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Psystar Crushed In Court
We've been following the case of Mac cloner Psystar for some time now. Apple was just handed a summary judgement over Psystar, and as usual Groklaw has the scoop. Here is the order (PDF), though PJ supplies it in text form at the link above. "Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. ... It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. ... So that means damages ahead for Psystar on the copyright issues just decided on summary judgment, at a minimum. The court asked for briefs on that subject. In short, Psystar is toast." Reader UnknowingFool adds, "There are still issues to be decided but they are only Apple's allegations: breach of contract, induced breach of contract, trademark infringement, trademark dilution; trade dress infringement, state unfair competition, and common law unfair competition. Even if Psystar wins all of them, it is unlikely to help them very much."
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. ... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued .
Are they going to shoot up in value in the history of computers market?
it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
The real question is: do they even need to in order to maintain their ridiculous profit margins?
Functional programming... for real men!
Microsoft is very happy with the status quo. Apple voluntarily limits itself to the tiny niche that is their own hardware. As is, they're absolutely no threat to Microsoft.
Their real profit these days is the iPod/iPhone/iTunes segment. Which they would make approximately zero on if they were only available to Mac users.
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
You're right.
The single vendor lock-in is just killing them. They were doing so well when they allowed others to build Mac clones, they should just go back to doing that. Jobs was obviously an idiot for cancelling the scheme - if he hadn't the company may have been a household name by now, instead on teetering on the brink of disaster.
Advanced users are users too!
Meh. Apple is pretty happy where they are. If their hardware suits you and fits your needs, buy it as necessary. Otherwise, avoid it. Many many people have a hard time doing that. If Apple finds themselves needing to change because of this down the road, they will. It's that simple.
If you're building a hackintosh, good for you. Tinkering with things like that can be fun. But please don't start acting like Apple is supposed to support you. Don't install it on production machines. The hacking part of the hackintosh is supposed to be half the fun anyway. But that is it.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Oh yeah, don't forget CUPS, WEBKIT, and a few other useful tools.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
OS X is a decent operating system, but few people can be satisfied by a single hardware vendor. Might as well write off Apple as a player now, as it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
This statement seems silly on the face of it, and would benefit from some, you know, supporting evidence.
Mac's marketshare has been steadily increasing for quite some time now. Not to mention that I know lots o' Windows folks who swear by HP/Dell/Sony (pick one) for their personal computers, and Unix/Linux admins who will only buy Sun or SGI or whatever.
Even outside of the computer realm, people become enamored of particular brands all the time - be it automobiles, televisions, appliances... whatever. And once they lock themselves into that mindset, it is not easy for them to change their opinions.
#DeleteChrome
All this goes to show is that, contrary to the statements of some Slashdotters, Psystar did not re-install OS X as-is. They replaced key segments, including the bootloader and kernel extensions, in order to get it to install on commodity hardware. That makes Psystar the distributors of a derivative work, thereby violating copyright laws. This is not about the EULA:
"Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X," the ruling reads. "Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions."
I fail to understand how Psystar is even within light years of being right on this issue.
This space left intentionally blank.
The claim that OS X is "absolutely irrelevant to any reasonable person" [emphasis mine] isn't a terribly reasonable statement.
By that logic, Windows is irrelavent (to any reasonable person) because you are tied to a single software vendor.
Even assuming I agreed with you regarding whether or not Apple gave licensing a "real" chance (which I haven't yet decided, but leaning towards not), I don't see any compelling reason for them to roll the dice (again) on such an experiment, considering both their present commercial performance AND reported customer satisfaction.
But, for the sake of entertaining a thought: what specific choices on Apple's part regarding the handling of licensing Mac OS would have constituted giving it a "real" chance?
So long as OS X is tied to a single vendor, it's absolutely irrelevant to any reasonable person
Windows is also tied to a single vendor - Microsoft. If they screw up - like they did with e.g. Windows ME and Vista - it doesn't matter how many OEMs can deliver the hardware to run it on. Linux is multivendor - and not tied to a specific hardware company - but compared to Windows and Mac it has strengths and weaknesses. It's not the only relevant one.
I've been through the links and it just looks like a company wanted to sell a cheap Mac clone. I don't get what one or a firm would get in setting up a clone company just to get sued by Apple.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
please explain when psystar did create an altered derivative work?
