Apple's antitrust case is in its third day running, and an iTunes chief insists the company wasn't locking competitors out of the iPod.
The Apple antitrust case stems from a claim made 2005; the claim insists the company artificially increased the prices for the iPod, using iTunes software updates designed to lock competitors out.
The claim alleges Apple's competitors like RealNetworks were locked out; music from the store was incompatible with the iPod and unplayable. Apple considered the competition as hackers, according to the plaintiff.
In the Apple antitrust lawsuit, the plaintiff argued that the company broke the law by maintaining keeping content exclusive in consumers' iPods, securing its stake in the digital music market.
Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services was the first high-ranking executive to take the stand today, at an Oakland California court. Eddy Cue defended Apple's measure as means to protect third parties from reverse-engineering and exploiting flaws in the company's products.
The iTunes updates in question, 7.0 and 7.4, were legitimate upgrades to the system, not enhanced barriers to competitor products.
Plaintiff lawyer Bonny Sweeney noted Apple's timing in releasing the updates: "The timing of when you made the decision to not become interoperable was only when you had a dominant position in the market." He referred to 2004, a year after the iTunes launched; Apple then dominated the market, accounting for 70% of music sold online.
Cue countered, "No, we thought about licensing the DRM from the beginning. It was one of the things that we thought was the right move and we can expand the market and grow faster. We couldn't find a way to do that and make it work reliably."
The plaintiff in the Apple antitrust investigation is claiming $350 million in damages, which is expected to balloon to $1 billion if Apple loses.
The Apple antitrust case concludes next week, with Apple's Chief Marketing Executive Phil Schiller and even Steve Jobs (archived video deposition) expected to take the stand. More details on the Apple antitrust lawsuit in this CNET report.
