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Judge Orders Permanent Injunction Against Psystar
AdmiralXyz writes "It appears to be the end of the road for infamous Mac clone-maker Psystar, as a federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against the company, banning it from selling its OS X-based hardware products, following November's ruling that Psystar was guilty of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Specifically, Judge William Alsup's ruling prevents Psystar from 'copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple; circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X; or doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X.' The ruling does not include Psystar's Rebel EFI software, which (in theory) allows users to boot OS X onto some Intel computers, but Alsup said that too would be unlikely to stand up in court if Apple decides to make a formal challenge."
Injunction or not, it would still be shot at the Israel border as ''Not Kosher".
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Just for fun..
Say Microsoft added a clause that Microsoft Window could _only_ be run on Intel machines. Would this ruling make it truly illegal to sell AMD machines with Windows on?
Who didn't see this happening (other than Psystar)?
Like Nawlinkwiki and Chris G.
Go to this Wikipedia and vandalize it. Tell them Willy on Wheels aka Grawp's Dad sent you.
Trolls sure are getting demanding these days. How much experience do I get for this quest?
Heh. What would've happened if they weren't able to create IBM PC Clones in the '80s? Today's computing world would've looked a lot different, I suppose.
Apple is within their rights to do this. If consumers thought it was a problem then it would impact Mac sales for Apple. Based on those sales, it does not appear consumers care. So it goes.
Every item I now produce and sell will be accompanied by an envelope only obvious once the buyer has brought it home. When the envelope is opened, it provides a series of restrictions on the person's use and re-sale of the product, not made known to them at the point of purchase.
Because I have copyright to the designs in the product, I am (apparently) allowed to define how the product is used and sold, not just how it is copied.
EULA ahoy!
who funded this exercise and why?
Sad, the whole case should have hinged upon whether Psystar was buying their copies of Mac OS X.
The judge should have thrown *this* case out based upon the doctrine of first sale. In response, Apple should have then changed their upgrade path to "free for people with genuine Apple hardware", sued psystar a second time. Apple should have then won easily once their upgrade path no longer required a "sale".
Instead, the case hinged upon the fact that Psystar didn't have trained monkeys sticking each separate Mac OS X disk into each machine, retarded.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Nice theory. On a related note I hear the Flat Earth Society is looking for new members. You may want to apply and supply them with a copy of your last post. Something tells me they will fast-track your membership application.
So,.... shoot yourself in the foot to establish that shooting yourself in the foot is bad?
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Say Microsoft added a clause that Microsoft Window could _only_ be run on Intel machines. Would this ruling make it truly illegal to sell AMD machines with Windows on?
Standard answer to all these types of comment: Microsoft enjoys a monopoly position and hence is subject to antitrust regulations. Apple hasn't (certainly not in computers - more debatably in music) and isn't. There really is one law for Microsoft and another for Apple.
As far as copyright is concerned. As long as the law accepts that the software you "buy" is licensed rather than owned, the copyright holder can impose whatever terms they want. The principle is no different from saying that some versions of Vista could not be used on virtual machines, or that the OEM Windows that came with your old PC can't be used on your new PC.
However, since Microsoft have ~90% of the personal computer operating system market, Intel have ~80% of the personal computer CPU market, any attempt to tie them would likely be challenged under antitrust law.
Psystar tried the antitrust line against Apple earlier in the case but it was thrown out on the grounds that Apple didn't have a dominant position in the personal computer OS market and the judge din't buy the argument that having a monopoly on the "OS X market" didn't count ("Brand X" will always have a monopoly on "Brand X" products. Duh!)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
There is still room for Psystar 2 to do things the right way that may take longer (as they will not use a image) but is in the law.
What?
It has no mechanisms to allow for encrypted content to come into the public domain after the copyright term has expired.
Without said mechanisms, it essentially extends copyrights to eternity through making decrypting illegal forever.
We need to have publicly available keys that when the copyright term is over, unlocks the content for all future use.
Every item I now produce and sell will be accompanied by an envelope only obvious once the buyer has brought it home.
That's already the case with virtually any product more technically sophisticated than a bunch of banannas. Come to think of it, when I buy a bunch of bannanas and pay with my debit card, the checkout flashes up the mystic runes "Refer to terms." :-(
Apple is just playing the game by the rules in force. Every other non-FOSS software house tells you what you can and can't do with "your" copy, too.