Also you have the right to do whatever you want to software installed on your computer, the only thing that could possibly be illegal is distribution.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
If Psystar was a stalking horse then the only reason that makes sense is that someone wants Apple to lock their OS to their hardware. Apple doesn't seem too concerned by hobbyists building Frankenmacs. Their ever vigilant lawyers haven't been jackbooting down doors and dragging offenders to court. There have been instances in the past where an OS-maker has turned a blind eye to, if not actually facilitating, its OS being pirated simply to deny a competitor marketshare. Maybe somebody was worried that Apple was moving in this direction. However, if Apple is provoked into action by a startup selling Frankenmacs might they not decide to implement a TPM system to lock the OS to Macs-only? No more hobby Frankenmacs and Apple is seen as not only closed software but closed hardware too. The Technorati would be incensed and Apple would wear the black eye forever.
I would speculate that Apple is not really threatened by Frankenmacs in general. The kind of hobbyist who is technically inclined and is willing to put something like this together is probably outside of their target audience. I have known people who bought Macs not because they were fans of Apple, but because they were dissatisfied with PCs loaded with Windows. They were not technically inclined and most of their PC problems could be put into two broad categories: configuration issues and malware. They found Macs to be a breath of fresh air not because they think Apple is "hip" and "cool" but because they found its GUI to be easy and intuitive and its underlying Unix system to be rock-solid stable and not prone to malware. They felt like they found something that "just worked" and felt like that is what they were paying a higher price for. I think of these folks as Apple's target audience.
For those reasons, TPM would be a rather extreme measure. They are, at least for now, taking the "other option" of going after commercial Frankenmac producers legally instead of technologically. The precendent this sets is quite likely to discourage other companies from doing the same. The only ones left who are building Frankenmacs are doing so personally and not commercially and for the reasons I mentioned above, are probably not Apple's main market.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Here...let me explain... First...get all teary...then start whining...then demand that everyone should give you what you want the way you want it because you want it to be that way. Then start stomping...screaming...crying...maybe rolling around on the floor. Basically...all you really need to do is throw a temper tantrum that would make a 2yr old proud and you will understand the entitlement mentality behind all of this. "I should get what I want, for the price I want, with the rules I want, because I want it that way." This is all driven by people who think that if they don't like the terms of an agreement that they can unilaterally alter them to meet their needs. These are the same people that dream up stupid shit ideas like "We reserve the right to alter this agreement at any time without notice" and then scream bloody murder when other like minded idiots lock them into a contract that says the same thing.
I don't like what the RIAA is doing. I haven't bought any RIAA music in almost 10 years now. I also haven't downloaded any music. I don't try to rationalize some weird shit reason that says it is ok for me to simply take what I want because they won't offer it to me on the terms I want. The same goes for software. I VERY rarely buy software, and I pretty much restrict most of my software to F/OSS stuff. There are a few software package that I have bought, but rather than downloading, I wait for a deal where I can pay the price I want, or I find another product. It is that simple. This insane entitlement mentality is getting disgusting, and is ultimately what drives much of behavior the whiners usually throw tantrums about. Tell me that the RIAA behavior is anything other than greedy entitlement bullshit...just the same as the idiots downloading music.
These battles are escalating battles between large groups of spoiled brats that think that they deserve whatever they demand on the terms they demand and they will go to great lengths to force their demands.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, it will soon see the end of Psystar.
Exactly. WTF is up with this quote from TFA:
And to those who argue that all that matters is that open source is a better way to develop code, let this case be a warning message. Apple makes fabulous code. Of course, the BSD community did a lot of it for them, but Apple makes it all just work for end users, and they do that beautifully. So no one can argue that for end users it is not fabulous code. It is.
Huh? How is this case a warning message to the people who argue that FOSS is a better way to develop code? I think PJ has lost it and from reading the rest of the articles on the site, seems to have become a rabid anti-MS Apple fangirl.
And she comes across as pretty weak in the law department as well. Look at how she skirts an important question
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out.
Erm what? Can't she shed some light on a very relevant and interesting theoretical instead of evading it just because it can be against her conclusion that Psystar got crushed? I don't see any insight in her article, just meaningless gloating that Apple won.
This space for rent.
Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Because that is their business model.
Excel to Lotus, Explorer to Netscape, C# to Java, Xbox to Playstation...the list goes on and on. It's what MS does.
