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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."
Why would this only apply to software? We see that in digital media if you purchase a copy, you OWN that single copy, though you're not permitted to make another copy (while the original remains in existence) unless it's fair use (personal backups, short clips in an academic media presentation shown to a small group of people, etc). So then I can watch my DVD on *ANY* DVD player I want (well OK there's been some gray area here, sue me). I can listen to that CD I bought on any CD player I want, and I can rip the songs to mp3 format and listen to them on any mp3 device I have. Why is it that software has this plushy magical "oh noes we're so special we must have special rules in the copyright law" belief? As far as copyright goes, it's been found in federal cases that when someone purchases a copy of a copyrighted material, he/she OWNS THAT EXACT COPY and should therefore be able to do with it as he/she pleases insofar as it does not violate copyright law. We've seen that making copies of software is fine as long as it's "fair use" as well (personal copies, backups, installing it on different machines wherein it doesn't violate the licensing agreement -- as in maximum of 1 machine may have it INSTALLED at any time). So then what's with this judge saying that it's unlawful for someone to take a copy of a piece of software that the purchaser OWNS and saying that they have absolutely *NO RIGHT* to copy it onto another machine that they also own, wouldn't this just be another case of fair use? And technically, if somehow Apple has made a case that copying their software is a violation of the rules of this universe (or whatever bullshit they are spouting here), what about the intermediate copies made loading the software into memory for execution? If I put in RAM not cleared by Apple and/or its corporate bed buddies, and that software is loaded onto that RAM, what then? If I connect any device via USB that has a processor that might serve to run any portion of the software AT ALL (such as shared execution or something, granted this is a contrived example), would this violate some kind of law (maybe that I can't append USB devices to a computer with USB ports?) If I attach an external drive to this machine am I not permitted to copy the data over to it (say I'm upgrading or re-installing OSX)? If I attach a second monitor NOT sold by Apple or "approved" in any manner (just a standard DVI or VGA enabled monitor), can't I have the display run to my second monitor? Can't I change the video card for a better one in some models (not sure on this one)?
It sounds to me, if those situations are completely legal, then there's absolutely no way that it can be illegal for someone to copy and run the software on another machine, because the above conditions are identical to doing so. From where is this oddity of law coming? It's inconsistent with the copyright laws we've seen but at the same time claims to be a copyright violation? Software is independent of hardware. Unless their software in some way relies solely on the hardware being sold (ie, it's part of the software product, part A doesn't work without part B and vice versa). Otherwise I see this as a tie-in which have been found to be illegal in a lot of cases: you can only buy this product from us (not just at a discount, literally *ONLY*) IF you also purchase another product from us (where this second product is VASTLY overpriced compared with any competitor) where this second product is identical in operation to a competitors product. Oh well. Continue being an evil troll Apple. If I ever buy OSX (which I won't, pirating is better because it doesn't give you money to pursue frivolous and harmful litigation against companies which might provide fairer pricing to the end-users cutting into your "bottom line"), I'll continue to run it on non-Apple sanctioned hardware. Fuck you. And fuck the corrupt judges who found in favor of Apple. Let me guess what they got for Christmas... brand new MacBook Pro laptops donated to everyone in their offices and families? Wouldn't be a shocker.