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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).
Cue all the replies from people who think they should have the right to install software from a company onto any piece of hardware they want.
Apple sells systems. In the old days, nobody would even think about separating the software and hardware of an Atari, Apple, Amiga or Commodore computer.
The more you guys push to "free" Mac OS X, the more you guys risk of seeing the opposite laws being written, giving HP, Dell, Acer and others the ability to sign exclusive contracts with Microsoft. No more unlocked computers, no more OSS. Be very, very careful what you guys wish for.
So was it wrong when Compaq cloned the IBM BIOS?
Apple has already shut down manufacturers which made better MacOS compatible hardware than they did. Power Computing and UMAX used to make better MacOS hardware than Apple did. Power Computing, for example, had faster hardware than Apple itself. One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned as CEO was to shut down the clone market by pulling the plug on licensing. I guess one of the things he learned from running NeXT was that there was little money to be made in a niche software OS business. NeXT's move to a pure software based business model around OpenStep was its own undoing.
It's still inane. I argue this is similar to time-shifting. If they paid for the copies, who cares where they install them?
You can argue as much as you like, but Judge Alsup didn't agree with you. Mostly because that is not what happened.
Psystar paid for boxes with MacOS X and a license that allows installation on one Apple-labeled computer. They shipped their computers with these _unopened_ boxes. Whoever bought one of their computers now has a box with MacOS X which they can install completely legally on any Apple computer. Clearly these boxes have _nothing_ at all to do with the software that Psystar installed on their computers. Actually, the court saw evidence that the software in the boxes and the software installed was not the same. Psystar didn't even bother to argue in court that they bought boxes with MacOS X. Had they bought boxes with Windows 7, or boxes full of popcorn, it would have exactly the same legal effect - none whatsoever.
Let me say that again: Psystar bought boxes with MacOS X and sold them on. If you buy MacOS X and sell it on, then there are no rights that stick with you.
Apple isn't doing an after-sale tie-in. You don't *have* to ever upgrade your computer.
What they're doing is saying that when you buy a software upgrade, here are the terms and conditions. If they offer the upgrade and they also offer a different SKU as a bare install disk, then they shouldn't be allowed to say what hardware you can run it on, but that's a different story. In psystars' case, they were acting as retailers, not end-users. I don't think apple cares if the end user makes themselves a hackintosh, but they don't want competition in the hardware segment.
Is what they're doing anti-competitive? Yes. That's why they're using trademark and copyright law, not saying "this is illegal because we control the hardware." Or they're exporting the Steve Jobs RDF. At this point, who gives a crap?
After all, if you don't want Windows, you can get linux, you can get bsd, you can get menuet, and a bunch of other freely available operating systems. You want OSX? Then help someone make a works-alike port of Cocoa and Carbon and Aqua and IOKit - or go play around with this, or any one of a number of things.
I'm not sure why these smaller companies keep trying to take on the big boys, though, when they know they'll get crushed, like a nut.
Check out the Groklaw article on the case. It appears that getting sued by Apple was part of Psystar's business plan from the get-go. They actually marketed the idea to VC outfits as a reason to invest in the company.
What Psystar was more than anything else--certainly more than a computer manufacturer--was a case of investor fraud. Standby for shareholder lawsuits in 3...2...1...
This ain't rocket surgery.
Prove that they weren't less reliable. You sound like someone who never had the dubious pleasure of dealing with these machines. It's personal experience, but every Power Computing and UMAX machine I ever had to deal with needed a new PSU within a year. The cheap RAM they used often failed within a few months. They were a pain to take apart, too - sharp edges everywhere. You get what you pay for.
They're amoral, not evil. Almost all companies are, especially large ones.
Their criterion for taking action is solely this: Does the end result garner more profit than inaction?
Moral, ethical and legal concerns are irrelevant provided that this condition is met. They usually appear to follow those guidelines, but only because failing to conform costs a great deal of money. Be it through a PR disaster decimating sales, a heavy fine, or other penalty.
Interesting choice of example, since Logic is Mac-only for the sole reason that Apple bought eMagic. Prior to that Logic was also available for Windows. The windows Logic users were left high and dry with no further updates or support whatsoever. Think about it - Logic for Windows was a $399 piece of software. It was also rather unorthodox, leaving users to learn entirely new audio software. Very few were of a mind to buy a Mac I assure you.
I find it ironic that a Mac user would be proud of Apple for some of its most anti-competitive behaviour, especially in this thread of all places. Apple quashing Psystar is completely legal and IMO justified, but it's nothing to be proud of.
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It was fairly widely known that these cheaper machines skimped on parts, support etc but the market for these machines (while they existed) was the cutthroat commodity market, much like today's PC industry. Caveat emptor and all that.
And yes, they caused some degree of confusion with consumers and hurt Apple's image, even though they weren't Apple products.
The phrase you're looking for (in UK law) is the "Golden Rule." It's one of the methods of interpretation of law, alongside "Literal Rule" and "Mischief Rule". The Golden Rule looks at the strictest wording of the law as applied, and decides if it leads to an absurdity. If that is the case, it is within the power of the Judge to re-interpret the law along the lines of how Parliament would have expected it to be understood. Having a piece of shrink-wrap plastic around a DVD being the centrepoint of how this law is interpreted seems to me (non-lawyer) as an absurdity.
Alternatively, the Mischief Rule allows a Judge to decide if an action sufficiently similar to the law in question, but not specifically covered by the law, is still a breach of that law. A man standing in a flower bed using a stick to steal car keys on a hook is not technically guilty of burglary (you must enter the property to commit a burglary). However, under the Mischief Rule the Judge can say that the tool was used under his control to commit the act, purely as a means of convenience, and say that without the stick the defendant would have to enter the property to perform the same action. Therefore stealing the keys from inside the property with the stick is still birglary. Same thing here; S/He can say that the EULA stipulation and firmware requirements are to prevent the use of the software on unsupported hardware which may affect the end user experience to the detriment of Apple's image. Therefore the technicalities listed as allowing Pystar to legally create their products do not apply.
IANAL, blah blah. Opinion with a little knowledge.
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