Submitted by Well, this pretty much seals the deal. Psystar is now officially burnt down to the ground, nothing left, it’s all over. Judge William Alsup has granted Apple’s motion for a permanent injunction, and even though the actual legal case only involved Leopard, the injunction specifically covers Snow Leopard and Rebel EFI as well.
The summary judgement only covered Leopard, because Apple had sought to specifically exclude Snow Leopard from the litigation. Despite this, judge Alsup agrees with Apple that the injunction should cover Snow Leopard as well (court document via MacRumors).
“The inclusion of future works within the scope of an injunction ensures that litigation need not be needlessly replicated when the defendant’s infringing acts are the same, but the copyrighted work has changed,” Alsup writes, “Put differently, whether or not Apple allowed Snow Leopard to be litigated in discovery, an injunctive decree can reach beyond the four corners of the litigated copyrighted works to cover non-litigated items of similar character.”
Psystar actively tried to keep Rebel EFI out of the injunction, but has failed to do so. Psystar claimed that Rebel EFI does not fall within the same type of act as they have been found infringing of, but as Psystar provides no details to the courts about what Rebel EFI does and how it it does it, it will not be excluded from the injunction – however, Alsup was clear that Psystar is free to file a new motion to have Rebel EFI excluded.
“In sum, Rebel EFI will not be expressly excluded from the terms of the injunction. It
should be clear, however, that this ruling is without prejudice to Psystar bringing a new motion before the undersigned that includes real details about Rebel EFI, and opening itself up to formal discovery thereon,” Alsup writes, “This would serve the purpose – akin to a post-injunction motion vetting a ‘design-around’ in a patent action – of potentially vetting (or not vetting) a product like Rebel EFI under this order’s decree.”
Here’s the actual injunction:
- Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing, or creating derivative works of plaintiff’s copyrighted Mac OS X software without authorization from the copyright holder;
- Intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting, or encouraging any other
person or entity to infringe plaintiff’s copyrighted Mac OS X software;- Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access to plaintiff’s copyrighted Mac OS X software, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers;
- Manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to plaintiff’s copyrighted Mac OS X software, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers;
- Manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively protects the rights held by plaintiff under the Copyright Act with respect to its copyrighted Mac OS X software.
Psystar must comply by December 31, 2009.
This means it’s pretty much over for Psystar. They no longer have anything else to sell but standard PCs, without Mac OS X installed, and without even the technology to sell to do so. They must also destroy all infringing material in their possession.
With Psystar down, there are still quite a lot of clone makers left, such as Quo in California, and PearC here in Europe. It will be interesting to see if Apple will undertake legal action against them too, or if it believes the win in the Psystar case has enough of a repelling effect.
Since Apple has a history of even going after individual bloggers, trying to shut them up, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them use this case as the basis on which to send cease and desist letters to website like InsanelyMac. Interesting times surely to come.
but still they can sell Linux, xBSD, Solaris, QNX and eCommstation.
… to maybe 45 people. Linux is dead on the desktop (not that it was ever alive) commercially. Other OS’s you mention aren’t viable for a BtoC business.
Psystar is done.
This.
That sums it up nicely. Linux is basically the joke in offices everywhere. As a server? It has a chance. As desktop? HAHAHAHAHAHA
The wording of the injunction seems, to my mind, to have nothing to do with the law. The part about illegal copying of the OS makes sense, but since when was “circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access to plaintiff^aEURTMs copyright” illegal?
IANAL but it seems to me they are stretching the meaning of the Copyright Act here. If you paid for the copyrighted material, how does the Copyright Act have anything to say about what you do with that material afterwards? It’s akin to saying that, if a book were produced with technological measures in place so it could only be read in daylight, it would be illegal for you to work around those measures so you could read it at night.
This is *not* the domain of copyright law. Contract law, maybe (EULA). Copyright, give me a friggin break.
Edited 2009-12-16 09:13 UTC
The lightbulb, it is clearly subversive!
Sorry. Carry on.
I’m guessing you’ve never heard of the DMCA before. Google it.
This is why, I bet Apple will not be so well suceeded in courts outside USA (gladly the rest of the world do not have such stupit anti-user laws). Here in Brazil, I know for fact that only a brided judge would give this to Apple
In fact, Brazil have one of the best consumer laws (called c~A^3digo de defesa do consumidor, or consumer defense code in plain english), and no contract can tell you ow you will use your product. I do not even know if the idea of software as a service, if taken to high courts, would win here, if it damages the consumer rights.
The US is trying to push new copyright related agreements through which would bring the DMCA legal abortion to all other agreeing countries. Is there anything more American than forceing one’s own bad laws on other nations?
The problem is that a lot of content is generated in the US and if the US takes its ball an goes home, other countries loose on a lot of resources. The fact that the US can get China to even consider cracking down on piracy speaks volumes, imo.
If America takes its ball and goes home, I bet the German and French movie industry would pick up where the U.S. of A. left off. At least speaking for Europe.
