Lawyers in iPod Trial Await Jury Decision

OAKLAND, Calif. — After 10 years, a class-action antitrust lawsuit involving iPods is finally in the hands of a jury.

In a federal trial more noteworthy for legal wrangling than evidence presented in a courtroom, Apple is accused of blocking the music of competitive services from playing on Apple’s iPods. But in the course of the trial, which lasted a week and a half, both plaintiffs named in the suit dropped out after lawyers discovered they did not buy iPods in the time period in which Apple is accused of wrongdoing.

A new plaintiff was appointed Monday, and lawyers on both sides wrapped up their arguments with closing statements.

First filed in January 2005, the case, in its present form, comes down to an update to iTunes that Apple issued in September 2006: Was it an actual software improvement or an intentional roadblock for competitors?

Patrick Coughlin, one of the lawyers suing Apple, told jurors that once iPod owners downloaded the Apple software update, songs sold by competitors were gone. “Your iPod is basically a paperweight at that point,” he said.

Apple’s lawyers argued that iTunes software improved security and added features. They added that the plaintiffs’ side lacked actual people to say they were harmed.

“There’s not one piece of evidence of a single individual who lost a single song, not even a complaint about it,” said William Isaacson, Apple’s lead lawyer in the case. “This is all made up at this point.”

The lawsuit involves iPods sold between 2006 and 2009, which played only songs sold in the iTunes Store, or those downloaded from CDs — not music from some competing stores. Apple is accused of violating antitrust law because to keep their music, people had to buy iPods rather than cheaper, alternative music players.

Apple could pay more than $350 million in damages.

In a 2005 email shown in the trial, Steven P. Jobs, who died in 2011, reacted to a web article about a tech start-up that had devised technologies for music companies to sell music playable on iPods without going through Apple.

Mr. Jobs, then Apple’s chief executive, wrote in November 2005 to Jeffrey L. Robbin, the head of Apple’s iTunes software, “Jeff, we may need to change things here. …” The lawyers showed subsequent electronic conversations suggesting that Mr. Robbin acted on Mr. Jobs’s request within days to develop a stronger security system to prevent unauthorized third parties from injecting content into iPods.

Apple’s lawyer, Mr. Isaacson, said there was no evidence to suggest that the software update was not a product improvement. The iTunes software in question, version 7.0, added the capability to play movies, as well as stronger security to protect content from hackers, he said.

“We now have a plaintiff in a case that is asking to hold Apple liable” for providing security, Mr. Isaacson said. “That is not the instruction.”

Apple executives testified that hackers were constantly trying to hack iTunes, so Apple was continually improving the security of the software. Mr. Jobs said in videotaped testimony that the hacks could have subjected Apple to violations of its agreements with record labels, which could result in their withholding music from iTunes.

Apple’s lawyers successfully argued that the two plaintiffs representing the class action did not buy the iPods in the relevant time period. Both were removed from the case.

On Monday morning, hours before lawyers on both sides were to give closing remarks, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appointed a new plaintiff: Barbara Bennett, a Massachusetts resident with an iPod Nano bought in 2006. She was not given time to testify.

Over the weekend, in court filings, the lawyers suing Apple added another accusation: that Apple and Amazon had colluded to make their products successful, while blocking their competitors.

“Apparently Apple and Amazon had worked out an agreement and Amazon put Apple front and center in Amazon’s new service,” the plaintiff lawyers wrote in their filing.

Notably, in a separate antitrust case, a federal judge found Apple liable last year for colluding with book publishers to help them fight Amazon and its uniform pricing of $9.99 for new e-books.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers called the collusion assertion a “Hail Mary, last-ditch effort.”

“I find it offensive, frankly,” she said. She forbade the lawyers from presenting the idea of Apple and Amazon being in collusion to the jury.

The eight-member jury is expected to deliver a verdict in the coming days.