The fruity purveyor of broken iDreams, Steve Jobs is about to be dragged from his sick bed to face questioning in court over what lawyers claim are anti-trust antics.
Steve is off sick at the moment, but a federal judge has ordered him to submit to questioning in an antitrust case. The case is connected to the iTunes walled garden of delights and the Judge is being asked to consider if it constitutes a music downloading monopoly.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd, is overseeing the proceedings on a complaint that was taken to the courts back in 2005. Jobs’ deposition will not exceed two hours and questions must be limited to issues surrounding software changes Apple made in October 2004 that prevented music purchased from RealNetworks from working with the iPod.
IN 2004 Realnetworks announced in July 2004 that music purchased from its Harmony online store would work with the iPod. However five days afterwards Apple upgraded its iPod software by tweaking Apple’s FairPlay. This blocked RealNetworks content from working.
In 2005 when iTunes customer Thomas Slattery filed a complaint following the FairPlay update, claiming that Apple illegally limited the competition by locking iPod users into being iTunes customers as well. Charges related to Apple’s refusal to license FairPlay and Jobs' decision to use the software to link iTunes with the iPod were chucked out in 2009.
Anti-trust allegations
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