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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).
I wouldn't call them fools if their business strategy makes them alot money.
I don't like the way they do things either, but all in all, they picked a route - stuck to it - and have generally been flawless in its execution.
As you said, the fools are the ones buying the product, but if its what they want, who am I to argue?
Here's what you're missing. Dell did that and does that with their Mini whatever netbooks, and nobody is stopping them. There are plenty of Hackintosh Mini 10s. Psystar, however, bought, modified, and unlawfully *redistributed* the modified software for use on their computers.
This isn't a case where Psystar was making boxes, buying retail copies of MacOS, installing those on the boxes and selling box and MacOS together. That's how Psystar portrayed it, but it turns out that what they were actually doing was cloning all the machines from a master copy of the OS, then including a (still-unopened) copy of MacOS with the box. If you want to use 17 USC 117 (running programs) and 17 USC 109 (First Sale), you have to actually observe the forms. It's not enough to claim that the result is the same as if you'd observed the forms. Thus the case was a slam-dunk for Apple.
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?
Has Microsoft tried to sue WINE for allowing and encouraging Linux users to run MS Office under linux? Does Ubisoft care if I get Tomb Raider Underworld working on my copy of Windows ME? You can install Windows XP onto a machine with 32MB's of ram, MS won't try to stop you selling machines in that configuration.
Apple is the only company I know that attempts to restrict where it's software will run. All other companies will just refuse to support a platform and they state plainly what platform the software has been tested on (and will be supported on) and what they believe are the minimum requirements.
So why are Apple special? If people aren't expecting Apple to provide any support and there are no technical reasons for the software not running, why can't people do what they want? Every single other company works that way.
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.
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.
Your car analogy is incomplete, and incorrect.
Instead imagine I buy a Ferrari engine, and put it into a Dodge Neon. Now this is entirely legal, and none of their business. The lawyers will only get involved when I start building these in bulk, and start a company to sell my new "Ferrari compatible" cars.
Still not perfect, but a lot closer than the original.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
The whole point of this story is that Psystar were modifying OS X without authorisation, storing the unauthorised modified copy on a server, and cloning those modified copies onto third party machines. How many companies do that (or get away with doing that) with Windows*? NONE. Office? NONE. In fact, if you took Ubuntu and modified it, then tried to resell or distribute it as "Ubuntu" and not under some other name, you would be at the wrong end of a lawsuit.
I realise here that Apple really doesn't want OS X to be a commodity OS, they want it tied to the hardware. But the case against Psystar is based on perfectly legitimate concerns, even if many Slashdotters don't like the end results. Apple are not the bad guys here, they're simply using a legitimate legal issue to achieve the end result they desire.
* before anyone starts talking about Dell etc. making installation images - they are authorised to do this by Microsoft under a licensing agreement, they aren't going out and buying retail copies of the OS.
.. evil. This is nothing new. They've had the same predatory behavior for well over 2 decades now.
It's hard for a lot of us to accept, because nearly everyone here owns an apple product they genuinely enjoy (I own several myself), but the truth is Apple is evil.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.