Might not be such a bad thing.
You’re so right. Why just the other day I was my regular polyglot speakers anonymous meeting and they came to the same conclusion.
You haven’t watched many Euro channels recently, have you? The movies — along with their stable of impressive actors — are far better than the perennial Adam Sandler/Will Ferrell/SNL crudfest coming out of Hollywood for the past 20 years. The best [Hollywood] movies have quite a few of those German and French actors in their casts, too.
LOL! Well they seem to be doing alright in my house, every other movie my wife rents is in French, Italian, German, etc.
Except the largest group of disposable income consumers happens to be in the US and we like our movies dumb and repetitive. Even with the tough economy consumers are spending, especially in the entertainment area. I personally would welcome better directors with fresh ideas and maybe a different culture would bring that but the masses here don’t want that.
I wish there were more French and Spanish actors. I watch a lot of French and Spanish movies on NetFlix, and I feel like I’m always watching the same actors.
Edited 2009-12-17 18:53 UTC
Hmm… I didn’t realize that corruption was so low that there were non-corrupt judges in Brazil. Turns out, Brazil isn’t that bad internationally. 75th least corrupt out of 180.
So what’s the immigration policy and or IT job market like?
You are considering emigrating to Brazil just because companies in the US are not allowed to use other people’s products without their permission?
LOL
The warm weather and beaches will never replace the cold, desolate hell of the upper midwest, but I’ll try to be okay with that.
Until the DMCA the consumer was protected rather well.
Universal interoperability was a fundamental consumer right.
The copyright holder could NOT tell you, without a SIGNED & WITNESSED contract, what to do with YOUR *COPY* of a copyrighted work.
Making copies of the copyrighted work in an effort to achieve interoperability was protected under “Fair Use.”
And a computer loading a copy of something into memory wasn’t considered yet another copyright violation.
This is what happens when one industry’s “needs” are considered without respect to any others, and with total disregard to consumer rights that are already in place. The DMCA overthrows 100 years of progress of consumer protection.
It is, now, illegal to make a compatible part for your car – so long as the automaker makes an effort in the design to make it difficult to accomplish.
It is illegal to reverse-engineer a car’s ECU so that you can reset your Check Engine light. Simply because the ECU contains a digital medium which would need to be cracked. Prior to the DMCA this was not just permitted, but encouraged.
The DMCA was meant to address DV A/V ripping of movies and music, but it even falls flat then!
You have a legal right to make an archival copy of any movie or album or software or book you buy. However, the DMCA made it illegal to do that if the storage medium has ANY kind of technological measure designed to prevent copying.
So you lose another right.
BTW, I **NEVER** use the real copy of a disc because I often will leave them in a customer’s computer, or they will get scratched or otherwise destroyed. Then I just make another copy and work from that.
In fact, I download most OS isos and have DVD/CDs for them in case I have a customer with the OS, I don’t have the funds to buy every version under the sun, and wouldn’t even if I did.
The DMCA needs to be destroyed, and the status of software as simply being a copy of a copyrighted work must be reaffirmed.
Otherwise good companies offering fair competition will get F*CKED over like Psystar at a continually increasing pace.
I will bring Apple down now, just wait & watch. It will take some time to make the course correction…
–The loon
And that is applicable ….how? Psystar is a US company. Has to follow US laws. How those laws are written in other nation-states is completely irrelevant.
yeah, but sans red herring arguments… a lot of the pysstar fans would have to actually tackle the issue of the iffy business practices and model of the company they are defending.
Of course I’ve heard of it. I was just under the impression that Fair Use trumps it in most cases, unless the breaking of cryptographic codes is involved–which is not the case here. Looking at the Wikipedia article on the DMCA it does indeed seem to be broader than that–but AFAIK there is far from any consensus on when the DMCA is applicable and when it is trumped by Fair Use.
In the case of installing Mac OS on non-Apple computers, however, I would argue that there is no actual protection of copyright being broken, because we’re talking about a single copy being used, which has nothing to do with illegal copying or distribution. The fact that Pystar’s method did actually involve the use of copying (to the same computer) is IMHO the only real legal ground that stands on two feet, and even then it is extremely wobbly.
I really hope Pystar or some other company tries to challenge this. Basically what we are talking about here is government-sanctioned hardware lock-in, and thereby the potential for government-sanctioned monopoly, based on laws that were designed to prevent illegal copying but instead are being applied in the absence of that activity. In my view Apple should be able to put whatever crappy protection it wants in place, but the government should not have any right to step in when someone else manages to break it, especially in the absence of any copyright law (in the original sense) being broken.
Edited 2009-12-16 15:08 UTC
Please for the love of randomDiety! Show where Apple has gone after a single MOSX86 user. They haven’t! Prystar (business competitor) and Joe Hackintosh (fair use) user are two very different things!