It's nothing personal against Apple. That's just what they do.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Who are these few people that you speak of? If you mean slashdotters, that might be true. The average person buying a computer doesn't care. They mostly care if the computer they are buying will work for them. They should care more about these things but they don't.
Yes, we've heard the death knell of Apple before. That may have been closer to being true ten years ago when Apple was in deep trouble. Today they are sitting on $34 billion in cash. That doesn't account for total assets, that's just cash.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers.
Carroll Shelby, Mopar, and Magnuson Moss think you're full of crap.
Remember the Slashdot rules: even if any other physical or software manufacturer would be publicly flayed for committing an act, it's Right and Good and Justified if Apple does it.
I'm typing this on a Mac, probably the last Apple product I'll ever buy because of the crap they pull.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers.
If they did, GM would lose. There's no question that you have the right to buy a car, modify it, and resell it, just like you can with any other piece of physical property.
That's why this ruling against Psystar is so baffling: with a car, the legal issues are straightforward. With software, although you are allowed to make modifications like the ones Psystar made, and even to have a third party make them for you, if you're going to run a business like Psystar's, you have to be very careful about exactly how your process works -- even though the end result is exactly the same.
It shouldn't matter whether you copy a pre-patched copy of OS X onto the new machine, or whether you copy an identical copy first and then patch it. It shouldn't matter whether you sell the original copy of OS X to the customer and then patch it for him, or whether you sell him a copy that's already been patched and also give him the original. But apparently it does matter, and that's stupid.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Let's see:
Anti-SCO - check
Anti-MS - check
New entry Pro-Apple - check
It's even worse in the courts. Apple fanboys everywhere sitting on all those judicial benches.
I shake my angry fist at you Apple fanboys judges!
If you buy a copy of Windows, you can transfer it to a machine from any other vendor.
Further, you don't need to tie yourself to Windows at all anymore. If you develop for .NET, you can transfer to any system that supports that at any time.
entire company rests on the health of one man
What's your next guess?
Apple got along quite well during SJ's leave of absence. One thing he's not given enough credit for is recruiting. Apple's got world-class senior executives, and at least a dozen people who could run the show if Steve got hit by the proverbial bus. They wouldn't have Steve's panache, but they're just as dedicated to the quality of the products.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why in the world would Apple want to do that? They would (like Microsoft) have to support every POS computer ever cobbled together. For a couple of bucks. Apple can barely do upgrades on the two dozen or so models they actively support - every time Apple brings out a point release or even a security fix, it manages to hose various systems.
If they had to support everything, it would look like.... Linux. Command line patches everywhere. Pleasant hours troubleshooting Bog-knows-what. Nope. They're smart doing exactly what they've set up.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Undoubtably the iPod was and still is the coolest MP3 player. But you miss the point of WHY it became the coolest. Because it was the best. Because it had a great design, Because it had a great UI, because with iTunes it was the easiest to use. Normal people (i.e. not geeks) didn't want to piss about dragging MP3 files around to external disk drives, manually managing directory structures. They just want to rip their CDs in the easiest way possible and have the music appear on their iPods automatically. Let the computer take care of the administration grunt work.
Clearly you are entirely unaware of Apple's financial results, which even in the recession continue to outgrow pretty much everyone else. They don't need any business advice from you. They know far better than you do what is good for business.
That's a bunch of crap, and if that's what the decision says then First Sale law is over, at least until it gets escalated, and it will. First Sale is critical to whole long lists of industries. Using copyright law to restrict transfer of an object [blogspot.com] is an abuse... First Sale law permits you to modify things you've purchased.
If Psystar modified the OS X software and then sold the modified software (along with the computer), then they've both created a derivative work and distributed it. This should be clear cut in the courts. There is a circuit split over whether attaching a postcard to a tile and then reselling it constitutes the preparation and distribution of a derivative work, but the split is over the question of whether simply gluing the card to the tile is enough to qualify as a derivative work. In this case, modifying the software is almost unquestionably enough to constitute the preparation of a derivative work.
First sale will allow you to resell a copyrighted work that you have purchased; if, however, it's been modified enough to constitute a derivative work, you'll run afoul of copyright law. If, in the Seventh Circuit's tile case, the defendant had made a new piece of artwork, e.g. a collage or something with a bunch of postcard, that would likely pass the threshold for a derivative work.