Oh, and to be fair, the outside of the box for OS X does say quite clearly that you need a Macintosh computer to use it.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Would this be the same legal system that will be bringing antitrust charges against Apple at some point in the future?
well now that it is illegal, they might as well open source it...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Or do it the same way and open up shop outside the US where the DMCA doesn't exist.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Right. Their mistake was modifying OSX. I don't see what would prevent them from selling a computer, a sealed retail copy of OSX, and a short explanation of how to install it.
Steve Jobs should be beaten to a pulp. So many people hate Microsoft for the what they did yet are Apple fanboys at the same time whom are doing the same @#$%ing thing!
I think Apple makes some nice products, but I absolutely despise Steve Jobs and how he has cloned Apple into Microsoft 2.0. I hope they get crushed by the EU and at some point the US for anti-competitive practices.
Fair enough, but the legal precedent against the doctrine of first sale is still bad news. As I said, Apple should have won eventually, just not this easily.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
They aren't authorized to sell OSX at all, shrink wrapped or not, and the judge put an injunction on them to prevent them from doing so.
What they can do is offer a patch on their site. Users can buy OSX at the crapple store, download their patch, patch the OS and do what they want with their copy.
That's all they need to do to get around the DMCA. Good luck going after users...
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Raise your hand if you misread that title as "... Injunction Against Pornstar".
/
I guess I don't follow your "logic" here?
Apple is essentially running their business the SAME way *all* personal computer businesses did back in the 1980's, before the "PC clone" became the de-facto standard machine. Many of the people I encounter who have a strong dislike of Microsoft are simply saying they hate the way the company's products homogenized everything in the personal computer world. They essentially got things to the point where you either ran Microsoft's OS and flagship applications (like Office), or else your alternatives were pretty much all non-commercial products developed by community (like Linux or BSD). These people LIKE Apple because they're the last holdout of the "old way" of selling computers, where each manufacturer had a proprietary system that they tried to enhance and prove was the "best way" to use a computer. They're pretty much the last relevant competitor to Microsoft products that goes "toe to toe" with them, claiming they offer an "easy to use" solution appropriate for anybody -- even opening hundreds of retail stores to ensure the "average Joe" can view and purchase their offerings locally (since Microsoft products had that same visibility on store shelves everywhere).
In my mind, Apple is *far* from becoming "Microsoft 2.0". For starters, Steve Jobs has stated on multiple occasions that he has no interest in having the MOST market-share. He's not interested in playing the "grow as fast as possible, as large as possible" game. Sure, he wants Apple to be successful and its market-share to grow ... but if being the "biggest" was his true goal, why would he sit on HUGE cash reserves and not re-invest them in growing the company larger? Additionally, he's refrained from putting any type of Product Activation in any version of OS X. There's not even so much as a CD key to be entered. It simply verifies you're trying to install it on a machine Apple actually built for the purpose, and installs with no hassles. Apple is able to do that primarily because they actually sell their own computer systems, unlike Microsoft. (Hey, another difference!)
I'm not defending Steve Jobs on a personal level. I get the idea that like many successful CEO types, he's arrogant, demanding, and tends to be rude and judgmental. (I'd also question his claimed religious beliefs, given the realities of his lifestyle and character ... but maybe that's a bit unfair, since religion is such a personal thing to begin with.) But none of that is really relevant to whether or not I think he's running his company well. I think without Steve Jobs stepping in, Apple would be dead or at best, completely irrelevant today.
That is the point of "Psystar 2". What is to stop the owners from forming a new corporation, acquiring the operations of the original Psystar, and proceeding on a more cautious basis, with the legal ability to sell unmodified copies of Mac OS X?
So they say. In reality, a retail EULA is mostly an exercise in wishful thinking.
At least half of the courts that have addressed the question in the United States have held that retail end user license agreements are legal fictions, because the copy is indeed actually owned by the buyer, and as such a license to use that which you already own is unnecessary (and hence superfluous). See here, for example.
There are several ways to avoid the restriction on reselling modified works. Generally speaking, you have to sell the work to the end user before any modification occurs. Once the user owns a copy of the software, you *can* legitimately make modifications on his or her behalf such that the copy can be utilized on a single machine. When the end user takes physical possession is irrelevant. cf. 17 USC 117(a).