Apple is in the business of selling insanely great products to inspire purchase of more of their insanely great products (whether you think they’re insanely great is irrelevant). Their business model isn’t to prop up competitors selling hacked versions of their products. I suppose if you all ran businesses your strategy would be to help those in competition against you? That’s exactly what you’re asking Apple to do! You may not run your own business, if you don’t, perhaps you should go to the boss and suggest your new success strategy and see how far that gets you… Put your paycheck on the line while you’re at it! That’s going to work!
You make it all out to be much too simple. Where do you draw the line between “business competitor” and “Joe Fair Use” or whatever? The wording of the injunction makes no such distinction.
In copyright law the first item in the list of “fair use restrictions < http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/107.html >” is:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
In my mind, Joe Hackintosh falls squarely under fair use and Pystar does not. I don’t see how it can be unclear or less simple.
*edit for formatting
Edited 2009-12-16 19:19 UTC
OK, what if I am a simple individual who offers to install Mac OS on an acquaintance’s non-Apple computer, for a fee? Or what if I want to sell my old non-Apple computer, on which I have installed OS X, on eBay? I guess since there is an exchange of money I am suddenly doing something illegal, no?
It’s not much of a leap from these kinds of activities to considering the legality of the mom-and-pop computer stores of the world doing this kind of thing, and from there it’s not much of a leap to Pystar.
Since when was providing a service that enables the circumvention of technological copyright restrictions unquestionably illegal? Software that allows you to transfer music from your iPod to any computer is legal, even though Apple prevents you from doing it. So is paying someone else to install said software for you. So is paying someone else to install a mod chip on your game console. Why is Pystar such a special case?
Edited 2009-12-16 20:13 UTC
I can’t open a print shop and legally copy books for people for a fee. Copyright is copyright. I’m going to be honest, I’m not a lawyer but this doesn’t seem so complicated to me. I know that in education, all those course readers need to have permission from the copyright owners before they can be printed. That’s why they cost so much. If it’s a business, it’s a business.
Is Apple going to catch a mom and pop doing what you describe above? Probably not if they offer it as a local in shop service like an actual mom and pop store would be doing. Pystar isn’t a mom and pop organization.
Apple is going to go after anyone that threatens to dilute their brand image… It’s pretty simple. Other large corporations go after little guys all the time… In-N-Out and Toy’R’Us will go after anyone that imitates their signage for instance. They don’t want their brand diluted.
Joe Hackintosh user is typically going to build his own rig… He knows what he’s getting into. Apple couldn’t care less about that.
Put this in your iCal: within 12 months starting now, InsanelyMac and/or the like will receive a cease and desist letter from His Steveness.
Alright, Thom… I’ll take that challenge and what are you going to do when it doesn’t happen? If it happens I will gladly admit I was wrong. Will you?
There is no copying going on when in the case of installing Mac OS to a non-Apple computer. It’s still one single copy, being used on one single computer.
No, if someone hires you to install OS X on a non-apple labeled computer, that is allowed by copyright law as you are then nothing more than an agent for the allowed copy. This is also very different from what Psystar did.
For the selling the old computer that happens to have OS X installed on it, not a clue. That will be a good question for my IP attorney though
Note, “nonprofit educational purposes.” Think libraries, schools and museums, not home users. Note also the other three possible tests. But you’re right that, in a sane world, it won’t be worth Apple’s time to go after home users — the reason being more the limited scope of the damages caused by somebody making a hackintosh in their garage for private use.
Also, those tests are not equally weighted, or set in stone. In any given case, the court may prioritize them however it sees fit, including adding others or ignoring one of the listed tests. Or ignoring the tests completely and considering some other unusual circumstance.
I’m noticing that people in general, and foreign posters in specific, seem consistently incredulous of just how badly US copyright law is stacked in favor of content distributors. Hint: severely.
If I recall correctly, the DMCA specifically and unambiguously states that Fair Use defenses are not valid defenses against charges of circumvention of a technological protection measure. The anti-circumvention clause deals explicitly and only with circumventing an access-control measure; it’s treated as an entirely separate question from why you circumvented the protection measure, or what you did with the content you got access too (even if you did nothing at all with it, and there’s no question of an actual copyright violation).
You can download a PDF copy of the DMCA from the Library of Congress’s website and check for yourself: I did that for a paper back in college. Kinda the cute thing about it is that it’s hard to find. Most of the act is about other things; for instance, if I recall correctly, the DMCA is actually the same place that we get the safe-harbor provision. And it infamously also covers the copyrightability of boat-hull designs. The anti-circumvention bit is hidden away, I forget in what section, and you have to take some care in finding it. I don’t think the people drafting the act thought the anti-circumvention bit was going to be tied with the Safe Harbor provision for “most important clause in this legislation”.
Edited 2009-12-16 16:58 UTC
Well what can I say, that’s just…dumb.
It is. The FSF and friends complained vocally at the time. Nobody really listened. And now it’s the law.
Fair use would trump this, however Psystar does not fall under the Fair use provisions of copyright law. Fair Use applies to consumers, which by definition is someone who buys a copyrighted work for their own use, not intended for resale. I will be interested to see if Apple tries to go after Quo, as they have a different business model, which actually does fall under Fair Use as it is written, since they act as an agent for the install, rather than marketing mass produced machines as Psystar did.
