'Not Guilty', Apple Wins Decade-Old Antitrust Lawsuit

A California jury did not find Apple guilty over a decade-old antitrust lawsuit that accused the company of using a software update to secure a monopoly over the digital music market.

The suit had alleged that Apple deleted music downloaded from competing services off of users' iPods without users' consent between 2006 and 2009.

The jury delivered an unanimous verdict in which they called Apple's iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, a "genuine product improvement" and not an attempt to keep other music services at bay. According to plaintiffs, the update was exclusionary to competition and demeaned the user experience.

The plaintiffs were seeking at least $350 million in damages, an amount that could have tripled if Apple was found guilty in violating the antitrust law.

Applauding the verdict, Apple said in a statement: “We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world’s best way to listen to music,” a spokeswoman said. “Every time we’ve updated those products — and every Apple product over the years — we’ve done it to make the user experience even better.”

In the trials, Apple lawyers reportedly pointed out that the plaintiff's side lacked any actual iPod customers saying their experience was demeaned.

“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 lawyers suing Apple, filed papers that added another accusation: that Apple and online retailer Amazon had colluded to make their products successful while blocking their competitors, NYT reported. Judge who oversaw the case, expressed displeasure with the move.

“You know, lawyers, you overreach,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers told the plaintiffs’ lawyers before the jury entered the room on Monday. “And by overreaching, I don’t trust you.” She did not allow them to share the argument with the jury.