Apple CEO Ordered To Answer Up
Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs was ordered to answer questions in an antitrust lawsuit alleging the company operated a music-downloading monopoly.
Lawyers for consumers who filed the 2005 complaint won permission to conduct limited questioning of Jobs, under an order issued this week by US Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd in San Jose, California. The deposition can’t exceed two hours and the only topic allowed is changes Apple made to its software in October 2004 that rendered digital music files engineered by RealNetworks inoperable with Apple’s iPod music player.
“The court finds that Jobs has unique, non-repetitive, firsthand knowledge about the issues at the centre of the dispute over RealNetworks software,” Lloyd wrote.
iTunes customer Thomas Slattery sued Apple in 2005 seeking class-action status on behalf of consumers claiming the company illegally limited consumer choice by linking the iPod to its iTunes music store.
Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California- based Apple, declined to comment.
In 2008, Apple agreed to lower prices on iTunes tracks sold in the UK as a result of a European Union Competition Commission inquiry begun in 2005. Apple faced inquiries from regulators in Norway, Sweden and Denmark over complaints that songs sold on iTunes were incompatible with music players other than the iPod.