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Apple Asks Judge To Shutter Psystar's Clone Unit
CWmike writes "Apple wants a federal judge to shut down Psystar's Mac clone operation and order the company to pay more than $2.1 million in damages, according to court documents. The move was the first by Apple since US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that Psystar violated Apple's copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it installed Mac OS X on clones it sold. Alsup's Nov. 13 order, which granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and quashed Psystar's similar request, was a crushing blow to the Florida company's legal campaign. In a motion filed Monday, Apple asked Alsup to grant a permanent injunction that would force Psystar to stop selling any computer bundled with Mac OS X; using, selling or even owning software that lets it crack Apple's OS encryption key to trick Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware; and 'inducing, aiding or inducing others in infringing Apple's copyright.'"
Groklaw has summarized Apple's request as well, and noted that Apple has also filed a motion to dismiss Psystar's litigation in Florida (or transfer it to California, where the above injunction was filed).
Yes, special exceptions are made for software. One of the notable ones is that a legally owned copy may be duplicated into memory for the purpose of running the program. Notice the three words near the beginning which Psystar failed to satisfy.
(not a lawyer, and all that)
In the old days, nobody would even think about separating the software and hardware
Sure they would. In 1980 I had a TRS-80 model I, with two single-density, single-sided floppy drives. When I booted it, I could boot Radio Shack's operating system (TRS-DOS) or one of several alaternates including NEWDOS, LDOS etc.
That's technically different; Compaq used the clean room to create a new BIOS that was compatible with IBM's. It's just like Microsoft can't do a thing about ReactOS, a free system designed to run all Windows apps.
Circumcision is child abuse.
You try to sell Solaris machines under a name that doesn't involve Sun Microsystems and let's see how long you do in the market. Or IBM OS/360. Or Palm WebOS. Or...
Fujitsu. They even design their own SPARC CPUs which are better performing than Sun's. In fact, Sun has done such a craptastic job designing UltraSPARC V and Rock, that they have to sell high-end servers using Fujitsu's processors to be able to compete. Amdahl Corporation manufactures IBM S/360 hardware.
The way the law is written you are not free to go and buy 100 copies of a book and resell them without permission. Distribution rights are exclusive rights of the copyright holder.
On the First sale doctrine:
"With reference to trade in tangible merchandise, such as the retailing of goods bearing a trademark, the "first sale" rule serves to immunize a reseller from infringement liability. Such protection to the reseller extends to the point where said goods have not been altered so as to be materially different from those originating from the trademark owner."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?