Mac Clone Maker Saga Ends As SCOTUS Denies Appeal

CWmike writes "The four-year-old saga of Psystar, a Florida Mac clone maker that was crushed by Apple, ended Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal of a lower court ruling. The decision to not consider the case (download PDF) upheld a ruling last September by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That ruling confirmed a permanent injunction against Psystar that prevented the company from copying, using or selling OS X, and blocked it from selling machines with Apple's operating system preinstalled. 'We are sad,' said K.A.D. Camera of the Houston firm Camera & Sibley LLP, in an email reply today to a request for comment. Camera represented Psystar in its bid to get its appeal heard. 'I expect the Supreme Court will eventually take a case on this important issue.' Last year, Camera had said, 'This is far from over,' after the Ninth Circuit's decision. Apparently, it is."

Comments

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they had a case they still stole copyrighted code from OSx86 and Rebel EFI was stolen from Boot 132 EFI.

Boo hoo, they're dead.

First sale doctrine?

[Enderandrew]

This gets me that first sale doctrine doesn't matter. The DMCA (which is overkill and bad legislation) takes precedence. The Psystar case reminds me of the Atari ruling, when Atari didn't want to allow third-party developers to make games for their console. Imagine if there were no third-party developers today. If Psystar legally purchased OSX software licenses, why shouldn't they be able to legally resell them with hardware? We have judges protecting a monopoly and frankly I don't understand it.

Re:Too bad, really

[zonker]

Their bootloader code was stolen from two open source projects which they repackaged and relabeled without attribution or source. That's pretty shitty IMHO.

Re:Not related

[compro01]

First sale doctrine doesn't allow you to violate the EULA.

That's pretty much the entire bloody intent of the doctrine.

See Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus.

"The price of this book at retail is $1 net. No dealer is licensed to sell it at a lower price, and a sale at a lower price will be treated as an infringement of the copyright" was tossed out as an invalid use of copyright. An EULA is no different.

Re:Not related

[v1]

Remember when Atari tried blocking third-party software from their hardware and a judge ruled that they must allow for third-party use of their hardware?

Hardware must allow 3rd party software to run on it. That was the Atari thing.

Now turn that 180 degrees around with: Software must allow installation on 3rd party hardware. That was the Pystar thing.

So they couldn't be more opposite issues if they tried. The Atari issue has no relevance whatsoever here.

Though I don't like software licenses. But unfortunately they are currently allowed. I don't like being told what I can do with software I buy any more than being told by Ford what roads I'm allowed to drive my truck on. But right now physical goods are not so easily licensed but software is. Pretty much all software is licensed because it can be, and grants additional rights to the producers. They can either take the free cookies or not, and naturally most businesses will.

Pystar was encouraging... no, they were instructing their customers to violate the OS X license agreement, and thus break the law. That's what got them smacked down.

I'd like the licensability of software to be outlawed personally. IMHO it's just the producers trying to "have their cake and eat it too", they want you to pay them for something, but then not GIVE it to you (retain rights over it) because that will help them make more money off you or someone else later.

Here, I license this cake to you for $15. But on condition that only you can eat it. If your friend is hungry, you're not allowed to give him a slice, it's not really your cake, I'm just licensing it to you. If at any time you decide you don't like those terms you can either destroy the cake or return it to me.

Or I'll license you this wrench. You can use it forever, and I'll even let you give it away, but you can't loan it to your friend to work on his car, he'll need to license another wrench from me. Think that's funny? Talk to your mechanic about his car computer testing unit. It's already reality. And those little buggers are expensive too.

I'm surprised that BOOKS aren't licenseable right now. There's not a lot of difference between them and software. They're both just information on media. I could totally see a society where you weren't allowed to sell a book. But already we can't copy too much of it, so we're already on the path.

God I hate licensing.