Court orders Steve Jobs to answer questions in iTunes antitrust case

By on Mar 22, 2011 at 11:59 AM
Services March 22, 2011

A federal judge has ordered Apple CEO Steve Jobs to court where he will have to answer questions pertaining to an antitrust case. Filed in 2005, the antitrust suit alleges that Apple’s iTunes service had a monopoly on the digital music downloading market. According to a Bloomberg report, the deposition of Jobs will be no longer than two hours and questions must relate only to changes Apple made to its software in 2004 that prevented RealNetworks’ music files from being played on Apple’s iPod line of devices. “The court finds that Jobs has unique, non-repetitive, firsthand knowledge about the issues at the center of the dispute over RealNetworks software,” the judge wrote in the order. Steve Jobs is currently on medical leave from Apple for an undisclosed period of time. Unlike his last leave of absence in 2009, however, Jobs is still acting as CEO during his leave and is involved with major strategic decisions.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503037611 Brett Smith

    They better hurry up, he doesn’t have much time left.

    Booooo! Hissssss! I know.

    • Anonymous

      That really is tacky, and worth reporting.

      • http://twitter.com/transfat transfat

        That really is tacky, and worth repeating.

        Fixed.

      • Anonymous

        dude, nothing is more funny to a dying person than morbid humor.

    • serpentor

      Doh! You beat me to it!

  • Tony

    You think Apple would have learned something from the Microsoft/IE monopoly debacle.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503037611 Brett Smith

      At the time Apple could only hope to be a monopoly of anything.

    • Anonymous

      The two aren’t even remotely comparable. Microsoft’s problem was that its software was installed on products made by other companies, and prevented competitors software from running properly. On the other hand, Apple didn’t add any software to a device for which it wasn’t the designer and contracting manufacturer.

      • KCRic

        Of course, because iTunes never installed anything I didn’t know about before hand. See: bonjour

        You know, that goddamn file from iTunes for the bonjour crap for iTunes that says ‘hey!, here I am, come see all that crap on my computer, hackers!!’ There still to this day is no working method to delete that f**king file… on my computer that I own without a complete format and fresh install. See that’s Apple’s problem – what you buy still isn’t yours according to Stevie.

  • Chasepurser

    Its okay, they just need to make him the fall guy for everything right now. He is sick enough he will never see a real court date yet alone prison time. Apple is just a dirty as the others, they need to take advantage and wash their hands now while they can.

    • Anonymous

      Hope everyone in your family gets cancer

      • Bigmeanie

        thats so mean…

      • Anonymous

        about as mean as @chasepurser

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503037611 Brett Smith

      No one is going to do jail time over this. They will be fined, which will happen whether Steve is alive or not. Maybe this is what their big cash reserve is for? LOL

  • ko

    real media files were taken out of ipod because real player and its format is terrible. why is he being forced to answer questions about this?

    • IOS Developer

      The issue is that it USED to work and then all of a sudden it stopped.

      Why did it stop working? From REAL’s point of view, customers can’t purchase music from their store. This would force new customers to buy from Apple.

      I’m sure the under paid over worked engineers didn’t decide to stop supporting it so the orders must come from above. Who’s at the top? It’s Steve Jobs.

      Apple can always say that REAL Media files were causing performance issues with the iPod and they had to drop support. but then REAL would say that they never received any bugs from Apple regarding this and would have been their top priority. back and forth until a settlement.

      • Anonymous

        And why should Apple be obligated to support Real files on their platform?

      • http://twitter.com/AlexVillatoro AlexVillatoro

        And why should Microsoft be obligated to support iTunes on their platform? Why not force Zune on everyone?

    • serpentor

      Let consumers decide. If it sucks they won’t use it and Apple doesn’t have to worry about making it incompatible.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503037611 Brett Smith

      Kinda like the Iphone antenna design?

