Apple wins antitrust case

OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Apple did not intentionally push software updates to delete competing music stores' songs from playing on iPods in an effort to secure a monopoly, a jury found Tuesday.

The eight-person jury in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., determined updates made to iTunes software between 2007 and 2009 genuinely improved the music player and iPod devices.

A $350 million class-action lawsuit brought against Apple argued the updates caused music purchased from non-Apple services, like Amazon MP3 or RealPlayer, to be intentionally deleted when uploaded to iPods, without notifying the file owners.

Apple security director Augustin Farrugia testified the deletions weren't made in an effort to secure a monopoly over the digital music market, but were instead made in response to a security breach.

"The system was totally hacked," he said.

Last week, Apple sought to have the lawsuit dismissed after it was found the two plaintiffs did not own iPods purchased during the time in question.

"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. "This is all made up at this point."

An Apple representative issued a statement after the jury's verdict, applauding the results.

"We created iPod and iTunes to give our customers the world's best way to listen to music," she 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."

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the verdict.