Apple Says Booting OS X Makes an Unauthorized Copy

recoiledsnake writes "Groklaw has an extensive look at the latest developments in the Psystar vs. Apple story. There's a nice picture illustrating the accusation by Apple that Psystar makes three unauthorized copies of OS X. The most interesting, however, is the last copy. From Apple's brief: 'Finally, every time Psystar turns on any of the Psystar computers running Mac OS X, which it does before shipping each computer, Psystar necessarily makes a separate modified copy of Mac OS X in Random Access Memory, or RAM. This is the third unlawful copy.' Psystar's response: 'Copying a computer program into RAM as a result of installing and running that program is precisely the copying that Section 117 provides does not constitute copyright infringement for an owner of a computer program. As the Ninth Circuit explained, permitting copies like this was Section 117's purpose.' Is Apple seriously arguing that installing a third party program and booting OS X results in copyright infringement due to making a derivative work and an unauthorized copy?"

Comments

Unauthoriazed Copy

[fidget42]

Is Apple seriously arguing that installing a third party program and booting OS X results in copyright infringement due to making a derivative work and an unauthorized copy?

I think what they are saying is that everytime you run an unauthorized copy of a program, you infringe its copyright.

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[sopssa]

On top of that Apple has a good case here because Blizzard already won similar argument before

Blizzard won on two arguments: first, that if a game is loaded into RAM, that can be considered an unauthorized copy of the game and as such a breach of copyright; second, that selling Glider was interfering with Blizzard's contractual relationship with its customers.

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[BlueBoxSW.com]

I agree, "unauthorized copy" is the key concept here.

I hate how slashdot posts these half baked articles.

What is this, the Drudge Report?

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[bahamat]

This goes back to the 80's, or possibly even 70's and deals with how computers work on a fundamental level. As you know, copyright means that the rights holder is the only one allowed to authorize copies. When a program runs, it is copied from the storage medium (i.e., disk, but back then it was tape) and into RAM. That's a copy. Copyright law was modified to explicitly permit these types of copies (I believe they are termed "transient copies") for license holders.

Apple's argument goes back to this statute. Apple's license says that you can only run Mac OS X on Apple hardware. Thus, the copy from disk to RAM on non-Apple hardware is an unauthorized copy.

It makes sense, from a letter-of-the-law point of view, and I find it very interesting because by and large nobody thinks about software copying in that sense anymore, but back in the day it was a very hot issue. I'm not saying I endorse this argument, but IIRC, this is how the law is written. Also, IANAL, so if you want to know more about this, go look it up yourself.

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[IntlHarvester]

The two copies here (and the one on psystar's server) are not.

And that's the key point. Psystar admitted to using disk duplication software to install OS X, which is almost assuredly a violation of copyright law. (PC OEMs and corporations need to obtain an special licence from Microsoft to do this.) After that it doesn't really matter how many additional copies were made.

Plus, Apple's legal strategy here is "throw the book at them" -- including traditional copyright, EULAs, derivative works, DMCA, trademarks, and patents. I wouldn't read too much into any particular argument, Apple will find something that sticks.

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[mysidia]

Capitalizing it or not has no significance.

Yes it can be. BSD licenses allow software to be restricted in it's use but the BSD is still open source, notice I did not capitalize "open" or "source".

You're using a strawman argument, and you're completely wrong. The BSD license allows me to take the source, modify it, and give you source code with a restriction that you may not use it in a certain way, for example, I may include a restriction that you may not modify the code or re-publish parts of it.

In that case, the code I received under BSD license is open source, the code I gave you is not open source, because of the additional restrictions I have imposed.

If I take BSD licensed code and give you only binaries (but no source) or add restrictions to the license, such as "You may not use this for commercial purposes", or "You are only allowed to run this program on fridays", or "You may not create derivative works, or republish this code",

Then the code I gave you is not open source software.

Re:Unauthoriazed Copy

[Lord Kano]

When Jobs came, one of the first things he did was up the major version number from 7 to 8 because the license for Mac OS 7 allowed third parties to make computers that could run Mac OS.

Thus fucking over millions of customers and potential customers in the process.

It's just my guess but I think the reason Apple is doing this because some of the price that goes into it's computers is the price of developing the operating system.

That's precisely why each licensee had to pay Apple a fee. If they weren't getting enough, they could have negotiated a higher fee.

If Psystar wins this case, it will give a carte blanche to everybody else to create Mac clones, bringing Apple back into the situation they were in in 1998.

Hardly. Apple would be in a worse situation. In the late 90s they had fairly unique hardware. The only affordable PPC computers were either an Apple or a clone. Today, their hardware is custom x86. Everyone and their brother is making hardware that could run the OS if not for Apple's artificial barrier.

Personally I'm rooting for Apple on this one. It's their business model, and it has benefits for their users.

Apple is certainly entitled to try whatever business model they choose, but the are not entitled to have the courts enforce their wishes to make higher profits.

