Apple concludes arguments in iTunes case

Though all the evidence in the $350-million court case against Apple was now in in to trial, there was still no one yet to represent some 8 million buyers of older iPods, which played only songs sold in the iTunes Store, or those downloaded from CDs, but not music from competing stores, within the class-action period. (See: Amid lawsuits, Steve Jobs may yet prove to be worm in Apple).

That important detail was still being worked on ahead of next week, when the trial is set to come to a close and a jury of eight started deliberations.

Though a plaintiff was not available, Apple presented evidence defending itself from the claims that it harmed consumers at the time it created the DRM system for iTunes and the iPod.

Apples' lawyers on Friday said they still needed another day to file last-minute paperwork over "some last pieces of information" about a potential plaintiff who had spent the past few days being vetted so as to replace two other plaintiffs who were removed earlier in the trial.

According to the evidence that emerged last week, they either did not buy the correct devices or bought them outside the time period of the complaint, leaving lawyers scrambling to find a replacement.

According to commentators, the complaint largely hinged on what exactly was the reason for Apple hardening its digital rights management software in iTunes and iPods nearly a decade ago.

According to the suit, which was filed back in 2005, two updates Apple made to its iTunes and iPod software served to keep other manufacturers from connecting their devices to the jukebox software.

The software also kept users from playing music from other stores on their iPods. It further claimed Apple used that system to systematically raise the prices of iPods during that time, earning higher profits in the process.

Meanwhile, endgadget.com reported that recent developments had not made the federal anti-trust case any more favourable for Apple.

Former iTunes engineer Rod Schultz testified yesterday that he'd worked on a project to block "100 per cent of non-iTunes clients", apart from keeping any third-party software from interfering with iTunes, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the plaintiffs, this was part of an anti-competitive way to boost the prices of iPods from 2006 to 2009.

However, the plaintiffs, failed to submit a 2012 academic paper, that Schultz had written detailing Apple's blocking operating systems that did not support iTunes (namely Linux) as evidence.
 
According to report, outside the courtroom, Schultz said his team's early work was necessary for digital copyright protection, though, it  ended up paving the way for the iPod's "market dominance."

This is the the third major anti-trust lawsuit Apple has faced since Jobs died.