14 DAY TRIAL // Media outlets seeking to publish the Steve Jobs video deposition used as evidence in the iPod antitrust case may not get what they want, if Apple’s legal has a say in this. And apparently it does.
Neither the Associated Press nor Bloomberg nor CNN is likely to get their mitts on the two-hour video deposition showing a frail Steve Jobs six months before his death from pancreatic cancer.
“What they want is a dead man”
Despite refusing to comment on the initial request by the three media outlets to have the video released as news, Apple is now fighting yesterday’s motion jointly filed by the trio to obtain the footage.
Representing Apple, Jonathan Sherman, a partner at law firm Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, suggests that the media outlets are selfish and opportunistic in seeking to obtain the footage, something we noted ourselves in a report on December 9.
“The marginal value of seeing him again, in his black turtleneck — this time very sick — is small,” Sherman says, according to The Verge. “What they want is a dead man, and they want to show him to the rest of the world, because it's a judicial record.”
The public may have a different opinion
On the other hand, if you ask the public, there’s tremendous value in seeing a moving and talking Steve Jobs again. Every Apple fan out there would give an arm and a leg to see new footage of the charismatic visionary genius.
Tom Burke, of law firm David Wright Tremaine, representing the media outlets, thinks the same: “We're not asking for anything other than what the jury heard,” Burke notes. “Steve Jobs is not your typical trial witness, and that's what makes this a unique circumstance.”
US district court judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the antitrust case, says she is concerned about the video being released to the public, calling the request “diametrically opposed from the rule that says I cannot allow the recording of these proceedings.”
Nevertheless, Judge Rogers notes that she’ll consider allowing the media to publish the video if the attorney representing them comes forth with solid arguments that it’s a good idea. The lawyer has by the end of the week to produce those arguments.
The class action has seen a few roadblocks since inception, including one awkward moment where the suit appeared to be lacking plaintiffs, at which point Apple filed for a motion to dismiss the case. However, the lawyers representing the 8 million customers in the class action were ultimately able to produce new iPod owners to represent the accusing side.