LK

Litigated before

[metaomni]

This has actually been litigated before -- as crazy as it sounds, courts HAVE consistently held that booting a computer (and thus loading it to memory) does create a copy. End-users are granted a license to do so, and here Pystar doesn't have such a license. Crazy yes -- but Apple is on solid precedential ground in claiming so.

Re:Litigated before

[Mr2001]

This has actually been litigated before -- as crazy as it sounds, courts HAVE consistently held that booting a computer (and thus loading it to memory) does create a copy.

Yes, but...

End-users are granted a license to do so, and here Pystar doesn't have such a license. Crazy yes -- but Apple is on solid precedential ground in claiming so.

No. Like Psystar said, 17 USC 117 grants the owner of a copy of a program the right to make copies or adaptations as needed to run it. You don't need a license from the copyright holder; copyright law itself gives you that right.

And before you respond with "it's licensed, not sold": (1) if you purchase a DVD containing a copy of OS X, you own a copy -- that's what owning a copy means; (2) most courts have found that software is actually sold, not licensed, regardless of what the company "licensing" it wants you to think.

Groklaw going down the drain

[recoiledsnake]

Groklaw and PJ seem to have turned the site into a slanted conspiracy site. She was insinuating that MS could be likely behind Psystar(why would MS risk invalidating EULAs on which their cash cows thrive?). Even in this article, PJ doesn't seem to defend the freedoms that she seems to hold dear in her Linux vs. SCO articles. Infact she seems to hold the DMCA dear and Groklaw has gone from giving a nice objective look at things to becoming like BoycottNovell, which is another site operating on anti-MS-at-all-costs grounds. She even fails to highlight the egregious abuse of copyright law that Apple is trying here which would ruin freedom to even run a program without paying for double licences. In fact she appears to side with Apple on this.

Old idea

[DoofusOfDeath]

Actually, wasn't the idea that copying a program from disk to RAM need specific permission, something that was ruled on very long ago?

I remember having a serious WTF feeling maybe 10 years ago when reading about a judge's ruling.

Psystar is 100% wrong

[Senjutsu]

The Supreme Court indicated in Eldred v. Ashcroft that it was comfortable with the view that Copyright governs even private copying like moving a programs bits from a CD to hard disk or from hard disk to RAM. This is a legally settled matter, and Psystar is quite wrong.

Apple owners would make same unauthorized copies

[leftie]

Seems like Apple hardware owners would be making the same unauthorized copies when they boot their computers.

If I'm I'm Psystar's legal team, I'd argue they make the same unauthorized copies that Apple's hardware owners make. If the Psystar process makes unauthorized copies, then Apple's does too.

Re:Anyone surprised?

[Windowser]

I don't think Apple has a right to say what piece of hardware you can run OS X on. It's paid for, end of story.

They may not have a right (morally, that is), but, since the EULA states what you can run OS X on, they would seem to have a legal right.

Not everyone lives in USA. Different places have different laws. Where I am, that EULA as no validity. You can't impose a contract to use your product after I bought it. You have to make me accept that contract before I buy it. So it looks like eveybody in Quebec can go buy OS X and run it on anything they seem fit, even a toaster if they can make it work.

Re:Slashdot--so we're against copyright now?

[mixmatch]

Maybe your confusion is due to the fact that you think the GPL zealot crowd actually cares about copyright. What we care about is freedom. In the GPL's case, it is guaranteeing everyone the freedom to take a program and modify it however they desire. In this case, the concern is about the freedom to use software one has purchased however one desires. As far as I know, this has not been settled by court as copyright infringement. Incidentally, you don't have to support everything about copyright or detest it completely. You can see good and bad implications and places where there is room for improvement. Its perfectly reasonable for me to want to see GPL content covered by copyright and not desire that 40-year old books also be covered.

Re:What Psystar is forgetting about

[The Cisco Kid]

Unless Apple has a contract signed by Psystar where they agreed to such terms, then Psystar is not a party to any such contract. Further, if they exchanged cash (or cash-equivalent, eg check, electronic payment, etc) for a physical item such as a disc, then they did in fact *buy* a copy of a program, and they are in fact owners of it.

Re:They might lose

[lorenlal]

From the (limited) cases I've had involving AppleCare, they'll support what they sold you. That's it. Anything you add is fine... But unless you bought it from Apple directly, that's all they'll cover.

If you get a new video card, and install it yourself and you get no picture, you'll need to remove the card and try again before they'll step in. Which is okay for those of us who'd be adding hardware anyway.

Re:They might lose

[Jerry Smith]

You're assuming they know that the person who purchased OS X is running it on a valid piece of Mac hardware. That is where it would get ugly. These OSX86's look like standard hardware when you profile them in System Profile. Apple could waste a lot of time and resources troubleshooting 3rd party hardware without even knowing they were troubleshooting a hackintosh. Especially if they don't inventory all of the hardware, or the hardware matches an actual Mac for the key components.

One the first thing an Apple employee registers is: The Serial-number. All serial-numbers are matched with a database that tells the employee what macintosh is on the other side with the customer. Psystar can't circumvent that.