Jobs Will Take The Stand (AAPL)

Apple's

Chief Executive Steve Jobs

in conjunction with the iTunes monopoly class-action lawsuit. The judge presiding over the case, Judge Howard Lloyd of U.S. District Court for Northern California, has ruled that Jobs must answer the questions of the plaintiffs' representation for two hours, despite being on medical leave. The case alleges that Apple created a monopoly on the music-downloading industry by making its iPod incompatible with any music not bought on iTunes. More specifically, Fairplay, the software that is employed by Apple to render other music files incompatible, is under fire. In 2004, RealNetworks Inc. created software that would make music downloaded from its site iPod-compatible, but Apple responded very quickly and made adjustments to Fairplay to eliminate this compatibility. In the ruling regarding Jobs, Judge Lloyd wrote, "The court finds that Jobs has unique, non-repetitive, first hand knowledge about Apple's software updates in October 2004 that rendered the RealNetworks's digital music files once again inoperable with iPods."