Apple Files Suit Against Psystar

Reader The other A.N. Other, among others, alerts us to the news that Apple has filed suit against Psystar, the unauthorized clonemaker. (We've been discussing Psystar from the start.) The suit alleges violation of Apple's shrink wrap license and trademarks, and also copyright infringement. News of the lawsuit, filed on July 3, first surfaced on a legal blog. There's speculation that the case has been sealed.

Comments

It's mildly shocking...

[adder]

...that it took Apple this long to get the legal ball rolling on this!

Re:It's mildly shocking...

[revscat]

If it's all marketing then why does Apple have the highest consumer satisfaction rates in the entire industry?

If their products were crap, or even equivalent, consumers would not speak so highly of them, for so long after their purchases.

Re:It's mildly shocking...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is precisely why it's a good thing you don't have mod points.

Re:It's mildly shocking...

[Midnight Thunder]

I guess people forgot how they squashed the Mac clone market a decade ago by deciding to no longer license the ROM needed to run MacOS and thus putting many OEM companies out of business in one fell swoop.

I guess you forgot that the clone makers agreed not to go after Apple's market and invariably did. Apple's intention to allow clones was to expand where it couldn't, yet instead of expanding they went after what little of the market Apple had. After having being burnt last time, I am not sure that Apple wants to go through that again.

Re:It's mildly shocking...

[D Ninja]

If it's all marketing then why does Apple have the highest consumer satisfaction rates in the entire industry?

If their products were crap, or even equivalent, consumers would not speak so highly of them, for so long after their purchases.

So you would think. But, a couple things play against that.

1. Customers *expect* that an Apple will be a different experience than, say, a Windows machine. As a result, they're expectations are already geared towards, "This is going to be a good experience." As a result, they are more likely to have a good experience.

2. Face it - Apple products are expensive. Another psychological response that people have is that once they invest into something, they are more likely to stick with that something (and argue for that something) no matter how bad it is. So, it may be that someone spends $2000 on a new Mac, they have high expectations, they take it home and don't really like using it. However, they can't admit that because that means they made a bad decision. Hence...Macs are always awesome.

I know it sounds stupid. I thought so too until I read through the studies and performed some of my own in my work.

Never underestimate the power of someone to convince themselves of something if they don't want to be wrong or stupid.

Re:It's mildly shocking...

[Sandbags]

Let me poot it this way. On blogspot, a systems security company ran a series of articles called "Mad as Hell" where they took a large portion of their user base, switched them to Macs for 6 months, and did an exhaustive TCO analysis (on a side note, macs came out to be much cheaper to operate, almost by half, than cheaper windows boxes once security, man hours, and more came into play, he had a nice spreadsheet you could plug your own numbers into as well if your rates differed).

The point I'm making here is there were several key (read VOCAL) employees that tried to refuse to use a mac. After 6 months, those same employees BOUGHT the mac they were using from the company, and REFUSED to switch back to a PC.

I've been a mac user since 1984 (and apple user since 1980). Every mac I or my family has owned is still working today, except an iMac G4 that got fried by lightning) including a Lisa bought in 84 and an original imac 128K in 85. Sure, we've had HDDs and power suplies blow out, and they've been repaired, but since every component in a mac is basiccaly the same as a PC, except the motherboard of which I have NEVER had one fail (including the hundred or so macs in an advertising firm I ran IT for).

Saying that people are too proud to complain about their high dollar purchases? Let me tell you, people who buy expensive stuff are VERY vocal about it's issues. They expect it to work, work well, and never die. Try asking a tech at a mercedes dealership... I'd like to see some of your references showing how this psychological phenomenon was measured...

besides, most macs, feature to feayture, are CHEAPER than equivolent Dell systems. Sure, you can't get a Mac for $499, but lets be honest, you can't get a real PC for that either. (A PC that doesn't meet the minimum requirements to run the OS pre-installed on it does not countas a real PC)

I dare you, go to Dell's site, configure matching systems to an iMac, Powerbook Pro, and Mini. The Dell One is about $150 more expensive than an iMac, their gaming notebooks (keep in mind the pro has a very high performance graphics engine and is intended to play Wow and run virtual machines, it's not a toy) are $300-500 more expensive than the mac pro, even their SFF desktop is more than $100 more than a mini. You can get a basic notebook for about $100 less than a standard macbook, with part to part equivolent perfornamce, but the Dell is more than a ound heavier if you do, or more expensive if you go lighter. Nothing Dell has compares to the Air.

Don't want to dilute the elixir

[Hyppy]

Apple is and always has been a hardware company. They fear competition on the hardware front, because that's their primary business product: overpriced "luxury" computers. (cue the fanboy bashings)

Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir

[Budenny]

Common fallacious argument.

It does not matter whether you can duplicate a Mac for less. What matters is, after you have settled on a spec you want, or found a Dell or HP you want, can you duplicate that for the same price from the Apple product line?

95% of the time you can't. This is what makes Apple a rip-off.

It would only matter that you could not duplicate a Mac cheaper, if the Mac spec were the starting point for shopping. It very rarely is.

Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir

[Dan Ost]

Did anyone else try to read that post as a poem?

Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir

[revscat]

And finally, how successful would OS/X be if Apple sold it as software for any platform, Microsoft-style? It would be earth-shakingly successful, probably garnering 50% marketshare within one year. And probably making 10x more money than they do now.

They tried that before. It didn't work out too well. Also, you're wrong.

One of the strengths of OS X is that it runs on a limited, well-understood suite of hardware. Bugs are easier to fix, components are easier to tweak, and new features are more easily added. I do not, and never have, believed that Apple would be well served by opening up OS X. It's a tightly run ship (for the most part), and opening it up to all hardware would serve neither Apple nor end users.

Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir

[m.ducharme]

People feeling ripped off is what makes Apple a rip-off. If you're happy with your Mac, and feel you got good value for it, you haven't been ripped off. If you're unhappy with your Windows/PC, and want a Mac to replace it, but can't find one with comparable specs, don't buy one and you won't be ripped off.

Re:Don't want to dilute the elixir

[bigstrat2003]

I dunno if you've noticed or not, but Apple is the most arrogant company in computing. They will do the stupidest thing imaginable for a long, long time, before finally changing their ways and admitting that it was a bad idea. Look at how long it took them to drop the hockey puck mouse. Look at how long it took them to realize that they should make a mouse with more than one buttons. Look at how they still aren't making a real two-button mouse. Look at how long it took them to get with the program, and get on the same processor architecture as the rest of the world had been on for years.

Apple may one day sell OS X on other companies' hardware, but that point is years off, if it ever arrives, due to Apple's sheer overwhelming arrogance.

Guess we get to see just how far EULAs will go...

[tinkerghost]

Without the clause in the EULA that you will only run the OS on a genuine MAC, there is nothing here. So I guess we get to see just how far a shrink wrap EULA will go in the court. I'm not entirely certain that this is a good case for it, but it's not one of the worst.

Unfortunately, the 9th Circuit just ruled for Blizzard in their interpretation of a EULA violation negating the validity of license of legally purchased software & CA is in the 9th Circuit.

a boy can dream

[jtroutman]

Wouldn't it be nice if they fought this? If they said, hey, we bought your software, we can install it on whatever we want. And then, in my imaginary world, a judge sees their point of view and rules that once you purchase a piece of software, it's yours to do with as you please.

Not a bad business model...

[BUL2294]

1. Create a line of Mac clones.
2. Sell them to an unwitting public.
3. Have Apple file suit.
4. Pay bonuses to all the execs.
5. Declare bankruptcy.
6. Shut down all operations.

Guess what... Everyone who bought a Psystar is left totally unsupported (which includes the all-important security hole fixes) and the execs made a bundle... Now, could Apple go after the execs personally for copyright infringement or (the soon-to-be-defunct) Psystar? Ironically, there was no consumer fraud here--businesses go under all the time and anyone who bought a Psystar would have had to know that Apple wouldn't support them...

not sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a slightly more informative (less speculative) posting: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9328

Re:No surprise

[drspliff]

It takes a lot of preparation for them to reach this point and file proceedings, consider:

  * exec hears about it, if it were Microsoft chairs would be thrown
  * passed to the legal team to see if Apple have a case
  * legal sign off
  * paralegals do the groundwork, scrutinizing the EULA etc.
  * ...
  * ...
  * case is filed in court?

In the past I've tried bringing legal action for trademark infringement, and the whole process just to get things started can take months and months especially if you're in a large organization with N-layers of forms & approvals required for anything like this.

Re:Demand for OS X

[WK2]

[Apple has] the exclusive right to distribute [their] OS. As they should ... Now some small fry entrepreneur is ... selling PCs with OS X loaded on them. Despite the overwhelming legal precedent against them (I don't know of any official retailer that has gotten away with installing pirated versions of Windows on commodity PCs...

You seem to be confusing Psystar's behavior with piracy. They pay for their copies of OS X. Apple doesn't have a discount distribution center for their OS (for obvious reasons), so Psystar pays full retail price for each copy of OS X that they sell, and they use their right-of-first-sale rights to then resell that copy to their customers.

Yesterday Slashdot had a story about how it was judged that loading software in RAM is equivalent to distributing software. Psystar is loading it onto the HDD, so this ruling might be different. Of course, you could argue that Psystar is then distributing the HDD, but as mentioned before, right-of-first-sale gives them this right without the need for a license.

It's been a while, but I really hope for a sane copyright-related ruling this time. I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Competition Killer

[m.ducharme]

Er. Apple is a) a very small player in a market locked up by Microsoft (for OSs), and b) just one of many players in the home computer hardware market. By tying their hardware so firmly to the OS, they aren't so much killing competition as denying themselves extra sales of the OS.

I'm all for holding Apple to account for their licensing policies, but hyperbole doesn't help.

Re:Guess we get to see just how far EULAs will go.

[frission]

There's a little more to it now. It sounds more like they're suing because they took the Leopard update, opened it up, modified files in it, and re-released it for themselves. I think they're considering that a copyright infringement.

The EULA violation is insignificant

[Proteus]

I know the Slashdot hordes like to bitch and moan about EULAs -- not without cause, mind you -- but the EULA violation in this case might as well be a footnote.

If all Psystar had done was violate the EULA clause that said "hey, you won't do anything to make this run on non-Apple hardware", then this case would be about how enforceable that clause is.

Unfortunately, Psystar did much more egregious things than violate a silly EULA term. They, by their own public admission, modified a copyright-protected work, then redistributed these modifications without a license to do so. And they did it for commercial purposes, no less. Even under the traditional terms of copyright (as opposed to the mutilated corporate-serving terms we have now), that's just not cricket.

On top of that copyright infringement, they also noodle-headedly used at least one Apple trademark (the "Leopard" name and mark) to promote the sale of hardware and software.

I will be absolutely stunned if Apple doesn't prevail on the Copyright and Trademark parts of their case, though I do hope that the judge will find that a license to run software on a particular kind of hardware is not binding.

(Not a lawyer, this isn't advice -- I do know a thing or two about the law)