Yes it sounds a bit stretched, as the copyright is consumed for that ex when they buy it.
And EULA can be worked around, if you live in a place where Shrink wrap contracts aren’t valid.
Psystar sealed their own doom. Not by “cloning” a Mac or copying Apple’s software, but by sheer stupidity. They actively tried to hide or otherwise refused to produce documents the court wanted. They made themselves out to be both shady and stupid, and impressions count for a lot when you’re dealing with a judgement of any kind. On top of that, they wanted Rebel EFI excluded but refused to provide grounds for it. They might have actually been able to succeed in that part of it at least.
They killed themselves. They handed Apple the gun, loaded up the bullet, and released the safety. All Apple had to do is pull the trigger. In the process, these bastards completely threw away what could’ve been an actual challenge to the DMCA and a challenge to software licensing.
Goodbye, Psystar, and good riddens. Here’s hoping we never see these two idiots in business again.
I sincerely doubt Psystar had a hope in hell, no matter how they went about it. Their legal team was excellent (I still wonder where they got the money to afford such good lawyers). If it weren’t, this suit would have been much shorter. It was actually the quality of Pystar’s lawyers that kept it going as long as it did, they did everything humanly possible.
Yes, there is the question of what the hell were the Psystar owners thinking, taking on both copyright and DMCA head-on and hoping they’ll win. The suit was a troll from the very beginning, and I suspect they’ll refuse to let go and continue for a while yet, despite the lack of sense. I’m betting we’ll see them keep using every technicality they can still think of, which is even stranger, since with their business practically shut down they should now be cutting their losses.
Which leaves some actual interesting questions staring us in the face, and I was hoping Thom would show a hint of journalistic flair for once and discuss those (instead of whining about whether Apple might go after InsanelyMac).
It is still unclear to me why a company would choose to waste money in a hopeless and very expensive suit against a company with lots of cash, a strong legal team and very little chance of losing. It is unclear where those money came from. It is unclear why Psystar would do everything they can to inflame matters, with very bold statements, such as fictional projected earnings in 2010-2011 once they won, openly stating what they were doing while essentialy breaking the law, and even claiming they have a settlement with Apple while that was nowhere near the truth. Maybe Apple would have really settled if Psystar wasn’t so brash.
I think we can safely say Pystar wasn’t a champion on a white horse doing this for the sake of the people, since we saw how they treated their clients, how they stole FOSS code and how they caused a lot of harm to the hackintosh movement. So who’s really behind this? Who’s interested (and desperate enough) in undermining Apple’s business by taking a long shot at opening up a clone market for Macs? My bet would be either some OEMs (Dell and HP at the top of the suspects’ list), or Microsoft, or a combination of both.
Edited 2009-12-16 10:23 UTC
Or Dell and HP could get together and build their own consumer OS since they are after all billion dollar companies. But that would take a lot of hard work and risk. The big tech giants should have been funding an alternative OS years ago but they decided to just get fat on selling Windows. So I guess we are supposed to punish Apple for their mistake?
Apple took a risk investing in OSX and the investment has paid off. Boo-hoo-hoo if you don’t like that their business model involves tying the OS to the hardware.
This was all a joke anyways given the unlimited methods through software that clones can be broken. What were people hoping for? To have mommy government force Apple to make their software less restrictive? Yea let’s have the government force companies to sell products based around the desires and whims of the public. That would set a great precedent.
Oh wait! What’s that? They fund Linux? I had all but forgotten.
On the server side. They should have been seeding a consumer desktop alternative years ago.
IBM has been funding Moblin but they have not gotten serious about providing competiton to Windows or Office. Just look at how poorly they have pushed Lotus. They should have given it away for free years ago as a long play against MS.
It’s not like Dell and H.P. (et. al.) are evil, manipulative, lazy bastards (well, more than any company or individual). Windows is a massively entrenched product, and compatability with it and an ability to run (and run well) applications designed for it are essential to be an effective desktop system. Competing with Windows in the Desktop space is almost impossible, because you’d have to do it without causing any customer disruption, and you’d have to shoulder the same immense burden that Windows carries, and that keeps them around: compatability with all present and past Windows software and features. (OS X is something of an exception, mainly because the Mac as a platform already had a large-enough (and fanatically devoted!) user base to have a self-sustaining ecosystem of their own.)
And equally, consumers, who decidedly have a stake in the state of the Home Desktop OS market, are letting this happen. If >=50% of home users abruptly proclaimed that they where not going to buy another Windows PC ever, and stuck with it, OEMs would start shipping machines with alternative OSs installed in short order. Surprise: people aren’t doing that. Because Windows works well enough that it’s not worth the inconvenience.
Heh, long story short, it’s not uniquely Dell and HP’s fault that the home desktop landscape looks like it does: they’re just responding to the clear realities of the situation.