If all Psystar had done was resell copies of unmodified copies of OS X along with their Hackintoshes, the issue of derivative works wouldn't come into play at all. It would be more a matter of whether Apple's EULA matters, etc. By modifying the copies, however, they opened up a big can of worms.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The simple truth is that Psystar DID have to use an image method to perform the installs, and so this should be considered a minimum necessary step towards exercising First Sale rights to do as you like with something you've purchased; but I do agree that they should have been required to use an image based on the same version of OSX that would appear in the box. First Sale law permits you to modify things you've purchased. If I am not permitted to modify Apple software, then arguably I can't even use it. And if I'm not permitted to use images to deploy OSX, then I'm certainly not even going to consider using it in the enterprise. If Psystar isn't allowed to use a custom image, then I must assume I'm not allowed to either.
Good points and I totally agree with your points on the validity of the First Sale law and it's necessity. However, you're missing a crucial point. Pystar not only modified OSX, (as is allowed for personal use), but it sold this modified derivative product, which is not protected by the First Sale law. You can use a modified product, but you can't sell. That's why Pystar lost, and lost big. I personally think that these and other copyright restrictions are too strict, but it is pretty clear in this case (summary judgement and all that) that Pystar broke it.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
The court rejected 117. Partially because Psystar's lawyers suck. (emphasis mine)
It has been shown time and time again MSFT only makes products good enough to beat the competition through brute force
I wish advocates of alternative anything would just be honest. Microsoft has made products that are better than their competition and sometimes they are breathtakingly so. Bill Gates may have been a ruthless businessman, but when he was at the helm, Microsoft made some good stuff.
MS BASIC was way better than other BASICs made by other computer companies. String arrays? Geez, on Atari Basic you had to fake them.
DOS was better than CP/M. It was quicker to learn, and, had a pretty spiffy version of BASICA with it, for its day.
FoxPro (bought by MS), was way better than the dBase (bought by Borland). And, Access was a better desktop database than anything else out there.
Windows of the DOS extender series was better than any other DOS task extender series. For that matter, Windows 95 is hands down superior to Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 and Windows NT blew OS/2 completely out of the water. OS/2, single message queue on the desktop, puhlease.
Excel was better than Quattro, and I'm sorry, Word was better than Word Perfect for Windows, by far. My favorite Word Process was Samna AmiPro, which, probably would have ruled them all had Lotus not bought them and screwed it up.
Yeah, everyone can cry fowl over Netscape being destroyed by Microsoft, but Microsoft IE 4 had a fully programmable DOM and an AJAX XMLHttpRequest.. what did Netscape have... you could script a form, had document.write for everything else...a half-assed buggy email, and a billion bugs.
Visual Studio was way better than Borland's C++ IDE was by around 2.0 of Visual Studio.
It's pretty simple. Microsoft is good, at times, especially when Gates was running the show. And there were many times Microsoft, despite all of these "advantages", competed, and flopped... does anyone remember PhotoDraw? That little gem was actually pretty innovative, but, Adobe crushed it like an insect. Now we have Silverlight going up against Flash, and lo, Silverlight is still not reliable in Firefox and didn't have drop shadows. WTF. They lose, and deservedly so.
And, Microsoft lets the XP franchise languish, releases Vista way too early, and so loses market share to Linux. Microsoft prices things off, and so, WinNT Server loses to Linux. Microsoft, after a brilliant run from IE4-6 (yeah, one time, 6 was the best... almost 10 years ago?), but now, can't catch a clue with IE8 and so FireFox and now Google Chrome and Safari are now gradually crushing them.
And now Visual Studio seems ever more confused, while Eclipse and other IDE's start to look better, and I switched.
Conspiracies, monopolies, all of that, can be an advantage, but really, only for so long. In this society, it is product that matters,
This is my sig.
Grand Central Dispatch is interesting, written fro scratch by Apple, and open sourced. You lose.
I don't need to "convince myself". I know better than you do because I bought one, and I know why I bought one. You didn't make that choice, and you're imagining reasons for whay other people (that you despise) did so. Which is rather ignorant of you.
The irony here is that you are the one who is arguing like an emotional sorority girl.
(or Linux)
(I'm not familiar with the details of the Psystar case and so I don't know if this company did anything wrong or not. Neither do I really care. This post is not a defense of Psystar.)
I cut my teeth on an Apple II+ way back when 64k was a lot of memory.
So why don't I like Apple today?
