Apple admits deleting songs from iPods without users’ consent

Apple has accepted that it deleted songs that were downloaded on iPods from rival music services, without informing users. The admission comes as part of the ongoing class-action anti-trust lawsuit that the company faced in US District Court of Oakland, California.

The Wall Street Journal quoted the plaintiffs' attorney Patrick Coughlin as saying that not only did Apple not inform users about deleting the songs, it chose not to tell users the problem.

Coughlin's told the court that iTunes would show an error every time a user tried to sync an iPod having songs from third-party music download services.

The user would be asked by the software to restore the device to factory settings, which would wipe off the songs downloaded via other services.

According to the plaintiffs, users finally had to remain confined to Apple's ecosystem if they wanted to continue using the iPod, thus limiting the market for other music services and players.

Coughlin earlier showed jurors a 2003 email from Apple founder Steve Jobs, written about the launch of another competitor's online music store, which said, "We need to make sure that when Music Match launches" their store, "they cannot use iPod."

Apple lawyers denied the company competed unfairly, in the trial in which several high-ranking Apple executives are expected to testify.

Meanwhile AP reported that Jobs had seven words for a subordinate when he learned that a rival company was about to introduce a program that would let music fans buy songs anywhere and play them on Apple's iPod devices.

''We may need to change things here,'' Jobs said in a terse, 2005 email that was shown to jurors in federal court Tuesday, which saw a billion-dollar antitrust lawsuit that accused Apple Inc of using unfair tactics to maintain its dominance in the digital music business.

According to attorneys for an estimated 8 million consumers and iPod resellers, Jobs' email spurred an internal campaign to keep Apple's popular iPods free of music that was not purchased from Apple's own iTunes store (See: Amid lawsuits, Steve Jobs may yet prove to be worm in Apple ).

According to the plaintiffs' attorney, Bonny Sweeney, by updating the iTunes and iPod software to block music from competing online stores, Apple maintained a closed system that discouraged consumers from buying competing music players.