Oh those poor tech giants! How can they compete when they’re sitting on billions in cash?
When a single company dominates a market you compete where you can and go from there. But they also should have been funding alternatives to Windows and Office as a way of keeping their costs down.
IBM has 11.5 billion in cash on hand. Dumping a hundred million into their own distro would go a long way. They could throw 50 million at Wine to help deal with the application compatibility issue. Throw another 50 million at OpenOffice and you have a pretty damn good consumer OS.
But they don’t care about competing with Microsoft in the consumer space. Don’t blame MS for having cowardly or apatheic competitors.
Dislodging windows is all but impossible. Having a better or cheaper competitor is insufficient. People will not move from the operating system that they have, even if the competing OS’s cure cancer and grant them the magic power of flight, if Windows is good enough, and they already have a large investment in Windows software. If Windows meets the consumer’s needs and it’s already on his computer, nothing short of pain of injury or death will compel him to move to a competing OS.
You can point at IBM’s large cash-on-hand reserve and claim that, surely they could make something more awesomer with all that money! Well, that’s irrelevant if nobody would by it. And nobody will buy it — nobody will proactively move from the Windows their computer came with, that they already have set-up, with all their apps installed on — as long as the thing they have is good enough. And if nobody moves to it, no software will be written for it. And if there’s no software for it, nobody will move to it. (notice how that works?)
I didn’t say to pity poor, helpless IBM, HP and Dell. What I said is that, they’re not idiots, and the lack of competition for Windows in the desktop space isn’t solely or even primarily their fault. They do what their customers demand: if they’re not producing machines running alternative OS’s, it’s because there’s not enough customer demand to justify it. If you want a competitor to Windows… then go out and drum up some customer demand. Good luck with that.
So the growth of OSX has been from new computer users?
http://successfulsoftware.net/2009/01/09/macosx-market-share/
But people are willing to buy $1200 Macbooks? IBM wouldn’t even have to charge for it. It would be in their best interest to toss a few million at some open source projects as a long play against MS. Even though Sun made a lot of boneheaded moves they were wise to give openoffice away for free.
With a hundred million you could create a clone of OSX. Dell, HP and IBM could split the cost.
MS can’t be blamed for having competitors that just sit on their cash instead of using it to compete. That isn’t just for Windows but for MS Office as well.
OS X is something of an exception, because they already had a large-enough software ecosystem and user-base to be self-sustaining, coming from the days when the OS market actually was competitive. (And in some small degree, I suspect, because Microsoft needs at least one competitor with a market share that’s not a rounding error to keep the DOJ off their backs.)
Perhaps I should say that, at this point, it’s impossible for a new player, regardless of how well funded they are, to enter the marketplace. It’s all about having a large enough user-base, and enough third-party software to support your platform. In this market, you can’t attract new users and developers unless you already have enough users and developers to make your platform attractive and safe — enough users that developers will target it, enough popular third-party software that users will be able to switch to it and keep their favorite apps, and enough of an ecosystem that your platform is self-sustaining, and the users and developers who get involved can be sure that it will be around for a while. If some new OS came to the market now, with no established user-base and no third-party developers, nobody would switch to it: users would wait for third-party apps on which they depend (even if equivalents existed on the new platform, and/or where better), and third-party software developers wouldn’t target for it without a significant user base. It would go nowhere as a platform.
And I’m not trying to blame Microsoft, either. I’m blaming the consumer. The market responds to what the consumer wants: if Windows dominates the market, it’s because the consumers at least passively allow it, if not actively encourage it. Consumers — home users, at least — don’t want a market with healthy competition: they want a market with well-supported platforms and minimal effort required on their part to get the devices and software they want. They actively prefer a market with one dominant player — they know that, as long as they use a fairly new version of Windows with a fairly new Intel processor, they’ll have the pick of huge amounts of hardware and software primarily target at their platform.
If huge numbers of customers started demanding an alternative OS tomorrow — and did so consistently for the long term — the market would reshape and competitors would emerge to service that demand. It’s not happening, because customers don’t want an alternative. They want one dominant, safe-choice provider.
Urgh. I’ll shut up now.
But not good enough, it seems.
Before Pystar Apple didn’t really care too much about the OSX86 scene, however all i see is a company that profited from other peoples work both from apple and from the OSX86 scene. So im glad they’re gone.
I think Psystar are a bunch of asshats that, for the sake of sane precedents being set on software copyright, needed to win.
Of course, there are appeals. Given more money, Psystar could appeal, and fight it.
But, maybe the theories about Psystar being a front company for Apple, so they could sue themselves, and get bad precedents set, were true.
Heh yeah, I heard that funny theory too. Nonsense of course, but if it were true – you’d have to admit, pretty clever.
If this was Apple NZ instead of Apple US then that might be a possibility, as suing oneself seems to be the done thing over there:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/nz_council_sues_self/
You steal other people’s copyrighted work, this is how it usually ends.
FAIL.
