Steve Jobs' Video Testimony Transfixes Courtroom in Apple iPod Trial

OAKLAND, Calif. — Three years after his death, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs held a federal courtroom transfixed on Friday as attorneys played a video of his testimony in a class-action lawsuit that accuses Apple of inflating iPod prices by locking music lovers into using its players. Jobs was pale and hoarse during the deposition that he gave a few months before his death in 2011, but spoke firmly in defense of Apple Inc.'s software, which blocked music from stores that competed with Apple's iTunes store. "We were very scared" of the prospect that hackers might break Apple's security system, Jobs said, because that might jeopardize Apple's contracts with music recording companies that didn't want their songs to be pirated. "We would get nasty emails from the labels," he added. His videotaped testimony came in the fourth day of a trial of a billion-dollar antitrust lawsuit that accuses Apple of using unfair tactics to maintain its dominance in the digital music business. The lawsuit was brought by a group of individuals and businesses who purchased iPods between 2006 and 2009.

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— The Associated Press and NBC News staff