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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.
Out of interest where does, Microsoft Windows, Dos, Ubuntu, Photoshop, Autocad, Proteus, MS Office, Skype, All Games and just about any software I can think of come into this picture?
I guess it's because those companies don't have those provisions in their license agreements. From my perspective it would be detrimental to their business models to place those kinds of restrictions on their products. For Apple it helps their business model and therefore they have included that into the license. You can argue that it might be worthy of anti-trust, might not be the best business model (though evidence points to it being highly effective) or anything else you can think of. The fact that nobody else does this does not mean that it can't be done, just that those other parties haven't found it to be a worthwhile business idea.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
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.
much as TRS-DOS would be restricted to Radio Shack hardware.
TRS-DOS wasn't restricted to Radio Shack hardware - It ran on any of the TRS-80 clones, like the LMW-80. Most people ran 'better' OSes like NEWDOS, but if memory serves (and granted it was nearly 30 years ago) there was nothing preventing you from running TRS-DOS on a TRS-80 clone.
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.