They bought Mac OSX and then sold it again. That is hardly stealing, at least not in the world I live in.
I think they will have a much harder time in Germany (PearC), we have laws that make EULAs invalid and so enforcing those resale restrictions will be very hard.
The US legal system vastly(only) favors those with the deepest pockets, just ask the independent corn farmers that are being sued by Monsanto for corn patent infringements.
It is when its been proven that they don’t even install the bought disk but instead use some already cracked image. So you’re wrong on that one. If Psystar had actually bought a copy of OSX, installed that copy and gave it to you then maybe they would be cool though they are still circumventing Apple’s protections however weak. From an OEM standpoint, that makes sense who the hell wants to deploy hundreds of machines without an image but they are not licensed for it and though Apple’s software protection is really weak that doesn’t give Psystar the right to make an image and install that image on all of their machines. That is not buying a copy and then reselling it. Really stupid, imo.
They aren’t authorized to install OS X on any hardware. Period.
That’s the issue at stake here.
A lot of people (i.e., people who value their rights) believe that the consumer should be put first, not the companies. Clearly, the American justice system, legislators, and a number of Apple fanatics believe otherwise. Sadly, they appear to be in a majority in the US.
Psystar isn’t the consumer in the same sense as Joe Hackintosh. Where has Apple gone after Joe Hackintosh? They haven’t!
Your comparison to bloggers disclosing imminent and secret product releases is apples to oranges.
I see you’re playing the “let’s ignore the countless websites Apple have silenced” game.
Apple DO go after the “little people” too. Apple have slapped heavy threats on any site or anyone who discloses information about jail breaking iPhones, there’s your example above and I’m pretty sure I’ve also read about them trying to silence the iTunes on Linux community too.
So given that Apple already has a precedence for putting it’s own interests before it’s consumers (and even shutting down freedom of speech when it’s in Apples interest), who’s to say that they wont now chase after the Hackintosh community now they appear to have the courts backing?
Neither should be put first. Both should be equal participants in an economic exchange. And if that exchange is mediated by a contract or license, than it should be equally binding for both participants. If either party finds the terms of those contracts to be objectionable, then that party should not enter into the contract in the first place. I have no sympathy for someone who enters into a contract, eyes-open, and then suddenly, after the fact, starts to whimper and cry about how unfair it is. You should’ve read the contract, and if you decide you don’t like it, then don’t enter into it! (Or, if the contract is presented post-sale, return the damned product.)
Equally, should is subjective: each individual has a subtly different opinion of what “should” happen, or how things should be done. We create laws — that place justice and equity ahead of moral imperative — so that society can continue to function despite people’s varying opinion about how things should be. And PsyStar pretty damned clearly violated the law of the land, completely regardless of what you think should have happened.
Exactly which contract are you talking about? Nothing about this verdict mentions the word contract anywhere. If it had, maybe we could have seen how EULAs (which entail agreeing to a contract without knowing what you are agreeing to ahead of time) would hold up in court.
That amounts to forcing a company to support a product they didn’t produce.
Consumers are not put first in that they do not get to decide how a company sells its products.
If consumers would be allowed to make these types of demands from companies the result would be chaos.
Since Apple is the sole provider of their hardware they can always pull their OS from stores which makes the whole effort futile anyways. You’d have to have a government takeover of Apple to make it work long-term.
Maybe the EU would go for taking over a private company to meet the desires of a group of consumers but it isn’t going to happen here.
How does your argument have anything to do with reality?
1) No, actually no one is forcing Apple to support Pystar systems.
2) So apparently Apple has the right to decide how it sells its products, but Pystar does not? You contradict yourself.
3) WTF????
Edited 2009-12-17 11:22 UTC
This case had nothing to do with consumers. Psystar is not a consumer by definition, and no consumers have been taken to court, yet. Once a consumer is taken to court, then I will agree with you, but that has yet to happen. Until that time I will be able to happily do as the US Copyright law allows, and install OS X on a toaster if I want to.
Copyright law makes no distinction between companies or individuals. If it is against the law (i.e., a breach of copyright) to do what Psystar did, than it just as much illegal for them as it is for you, me or anyone else.
EDIT: Err, in the US, obviously.
Edited 2009-12-17 15:36 UTC
According to US Copyright law, the distinction is very clear as it is written right in the law to define what constitutes fair use, and who is who.
The US law can be found here:
http://www.copyright.gov/
You have a great grasp of English, so it should not be that hard to sort it out. Granted it will take some serious reading.
Here in the US, when it comes to legislation concerning corporations and business, the majorities of any given groups are utterly irrelevant. All that matters is who has the deepest pockets.
//just ask the independent corn farmers that are being sued by Monsanto for corn patent infringements//
Source?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2009-12-14-monsanto-p…
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm
http://www.ajc.com/business/ap-investigation-monsanto-seed-240072.h…
In Germany is still illegal to redistribute a product without authorization from the producer.
