“A former iTunes engineer testified in a federal antitrust case against Apple Friday that he worked on a project ‘intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients’ and ‘keep out third-party players’ that competed with Apple’s iPod,” Jeff Elder reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Plaintiffs subpoenaed the engineer, Rod Schultz, to show that Apple tried to suppress rivals to iTunes and iPods,” Keizer reports. “Schultz testified in an untucked dress shirt and leather jacket, saying he was an unwilling witness… The plaintiffs sought to submit a 2012 academic paper Schultz wrote citing ‘a secret war’ Apple fought with iTunes hackers. In the paper, he wrote, ‘Apple was locking the majority of music downloads to its devices.’ Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not admit the paper as evidence in the case.”
“Outside the courtroom Schultz said the early work of his former team reflected the digital-music market’s need for copyright protections of songs,” Keizer reports. “Apple argues – and Schultz agreed in court Friday – that it released many improvements to iTunes, and not isolated changes to stifle competition. Apple says the security measures that Schultz worked on were designed to protect its systems and users’ experience, which would have been compromised by other players and file formats.”
Read more in the full article here.
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