So this is finally over...again?
Section 117 and 1201 are in conflict here. Section 117(a) specifically gives the end user or someone that they authorize to make adaptations necessary for the utilization of a protected work on a single machine.
Assuming that making such an adaptation would otherwise violate the DMCA (the wording is awfully vague) it isn't entirely clear whether doing something explicitly allowed by 117(a) would legally be prohibited or not. 117(a) states "it is not an infringement" after all.
What PsyStar was doing (modifying, copying, and selling copyrighted software in quantity) is illegal under pretty much any interpretation of copyright law, so they'd only be successful in places without copyright enforcement. It would be illegal to ship their machines to most countries where people might actually be interested in a MacOSX machine.
Selling a computer with the express purpose of having MacOSX installed on it might well constitute contributory infringement, and PsyStar can expect to be under scrutiny.
Individual users making their own hackintoshes may well be covered by fair use, and I haven't seen Apple show any interest in stopping them.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There is still room for Psystar 2 to do things the right way that may take longer (as they will not use a image) but is in the law.
There is no way to get around contributory copyright infringement (because the SLA makes installation of MacOS X on a non-Apple computer copyright infringement), and DMCA violation (because there is some rather rubbish DRM in MacOS X that prevents it from being installed on a non-Apple computer unless you do something to get around the DRM).
You bring up 117(a) every time this Psystar issue comes up. You selectively forget about 117(b) every time which explicitly forbids modification and redistribution without the permission of the copyright owner. Also "copyright owner" means Apple in this case not the owner of the copy of OS X (end user). Only Apple can authorize modification and redistribution.
Also 117a allows user to run the software. 1201 expressly forbids circumventing protections. It may be a fair use defense for a hackintosh owner to put OS X onto a generic PC and bypass protections. 117b explicitly forbids redistribution of that modification.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
SCIENCE!
Psystar could have the last laugh by open-sourcing their technology before going belly-up. Or, if there is an injuction against that, there's always "leaking" it to the torrent sites.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If you read my comment carefully, you will notice that I in no way suggest doing anything that violated section 117(b). There is no "redistribution" at all.
Uh, How? How is this copyright infringement as per DMCA when the DMCA says you can break copy protection for interoperability?
Truly your judges are insane.
They didn't modify the image. They modified the BIOS to fake out the installer to think it was apple provided computer.
It wasn't Apple's BIOS.
------Clue
O -----You
Agreed. This whole argument might look interesting at first glance, but they can't force Dell to stop selling PC's with Windows, or Ford Motor Company to bundle GM auto diagnostics with their cars, it has no merit. Apple is a PC Manufacturer in a closed hardware system. They do not license OS X for resale. If you don't like them, don't buy them (or smash them with a hammer if that suits you).
Microsoft doesn't even make PC's. They are primarily a software company (gaming and zune aside), and all of their popular software, including the OS, is licensed for resale. OS X is not.
Psystar took another companies OS, hacked the EFI so that it would boot on non-Apple hardware and then sold it, bundled with an 'OpenMac', for a profit. Cheesy name aside, the hardware wasn't the issue. The primary issues was Psystar taking another companies OS, reselling it without license, bypassing DMCA, and violating the license agreement.
Apple WAS one of those companies from back in the 1980s. They USED to sell one of the most open machines available. You could buy expansion cards to put into it. Circuit diagrams for the expansion bus were available. You could build your own stuff for it.
In many ways, things have gone downhill since the days when the 6502 ruled the world.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This is one of the ways Copyright has gone so off track.
It has ceased to be simply a way of protecting a copyright holder from their work being published so that someone else doesn't try to publish it and cut the copyright holder out of the picture. It was a legal tool to protect copyright holders from companies.
It's increasingly moving towards the Copyright holder retaining ownership of the work even after the sale.
Frankly, if Psystar paid for the OS copies legally, and made it clear that the OS that he was reselling was modified, there shouldn't be a copyright issue. That's not the way it is legally, but it's the way it should be.
Of all the analogies I see here, I think that it's more in line with someone selling used college textbooks with notes written and additional information marking up the book. Is that a derivative work?
Software license agreements have no power to expand the scope of copyright or declare that something is copyright infringement when the law states that it is not.
