The iconic late founder of Apple will be a key witness against his own company as years-old allegations against Apple tactics make their way to court.
Steve Jobs will be heard in a billion-dollar civil suit on Tuesday through a videotaped deposition, the Associated Press reported.
The third major antitrust lawsuit faced by Apple, the case is a class action brought by consumers who claim that Apple prevented them from buying less expensive music players since iTunes purchases could only be played on older iPods.
"We will present evidence that Apple took action to block its competitors and in the process harmed competition and harmed consumers," Bonny Sweeney, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the New York Times.
The plaintiffs' lawyers say that the videotaped deposition and some damning emails will show Jobs' unfair competitive tactics. The class-action suit seeks $350 million in damages as reparation, alleging that Apple inflated costs on millions of iPods between 2006 and 2009.
Apple's FairPlay software, which is no longer used by the company, prevented songs from other music stores from being played on iPods, while songs from iTunes could not be transferred to devices from competitors.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company sold almost 150 million iPod devices during the period cited in the lawsuit.
Along with five other Silicon Valley companies, Apple will face trial in April for allegedly colluding to stop competition during recruitment and keep wages down.
"I am told that Googles new cellphone software group is relentlessly recruiting in our iPod group," Jobs wrote in an email cited in the court documents. "If this is indeed true, can you put a stop to it?"
Using his emails, the plaintiffs' lawyers seem to have made Jobs something of a scapegoat for this suit, portraying him as the ringleader of the purported scheme to maintain lower wages.
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