  • Anonymous

    Cue South Park-esque “I AM ABOVE THE LAW!”. :)

  • Steve

    I magical, wonderful Steve swear to tell the unbelievable truth, the whole incredible truth, and nothing but the greatest, beautful truth…..blah, blah, blah…for only $499!

    Judge, you’re looking at it wrong.

    Later,

    Steve

  • http://twitter.com/myz06vette Mike Beauchamp

    Let’s think this through –
    Company A makes a product.
    Company A makes a service to compliment the product.
    The product and service combo is wildly successful.
    Company A refuses to let Company B implement their service on Company A’s product.
    Company B cries because Company A’s wild success hurt their business.

    From Wikipedia:
    Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit.

    Why are our tax dollars being wasted??

    • Anonymous

      Because us Goofans (aka Apple Haters) love when bad things happen to Apple. It doesn’t matter if Google does it because Google is GOD. We allow that, but not if Apple does it because we hate Apple! What part of that don’t you understand.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503037611 Brett Smith

        Jobs is obviously God therefore Google can’t be God.

      • Anonymous

        Jobs, per us Goofans (aka Apple Haters) is the God of the Underworld!

      • Alcohol

        Hey Goofan – don’t know about others. But I enjoy your reverse trolling. Keep it up!

      • Anonymous

        Reverse trolling? What on earth do you mean?

  • Anonymous

    that picture needs a ‘come at me bro’ caption

    • Anonymous

      You made my brain happy.

  • Anonymous

    wait….i thought LIMEWIRE was the problem..

  • Anonymous

    Too bad this wont be televised…..Id love to see how Jobs responds when hes not in the comforts of his Apple Kingdom.

    • Anonymous

      he’d probably turn up his RDF and become the Judge for the day.

  • http://twitter.com/drbyers Donnie Byers

    I wouldn’t allow that craptacular RealNetworks software on any of my hardware either :P

    • Todd

      Except that when you buy it, it’s now your hardware. Oh, what was that Steve?? Sorry… Steve says that it’s still his hardware and you don’t get any say on what you can have, think, enjoy etc….

      • Herbeaver

        I bought a ps3 so I could play any games I want. Now I find out it doesn’t support xbox360 games, or wii games? That’s bullshit! Sony seriously needs to be sued over this outrage!

      • Derp

        Well, not wanting you watching porn on it is a bit much, but as far as file formats, I say tough! nobody says every device has to support every format.

      • Jowens1259

        If PS3 came out natively with xbox 360 and wii support then dropped it you would have a valid arguement.

  • serpentor

    I don’t think that’s a current photo of Jobs.

  • Todd

    Can they really make god… oops… I mean Steve answer anything?

  • 1T2dirtnap

    Daddy, Apple not play nice… haha

  • Anonymous

    Aaaa-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA………………………..

    He’s been de’posed. Does anyone know if he’ll be submtting a “Home” button with his deposition?
    Or, if they will be videotaping the deposition with a 0.30 Pixel Front Facing Cam’??

    Can we start a pool?? Which turtle-neck will he be sportin’??

  • Anonymous

    What will Goofans (aka Apple Haters) aka PhanDroids will do when Steve Jobs retires I wonder! We won’t have anyone else to hate? Will we get bored? Will we turn on Google? I need direction guys! Obviously we are not good at making our own decisions without the approval of the entire Goofan (aka Apple Hater) nation!

  • isheep

    This is blasphemy , nobody can touch our god!

  • Anonymous

    Whats with all the debate concerning RealNetworks? Real Player is a bloated piece of shit player crammed full of spyware that served no purpose other then to slow down PC performance. The average user noticed how crappy Real Player was and how full of spyware it was and said fuck you RealNetworks we don’t want to use your shit player and therefore don’t need to use your file format anymore. Apple thought Real Player was a piece of shit also and considering the companies market share was shrinking because it was a piece of shit company it stopped supporting the file format. It happens all the time a company puts out piece of shit products people stop using it and other companies stop supporting anything to do with it. Case in point look at Microcrap and how the industry has started to view them.

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