be discussed.
How is the iPod different to the Zune, the Zen or Sony’s trailblazing cassette-based Walkman, other than in its cultural impact? It isn’t. It’s still designed, at its most basic level, to play music at varying levels of volume through earphones (in this case, specifically in-ear earphones). End of story. Anything else – playing video, taking photos, sending emails and so on – is mere decoration.
So why not bring the whole industry before the bench: Creative, Microsoft, Sony and co standing next to Apple? They all make media players. My guess: the chances of a successful ruling against them all would have been slimmer, even, than a ruling against Apple alone. For that reason, the claim never really had a chance.
Finding against Apple would, by association, apply to any company producing any device that makes use of in-ear headphones without accurate level meters. That includes your Mac, a Windows laptop, your hifi, your mobile’s hands-free kit, your TV… the list goes on. And on, and on.
The onus is on us – consumers – to protect ourselves, not on Apple to make a volume-limited iPod, or the EU to pass laws that require lower default volumes. Who doesn’t, by now, know that extended exposure to high volumes can – and likely will – lead to hearing damage? Nobody.
So if the law is indeed any kind of an ass, in this case it’s a smart ass.