Distributing software that makes an adaptation to disable the Apple hardware check might be a violation of the DMCA in any case, all the more reason to rewrite the DMCA. It should have been written to prohibit devices that expedite illegal copyright infringement, rather than implying the ability for a manufacturer to enforce any restriction it can dream up, by force of law.
Region restrictions, for example. You buy a DVD in Europe, and it no longer plays when you return to the United States. Should a device that lets you play DVDs purchased in foreign countries really be against the law? Laws like that should be treated with the utmost contempt. The DMCA as written, is a perversion of the first order.
Quit buying Apple products, seriously, just stop.
IMHO they should be able to create a computer that pretends to be a real mac.
The part that concerns me is "Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers."
Why shouldn't they be able to make an OS X compatible machine? I agree they shouldn't be able to modify AND redistribute OS X. But shipping a machine that allows OS X to be installed seems perfectly reasonable. Activision went through this with Atari early on, making 'compatible software' and later on there are many cases of 'compatible hardware' that have been allowed. But these days the DMCA prevents this sort of thing,
"(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures.—
(1)
(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
To me that is just unreasonable. As long as it is not a copyright violation, there shouldn't be any rules restricting your rights build your own device/software to interact with any other device/software if it does not cause any harm to 3rd party system. Although, I'm sure this gets sticky when writing an alternative WoW client or some such that 'cheats' or causes some other form of mahem, currently the line is drawn too far in favor of protection over liberty.
I think what you're lamenting is really just the inevitable growth of the industry as a whole.
I used to have an 8-bit TRS-80 computer, myself, and it, too had circuit diagrams floating around for it, and 3rd. party add-ons that required opening the case and attaching colored leads to certain parts of the circuit board. Expansion cards? Yep, it had them too, by way of "cartridges" that enhanced the basic hardware (speech synthesizer, etc.).
But can you *really* expect that not to have changed, as the personal computer moved from a hobbyist interest to a staple item for the general public?
Truthfully, the expansion cards for PC clones became their single biggest "weak spot" and support headache. That's why the PC industry tried to hard to integrate most of that stuff onto motherboards over time, from the sound card to the serial/parallel/IDE controllers, to the ethernet card. I remember PLENTY of times I bought an expansion card, only to discover my PC no longer booted at all with it installed!
I remember the 6502...
Manufacturers can currently make cards that will work in modern Mac Pro computers. In fact, I seriously extended the life of my G4 Mac by installing a SATA card in it so that I could use (more modern and faster) SATA drives with the computer. I also upgraded the GPU. I will probably do something along those lines with my Cheese Grater and, maybe, it will be useful for about 10 years like my last computer.
The idea around the Apple // computer was that hardware hacks were a good way to extend it. And people sold breadboards that you could install and test on your Apple //. But you really needed to know what you were doing, else you could fry your motherboard and that would be really bad. So the Steve Wozniak part of the Apple Computer company did their best to publish warnings and specifications so that hardware hackers would make innovative stuff for the Apple //.
Today, hardware hackers are still out there. You can get the complete hardware information you need about a Mac Pro as a hardware developer, so that you can make a card to install in the computer to handle digital audio, VTR control, set up a hard disk array or anything else a Mac can do in the workplace. Were that not the case, there would be no Blackmagic Design, no AJA Video systems, no Digidesign, and no CI Design as just a few examples.
The spirit of the 1980s still lives on, mostly in the software communities that are writing free, open software. I don't see breadboards for sale these days for Apple computers -- but I don't see them for pee cees either. But that doesn't mean they are not being made. That means I'm not shopping for them.
I like where we have headed. It used to be that animation, destined for video (which is a much smaller screen than the cinema) took overnight to do just a few seconds, with a really expensive SGI workstation attached to a 1" C-format open reel VTR, recording one frame at a time (and you hoped there would be no h-phase errors, else you would have to start rendering all over). Today, we can play Doom real-time on our 24" monitors attached to our inexpensive personal computers with better than 30 frames per second render times for each whole frame in widescreen. The "computer" that landed the Lunar Excursion Module on the moon would probably be an inferior cousin to the processor you find in a hand calculator today. And those computers were really, really expensive. The Apple // did everything in "character mode," drawing things with very crude graphics developed out of an extended character set. Forget about shading, drop shadows and the like. So, looking at my Apple Studio Display, running in 32-bit color at 1920 x 1200 powered by my NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512 MB of video RAM, I'm seeing a nicer image than the Apple //, hooked up to a monitor or a TV using a box that the FCC said was illegal.