This has nothing to do with EULA BTW. As that only pertains to the END USER, which Pysstar is not… since, lo and behold they are selling someone else’s product to the END USER which are their customers.
Frankly, a lot of the Europeans waxing poetic about how bad the US business laws are… to actually look at their own, some of which are far more draconian (and in some cases adequately so, a lot of the high Q&A from European manufacturers are derived from very strict mercantile regulation/law)
This ruling has nothing to do with the people running OSX in their hackintosh for personal use (which is where the EULA would be applicable), but rather with a 3rd party re-selling apple’s products without an actual contract and taking it one step further: selling a unauthorized product which has been modified without consent of the producer. There are a lot of business law in that regard: esp. when it comes to obligations and responsibilities derived from the product (legal contracts, support, warranties, etc).
This case was a non-starter for anyone with a minimum of common sense and exposure to the real world.
Edited 2009-12-16 22:31 UTC
I guess that’s why eBay doesn’t exist in Germany.
Given the number of articles there’s been on this subject, I’m saddened to read such a stupid comment.
Nothing was stolen from Apple – not morally nor legally.
Also, for future reference, you might want to bare in mind that any breach of copyright law is NOT classed as “theft”.
However, that’s besides the point for this particular case as Psystar bought and paid for each OS X license legally – so the case was (and dumbing down a lot here) whether Psystar could install those legitimate licenses on non-Apple machines and then sell them on.
So to recap: Nothing was stolen from Apple – not morally nor legally.
kragil; To buy aanything, then sell it as your own work is stealing.
I Made This; Deliberate breach of copyright law is to use other’s work without their agreement. That is theft, morally and legally.
It’s breach of copyright, NOT stealing.
Property theft and copyright laws are completely different so please don’t fall into the same trap that many consumers do when watching those anti-piracy ad’s on DVDs.
re: morally – Apple were still profiting from OS X say’s on Psystar machines, so I fail to see the moral theft.
re: legally – check my comment above
I really do wish people would think a little before regurgitating the same old BS that $multi-billion media industries spout.
Yes, copyright breach is illegal, but no it’s not theft.
And, more to the point, not all copyright breach’s are the same as piracy – in fact if you’re so hell-bent on following copyright law to the letter, then I bloody hope you don’t do any of the following:
* use your favourite song as your mobile ring tone,
* borrow (or lend) DVDs and CDs to your friends and family
* play music at your house parties (or dinner parties / BBQs / or whatever else floats your boat) without first purchasing PRS license (or whatever your nations equivalent is)
* record shows / movies from the TV with the intention to watch more than once
* copied your CDs to MP3 (if you live in the UK)
ALL of the above are technically illegal according to copyright law – and thus (by your logic) every single one is “theft”
So clearly theft doesn’t apply to copyright law otherwise nearly everyone in the Western world would have a criminal record.
</rant>
Breach of a contract can become criminal theft. Let’s say I decide to rent a couch. I sign a contract — in blood, before God and Man, to satisfy Tom’s stringent requirements for a valid contract — detailing the terms of the lease, the price I pay, the conditions on use, and what happens when the period of the lease expires. Now, I take the couch home, and violate the terms of the lease — I spill coffee on the couch, which was strictly forbidden! Here’s the thing: the lease was what was letting me keep the couch. If I violate its terms, so that it’s terminated, and then I don’t give the couch back (or in some other reasonable way pay provide equal compensation for the couch to the person who was leasing it to me), then I have stolen the couch at that point. It would just be a breach of contract if I violate the terms of the lease, so that it’s terminated, and then, within some reasonable time-period, gave up my possession of the couch. It’s theft if I don’t give the couch back (or proactively take steps to prevent the person leasing me the couch from getting it back, like moving out of state, or putting bars on my doors or windows).
Now, I am very not a lawyer, so I’m assuming (and I know the old adage about what assuming does). But, the above scenario is what I would reasonably expect, given my limited understanding of US law.
In your example, the breach of contract still isn’t theft. You keeping the couch will (at some point) become theft. It’s two separate things.
I know: that was my whole point. It’s breech of contract when I do something prohibited by the license agreement, such that the agreement is terminated. It’s theft if I keep the couch. They’re two separate things, but they arise from the same event — and, for that matter, you couldn’t have the latter, the theft, without the former, the breech of contract.
If PsyStar violated Apple’s license terms, but then tried to remedy the situation and did not distribute any products in violation of Apple’s license, then you’d just be talking about breech of contract — without material damages, for that matter. If PsyStar continues to profit from distributing works that Apple has copyrighted, without any valid license, and without compensating Apple in anyway, then I think that reasonably could be construed as also being theft, certainly morally and possibly legally.
Look I’m sorry but you keep on blurring 3 very different laws:
* copyright law
* contractual law
* and criminal theft.
Stating that those laws are interchangeable is exactly the kind of crap that Apple and all the other big multinational corporations like to scare their consumers with.
I appreciate that you have to be pretty ruthless to be top of your game, but the number of customers who buy into this scaremongering because they don’t understand their basic rights nor the laws of their nation is pretty saddening.
