Apple (Photo : Reuters)
Apple Inc. won on Tuesday its iPod and iTunes antitrust trial as the jury handling the case found the firm not guilty of anticompetitive tactics. The case, which is nearly a decade old, accuses Apple for allegedly blocking off third-party songs from playing in its iPod devices.
The case's deliberation, which started two weeks after its trial, was handled by a jury of eight persons, who gave the verdict after less than four hours.
According to a report from CNET, the jury decided whether the iTunes 7.0 update delivered "genuine product improvements." The update installed video playability feature in the iPod devices and other features such as album art.
However, the update in question was also bundled with a security feature, which rendered iPod devices useless once it detected songs from competitor's music stores using FairPlay DRM from Apple. The Cupertino-based firm's DRM technology decided whether a music file would be played depending upon the firm's deal with music artists and record labels. Once the iPod was disabled, it needed to be restored using the iTunes software, which will delete the third-party songs.
An Apple lawyer argued that the plaintiffs' accusations were "all made up."
Rod Schultz, a former engineer for Apple, was called to testify in the case, where he revealed details about the FairPlay DRM.
U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that if an update can genuinely improve a product, the update will not be considered to be anticompetitive in nature, even if it does block off competing products, according to the Sherman Antitrust Act.
"A company has no general legal duty to assist its competitors, including by making products interoperable, licensing to competitors or sharing information to competitors," said Judge Rogers on a Monday.
Since Judge Rogers found that the iTunes updates did genuinely improve the iPod, the question was shifted to whether Apple deceived its customers about the updates.
Plaintiffs' attorney Patrick Coughlin said that they will be appealing the jury's decision.
Apple said that they update their products to improve user experience and to make them "even better."
