Video shows Jobs defending Apple’s tight grip on iTunes

Dec 6, 2014 18:35 GMT  ·  By

Despite reportedly lacking a plaintiff, the antitrust case that Apple is currently embroiled in has apparently moved past some roadblocks and is able to continue. In a courtroom in Oakland, California, a video deposition of Steve Jobs was played in front of the jury as a key piece of evidence in the class action.

The decade-long class action lawsuit that only went to trial this week has the plaintiffs accusing Apple of forcefully affecting users’ music libraries through firmware updates meant to block music that rivaled iTunes.

Speaking from the grave

The video deposition shown in court on Friday dates back to 2011, about six months before the Apple CEO passed away at the hand of a relentless pancreatic cancer.

In the video, witnessed by a CNet reporter, Jobs defends Apple stating that the Cupertino company had no choice but to prevent competing music from ending up on iPods, as the music labels could pull their contracts with Apple.

“We had pretty much black and white contracts with the labels [...] they could cease giving us music at any time,” Jobs said in the deposition. “We were very concerned with somebody like Real [Networks] promising customers that they would have compatibility, when in the future they might not. That's not something we could guarantee.”

“So we could get sued by all these people. [...] There are lots of hackers trying to hack into these things so that they can do things that would put us in noncompliance with the contracts we have with the music companies. We were very scared of that,” Jobs said.

Apple’s stance remains unchanged

iTunes chief Eddy Cue and security director Augustin Farrugia also testified in the antitrust case this week. Both stated pretty much the same thing as Jobs: that Apple was forced to view Real Networks as hackers of the iPod and iTunes.

Emails exchanged back and forth between key Apple executives in the period cited by the class action (2006-2009) were also used as evidence in the trial. In one of the emails, Jobs reportedly drafted a press release to call on Real Networks’ practices and accuse them of breaching Apple’s iPod.

At one point, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers said the case had no plaintiffs because it had been discovered that the iPods owned by the suers dated outside the time frame of the court filings. Judge Gonzales ordered the lawyers for both sides to resolve the matter immediately, as the case could not bear delays without severe consequences. Apparently, the prosecuting side found new evidence to jumpstart the case once again.

Steve Jobs (4 Images)

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