So this is why is get pedantic about the use of the terms stealing, theft and criminal; because people should be clear on their basic rights and the legalities of their actions rather than blindly trusting the FUD that profit-orientated PR teams conger up.
I’m not saying they’re interchangeable and I’m certainly not defending corporate bastardry, or exploitation of consumer ignorance. What I am trying to say is that the same action can entail all three of those things: you can breach a copyright, void a contract, and steal something at the same time. The same action can touch all three of those distinct areas of law. I’m not trying to say they’re all the same thing, or that they are interchangeable. Claiming that something is a “not a breach of contract because it’s a copyright violation,” or vice versa, or whatever else, is disingenuous, because something can be both or all three distinct things at the same time.
Maybe, I’m not certain about your example, however it’s still irrelevant to the original post as copyright law isn’t a contract so contractual law has nothing to do the original comment:
A binding license agreement pretty much is a contract: it’ll be handled more or less the same way in a court of law (so far as I understand, anyway). And, the fact that PsyStar had no valid license to the software product that it was distributing was very important to the case — as I understood it, anyway.
“Theft” may or may not be the correct technical legal term, but if PsyStar was profiting materially by distributing a copyrighted work for which they have no license — and not compensating the holder of the copyright in any way — I’m pretty sure that’s criminal. And I think “theft” is a reasonable term to use, for use Not A Lawyer folk.
The case wasn’t about EULAs and their validity as contracts and nor was the original post I was replying to.
So once again I repeat: contract law doesn’t enter into this discussion.
They had a license as they bought the product
They compensated the copyright holder as they bought the product
Criminal is not the same as illegal
Something is only criminal if you can get a criminal record.
Apple didn’t press criminal charges and the directors don’t have criminal records.
Only if you want to mislead people (see my earlier example of how nearly everybody unintentionally “steal” in their daily lives due to technicalities in copyright law which have been upheld in court)
Again, in so far as I understood it, contract law and the validity of Apple’s EULA certainly where considered. If PsyStar had purchased copies of OS X, rather then licensed them, than what they where doing would have been much closer to legal. It was very much pertinent that their use of OS X was bound by Apple’s EULA, and that they did not have any license to OS X (as they where in violation of Apple’s EULA).
Now, other issues, such as access-control supervision, did end up being more important, but I was under the impression that Apple’s EULA was found to be binding, and the only thing that granted PsyStar any access to or use of OS X. I could certainly be wrong on that, tho.
They had no license to re-distribute the software: they purchased a usage license, that explicitly does not license redistribution. And they where re-distributing the software for profit anyway. Therefore, they obviously did not have a suitable license. I will grant, tho, that “no license” and “no suitable license” aren’t the same thing, so maybe my statement was exagerated.
You’re right on both counts. Very well: they where not appropriately compensating Apple, as they where engaged in activities, using Apple’s copyrighted works in ways in which they where not licensed, that where generating revenues that where not being shared with Apple (past the initial purpose of a copy of OS X).
Edit: I just checked, and the injunction granted Apple at least tacitly affirmed that OS X was licensed, not sold, and that Apple’s EULA — which explicitly prohibited distribution or resale of the software — was in force. If we’re going to to have an internet-fight about whether PsyStare stole Apple’s copyrights, then “what rights do you get when you buy OS X” is very much a pertinent question… with the answer provided by Apple’s EULA.
Edited 2009-12-18 00:24 UTC
One more reason never ever to buy Apple-products.
As a consumer, I want to decide how I use a product for which I paid. Not being forced by the vendor to buy stuff I do not want.
Apple puts its OS on very common hardware nowadays, overcharging for its label.
It is done.
If you want a losing business model, try making Mac clones. This is a repeat of attempts in the 90’s when several other companies tried much of the same, with much of the same final result – being pushed out of business by the Big-A. Yet another reason I’m not a big Apple fanboy.
Well, it was good business for the clone makers, while it lasted. It was also good for Mac OS users (I had a Motorola StarMax machine back in the mid-90’s). But cheaper, faster clones that did not grow the Mac OS market share was doubly bad for Apple. To them, it was an experiment gone bad.
I would love to see new, legal Mac clones, but I don’t think it’s going to happen again.
“Effectively, if PsyStar was a Dutch company, Apple would have legs to stand on to legally force them to stop distributing Mac OS X Leopard pre-installed.” Thom Holwerds
“A lot of people (i.e., people who value their rights) believe that the consumer should be put first, not the companies. Clearly, the American justice system, legislators, and a number of Apple fanatics believe otherwise. Sadly, they appear to be in a majority in the US.” Thom Holwerds
Thom, why do you keep singling out Americans and anyone else that disagrees with your naive view and calling them all…fanboys?
Even so called ‘experts’ in your own country disagree with you, yet you still insist that everybody is in the wrong… apart from you.
Why is that?
will apple be emboldened enough to go after Cydia and others that make money by encouraging people to jailbreak their iPhones?