You think Zuckerberg was a tough deposition?

A federal judge has ordered Steve Jobs to testify in 2005 class-action lawsuit alleging iTunes constitutes a monopoly, Bloomberg reports.

Plaintiffs will have no more than two hours to question the Apple CEO and will be limited to a single aspect of the case: the changes Apple made to iTunes in October 2004 that made it impossible to play tracks from RealNetworks on the iPod.

Apple argued that any questioning of Jobs "would be repetitive, at best." But U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd ruled that "... Jobs has unique, non-repetitive, firsthand knowledge about the issues at the center of the dispute over RealNetworks software."

It's not clear when the deposition will occur. Jobs is on medical leave but has not relinquished the CEO title, and he has been getting out.

Still, sitting CEO depositions are pretty uncommon, and often as hotly contested as the underlying litigation itself. They are prized by settlement-minded plaintiffs if only for the opportunity to "embarrass, annoy and exacerbate litigation," according to litigators Clausen Miller. "On a tactical basis, the executive deposition is pursued so that your adversary’s 'figurehead' directly feels the 'hot buttons' of your case, real-time, without layers of filtering and spin."

Still, Jobs is not your average CEO. Which is to say, getting a court order to depose Steve Jobs may be bigger victory than actually deposing Steve Jobs.

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