The court case, if lost, will cost Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) up to $350 million in fines. Plaintiffs in this case are the 8 million iPod users who blame Apple of violating the anti-trust law. According to them, Apple wrongfully deleted songs from rival music stores in order to limit users to the music available on and from the iTunes store.
Providing evidence for the case, the lawyer representing the 8 million users of the iPod, Patrick Coughlin, highlighted that users, whenever they connected their iPod to their computers, were prompted by an error message stating that their iPod needed to be reset to factory settings. When users agreed, the reset only deleted those songs from the iPod which were acquired from rival music stores and sources.
According to iPod users suing Apple over this issue, Apple deliberately erased all their music content acquired from rival music stores in order to “punish” them for deviating from the iTunes store. This goes much in line with what the late CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, said in one of his emails. Steve Jobs, while communicating with one of his advisors, highlighted the increasing shift from iTunes to rival music outlets by iPod users, and whether Apple could do anything to “put a stop to it”. Apple, however, has denied all such allegations and has presented witnesses in court to defend the case.
According to the testimony given in court by Security Director of Apple Inc., Augustin Farrugia, Apple did delete music content acquired from rival stores, but only from a security point of view. Farrugia highlighted that there was a security threat at the time such measures were taken, as it was feared that rivals were trying to hack into the iTunes store by connecting to it through the iPod. This testimony goes perfectly in line with one of Steve Jobs’ emails pertaining to the same period of time.
In his email, Jobs highlights how he fears that third parties are planning on “breaking into our house”, by house meaning Apple Inc. The fear of hacking did not originate out of thin air. According to Farrugia, DVD Jon (first hacker of the iPhone software) and the likes were responsible for the increase in paranoia Apple experienced as a company. If found guilty, Apple can end up losing $350 million minimum, with a possible fine of over $1 billion considering the number of plaintiffs that are suing it.
Farrugia has already come forward to openly defend the company and Marketing Head of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Phil Schiller as well as Cue are scheduled to testify by the end of this week. Some of Steve Jobs dispositions of a videotaped nature will also formulate the overall defense Apple will be presenting before the jury, which will conclude the case by the end of this month.