I'm still bummed that Pystar lost, even though they ought to have in every sense. Here were these scrappy guys out there trying to re-invent the Mac Clone. My first experience with Apple's System Software was with a Mac Clone. but I don't want to go "back to the future" and I don't hate Steve Jobs because of the result.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
I develop and sell a program for $50. You buy the program, copy it say crack the 'copy protection', and sell it as MyProgram for $40. Can you not see the problem with this?
While I agree that Copyright and Patent system needs reform, it is still needed. If I couldn't develop and sell my program with some kind of protection, the chances are I'm not going to invest the time to do it.
Personally I think we need two IP system. One for Creative works (art/books/etc) and another one for Business related things. I agree with artists, writers, etc. retaining copyright for the duration of their life times, no longer. For businesses, they should be granted a provisional patent for 7 years. If they aren't producing a product with that patent by then, it expires. If they are, they get another 7 years of protection.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I don't understand this complaint.
All computers - Macs or PCs - use open standards for expansion buses and I/O ports. It's trivial to get hold of the specs for PCI connectors, and you can still build whatever you like to go into the slot.
USB is easier still.
The difference between now and the 80s is that the bar has been raised several times. Back then I could put together a circuit on breadboard, run a few wires to a connector and plug that into the school's Apple-][e. Now the connector requires so much more, and the trivial little BASIC programme I could use to read the I/O ports requires a framework, a compiler, low-level I/O system calls and so on. The basic techniques are not a million miles apart, but it's harder to get stuff going.
If you read my comment carefully, you will notice that I in no way suggest doing anything that violated section 117(b). There is no "redistribution" at all.
So what youare suggesting is that if Psystar hadn't done what they have done, it wouldn't have been illegal.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
No, I am not quite that stupid. What I am suggesting is that it is not entirely clear whether 117(a) overrides section 1201 or not. The DMCA is one of the most ambiguous statutes ever written.
And indeed, this question is entirely germane to whether Psystar or another company can be in this business at all. If 117(a) does not apply to the Rebel EFI, it sounds like it may very well be a DMCA violation.
(Note: My other comment apparently got lost somewhere).
This has parallels in other trades; for example you cannot sell a functioning radio transmitter that operates in certain bands at certain power levels, but you CAN sell a 'kit' that, once built, will have the same function.
If not Psystar, perhaps some other company may try doing it this way...
For example: with GPL, you can't modify the application, and release the new version under a different license.
Not quite - The GPL offers you a conditional license to copy, modify and re-distribute the application - something that, regardless of whether you "own a copy" or "have a license", copyright law expressly forbids. If you don't re-distribute, you can ignore the GPL.
Other EULAs forbid you from doing things that would be permitted under copyright law if you had "bought a copy". The GPL lets you do what the hell you like with "your copy" provided you don't re-distribute it - and its fairly liberal about what "distribution" means.
Ditto BSD etc.: the conditions only cut in if you do something that wouldn't be permitted under regular copyright.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Note that I said, "That's not the way it is legally, but it's the way it should be."
I firmly believe that if I buy a piece of software legally, I should be allowed to modify it and change it as I see fit, if I have the ability to do so, as long as I'm not doing it to redistribute additional copies or to use it for illegal copies that go beyond the realm of fair use, regardless of the EULA says.
I also firmly believe that I should have the absolute right to resell (transfer ownership) software that I buy legally, regardless of what a EULA says
And yes, I'd even go as far as to say I don't think it should be illegal to buy a legal copy of software, modify it, and then transfer your ownership of that software to a third party, provided that you do not retain any copies of the software, and the third party is aware that it is modified and agrees to make the purchase with whatever limitations might result. I strongly suspect that anyone buying a "Hackintosh" realizes there are hacks involved.
No in summary, no, I don't see what the problem is other than copyright holders wanting to maintain control of published works after the first sale appears, and beyond the natural protections against illegal copies being made and someone else publishing and selling the software and cutting them out. Isn't that what copyright is supposed to be for?