Because they seek to monopolize the markets created by their products.
Many years ago I bought a Quadra 700 on the cheap because its hard drive was dead. I had a good SCSI drive that I planned to use with it. Then I found out that unless my drive came from Apple, the MacOS partitioning and filesystem tools would pretend it didn't exist. Looking for help, I received many lies from Mac fanboys about how SCSI was just an electrical standard and that the Mac SCSI devices used a different command set. That was a flat out lie that is easily falsified. That they would insult me with such an obvious canard was astonishing. If someone likes a particular product then that is fine. But when they LIE in order to promote it or to obscure its flaws, then that is just plain disgusting.
Apple specifically created their filesystem tools to kill the 3rd party market for hard drives and other peripherals such as CDROM drives.
This wasn't a singular example either, but part and parcel of that company's nature. I won't purchase products from a company that tries to prevent me from purchasing complimentary products from anyone else.
Apple is continuing with this tradition today by tying their operating system to Apple branded PCs. There are people at work who use Macs and it would be nice to be able to support the platform. But doing so requires that I go out and purchase a new computer, at a significant price hike, just so I can run their operating system. If the hardware was different, such as it was back in the PowerPC or 68k days, then that would be understandable. But the hardware is not different. These are standard PCs with special hardware included that their OS searches for before it will allow itself to be installed. Same story as the hard drives with tags in the firmware.
So I just don't buy anything from Apple. I don't buy their computers. I don't buy their MP3 players. I don't buy their phones. I avoid them. I tell anyone who asks me to do the same, and I explain why.
If they ever change their tune and stop playing keep away, then maybe I'll reconsider. Till then they can blow me.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation.— Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The court's logic seems to be that first sale doctrine does not cover copying to an "imaging server", therefore everything Psystar did afterwards was also illegal.
Which might imply Mac cloning could be legal if it was done 'by hand'. However, the court also found that bypassing Apple's lock-out mechanism violated the DMCA, which seems rather dubious to me.
(Also I have to complain. 90% of the discussion here is computards arguing Apple sucks/Apple rules/I like my iPod, and ignoring the issues at hand. Slashdot is really full of knuckledraggers nowdays.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Webkit is based off of KHTML, but if you have ever actually used both of them it will become immediately obvious it is not just a set of bugfixes. We are talking about a boatload of additional functionality.
For the record, I am not an Apple fanboi. I'm a card-carrying linux using, mac hater.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
This statement seems silly on the face of it, and would benefit from some, you know, supporting evidence.
My experience every time:
I pick an Apple model I could use, and compare to a similar PC - no big difference.
I pick the PC I want, try to find something Apple has matching that - Apple loses bigtime.
The only explanation I have for Apple's success is that people don't feel the difference... computers like all have a gigahertz multicore processors, gigs of memory, terabytes of disk hundreds of GPU shaders, all sorts of ports and wireless and whatever. That only form factor and software really matters, the limited and expensive selection of everything else does not. I'm guessing that's true for many people, honestly I've been a power user almost all my life but lately even the most bloated abominations of software malpractice run decently. More speed is starting to be "nice to have", nothing more.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I disagree. I think the PC revolution started when Compaq made the first clones of the IBM PC. Before then, there were home computers, but all of them had proprietary designs and clones were effectively illegal. After Compaq, the door was open to a huge number of manufacturers, all making "100% IBM Compatible" computers that would run the same software. This - the competition and evolution that it created - propelled the PC to worldwide success. The revolution could not have happened without an open platform. The PC crushed proprietary competitors like the Amiga and Archimedes even though those machines were technically superior at the time because the economics of the open market were overwhelming.
Apple is the only survivor from this time, but it, too, was very nearly destroyed by the juggernaut.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
In any other case the slashdot crowd would be raging and the megacorp who crushed the small upstart's website would be hacked, but wouldn't be visible because of the simultanious DDoS attack. Only because the megacorp is Apple and the rules with them are somehow different.
Seriously. Find me another case where Slashdot cheers a EULA being upheld. Find me another case where a DMCA attack is applauded. Listen up ya numbbuts, EULAs are always evil. The DMCA is always evil. Even when Steve Jobs is crushing a small competitor. What Pystar was doing may be illegal (I'd argue that point though) but I double dog dare any fanboy to stand up here and defend the MORAL position Apple took.
