A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple's iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it.

Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.

The iPod players are "inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss," according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. Patterson's suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

"He's bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market," Berman said. "He's paying for a product that's defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it."

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News source: Yahoo! News

i hate when people sue companies for things that should be common sense.

things that are loud to the ear may cause hearing loss. no crap. i remember my mom telling me that when i was 5.

With the rate of these things lately, he'll win. But personally, I think he should be commited and studied to find out why he thinks it's necesary to create a law suit against a comon sense rule. If' you think it's loud....guess what....it's LOUD!

I was expecting this. kinda like suing over coffee that's 'too hot'.

We should sue Creative, Sony, Motorola, Nokia, lets see....who else makes audio products?

this is stupid...I'm not a huge fan of Apple (although I do like their products), but I really do hope they don't lose to this idiot.

Because of this idiot you might get European situations also in the USA. When i bought my creative muvo2 it featured cool european firmware which limited the maximum sound output to 68%! When i was traveling by train it was really to damn low. Luckily the problem of that could be easily fixed by flashing it with usa firmware. Suddenly it could reach 100% without a problem. Unfortenately there are becoming more and more musicplayers which are limited. My new homestereo for example, very low on the headphones compared to my older one.

i remember my old sony cd player had an OPTION to limit the level of the sound. flip a switch, and the sound was immediately quieter, even with the volume at max. flip the switch off, and it was deafening. it seems like this would be a better option, rather than completely limiting the sound level through firmware. wouldn't it cover all bases by adding a feature like this? apple/mp3 makers couldn't get in trouble because they'd have a function on their player with a description and warning in the manual.

this is stupid. the ipod is designed to be able to drive larger or less sensitive earphones than the peices of shit they supply. of course it'll go too loud with the included buds - BECAUSE IT CAN COMFORTABLY DRIVE A PAIR OF GRADOS. just because the volume CAN be at max doesn't meant you should be RUNNING it at max - it all depends on the kind of speaker hooked up to it - just like you can blow a pair of speakers hooked up to an amp if you turn the volume too high.

advice regarding hearing to everyone: don't ever have the sound loud enough to drown out loud things - you're doing things the wrong way around. invest in a good pair of sound isolating earphones (not sound cancelling - they're different things) and continue to listen at volume levels that won't destroy your ears.

good advice Fod.

oddly enough, after looking through my ipod mini manual, i don't see anything about keeping the volume at safe levels. even though it's common sense, you'd think that in nowadays, with all the tort cases arising, a company would be sure to include safety warnings on their products (e.g. mcdonalds coffee cups say hot). but that's just me.

my ipod came plastered with warning labels on the ipod, and on the box.... in many languages!

We should also apparently put warnings saying "Do not ingest iPod", because otherwise someone could try, choke, and sue.

Yeah, and it can produce 200 decibels, all depends on the output device and how far you are from it.

i just can't seem to find ANY warning on my ipod, the box, or in the manual.

maybe i should join the suit?

This is a picture of the license that came with my iPod. In red is the section that I think this dude shoulda read.



PS: Sorry for the huge ass pic. I forgot to turn down the MP on teh camera, and resizing it made the text unreadable.

Nice.

When I read the thread title I was like "I bet this guy is from the US". All I seem to read now is who is suing who esp. in the US. Two words: Grow up! (Aimed @ the bloke).

duh, where else is a country's legal system full of ridiculous tort cases such as this? America, FUCK YEA! roflcopter

Oh man. I just swallowed the headphones. It didn't say do not swallow on them....

$$$$$!

Well I am going to call my Lawyer and sue Panasonic for producing a car stero deck that can be cranked up to far worst damaging volume than the iPod... YAHOO! I'm RICH $$$$$

i used my iPod as a condom and I had a baby. They need to compensate me

child support

heart attack, that license is for the software, not for the product. they're different things.

my question is, how can you get injured using the software? i mean seriously, what can you do to yourself using itunes that will hurt you?

flashing colors and lights could cause an epileptic seizure

I just found it:

http://members.chello.nl/~m.heijligers/ipo...ngineering.html

Quote: Due to European regulations, Apple decided to limit the volume on the iPod.

It refers to the specification of this EN 50332-1 standard. Basically it consists of two parts. The first part demands that mobile equipment should be limited to 100dB(A) sound pressure using the accompanying headphones sold. The second part constraints the output power of the device, hence covering any combination of equipment and headphones.

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100 dB seems to be loud, but the thing is, these mp3 players don't measure dB's. They only limit the volume settings, which means if you didn't normalize the sound of your mp3, you won't be able to even reach 100 dB.

http://gopod.free-go.net/# seems to be a tool to reverse it.