Either what Apple sells in those boxes are full copies of OS X or they are upgrades. Apple insists they are full copies when it suits their arguments AND equally insists they are mere upgrades when they need to crush Pystar. Make up yer fracking minds.
Democrat delenda est
Jesus Fucking H Christ. You are like the 10th moron in this thread who quotes part (a) of that section, but is completely utterly incapable of reading on to part (b). If you actually read part (b), it expressly prohibits resale of the modified versions.
Are you all aiming for the Selective Reading of the Year Award or what?
I think the problem comes in when you image dump it to a bunch of commodity hard disks and sell hundreds of machines from the one copy you bought on the single cheapo Apple computer you bought.
First-sale allows you to sell that one copy, or possibly put it in one new machine, not open up a distribution center.
Psystar's boneheaded defense was that first-sale lets you, vis-a-vis, buy a $16 factory-recorded CD and a spool of a hundred 50-cent CD-Rs, and sell the "new product" at half price, turning a $7.50 profit on each disc. They were wrong. Copyright law doesn't look kindly upon that.
And that is why Psystar got pounded. If they bought a hundred cheap iMacs, modded the software, and put it in exactly a hundred high-end workstations, first-sale might have a ghost of a chance of applying.
But then, you'd have to be an individual reselling, and not be a reseller business, incorporated to turn a profit on a derivative work, which you don't have the rights to and is also a violation of copyright. This is what you think is "stupid." That I should be able to, say, delete one of the mediocre filler tracks off of that $16 dollar CD and sell it for $8. It doesn't matter if I convert them to MP3's first, etc., I'm selling them, as a business, which makes me a distributor.
It's copyright. You can't copy it for resale. You can't make a derivative work for resale if you don't have the consent of the rights holder. You can't redistribute it for substantial gain. Copyright law has been that way since long before the DMCA. The operative words are "resale" and "substantial gain." This is why it's a summary judgment, because Psystar didn't have a case. They were like the New York Yankees showing up to play water polo here.
What Apple did is in accordance with the law, and it's their duty to their shareholders to defend their rights. I won't go so far as to claim that they were "right," or "good," but if folks don't like this, then they need work to change the law, because that's what the law says.
In my experience, the law is almost always "stupid," or at the very least it's blunt. It doesn't exist as a "common sense way to live" and while the courts are a system, the law is not. The law is there to arbitrate conflicts when all other options have broken down, with little to no room for compromise so there is a clear "winner." If you want compromise, or sense, you settle outside of court as soon as possible. We should not look to the courts for guidance, we should look to the courts for a clear redress of our grievances when all else fails.
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Toro
No, I don't think Apple much cares, or at least they realize that suing users is a losing proposition. Apple's protection strategy is little more than the equivalent of a chain on the door. It doesn't so much keep people out as place them in the position of having to break something to get in, thereby serving notice that people who run Mac OS X on foreign hardware are in violation of their user agreements. Of course, the chain is cut almost immediately, as Apple surely knows it will be. They just put it back with each new release, reminding everybody, "this upgrade is for our computers only, and if you want to violate our rights, you'll have to take the trouble to patch it.
'
I was born in 1964. How about you?
I'm well aware of how Apple's near-death experience happened, and I'm telling you from direct personal experience that Apple's management got a major overhaul when SJ returned.
As for Microsoft's $150M, that was their downpayment on keeping their top execs out of jail for stealing Quicktime code for Windows Media. They were caught red-handed, and Steve made them a deal. They could walk, and Apple wouldn't press charges for criminal copyright infringement, in return for a promise to keep shipping MS Office on the Mac for five years.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Seriously, these specific users you talk about don't find Mac's GUI immediately "easy and intuitive" nor the underlying "Unix system" "rock-solid stable" nor do they even know. These are things Mac fanboys like to say, however.
Maybe I'm not part of Apple's target market - since I use a MacBook I inherited from my wife when she upgraded - but I like Apple for many of the same reasons I like Linux (or BSD for that matter). The convenience of being able to bust out a zsh shell counts for a lot when performing operations that are actually quicker and simpler when performed from the command-line than with a GUI. I was actually somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that OS X in fact comes with zsh "out of the box". I had figured this would be considered an unnecessary detail on a Mac, but obviously not.
Apart from that, life with Apple is a trade-off between having everything "just work" and having an inflexible GUI of Apple's choice rather than my own.