Slashdot Mirror
DHS Seized Aftermarket Apple Laptop Batteries From Independent Repair Expert (vice.com)
Louis Rossmann says US Customs and Border Patrol seized $1,000 worth of laptop batteries, claiming they were counterfeit. From a report: Earlier this year, Louis Rossmann, the highest-profile iPhone and Mac repair professional in the United States, told Motherboard that determining "the difference between counterfeiting and refurbishing is going to be the next big battle" between the independent repair profession and Apple. At the time, his friend and fellow independent repair pro, Jessa Jones, had just had a shipment of iPhone screens seized by Customs and Border Patrol. Rossmann was right: His repair parts were also just seized by the US government.
Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a package containing 20 Apple laptop batteries en route to Rossman's store in New York City. The laptop batteries were en route from China to Rossmann Repair Group -- a NYC based repair store that specializes in Apple products. "Apple and customs seized batteries to a computer that, at [the Apple Store], they no longer service because they claim it's vintage," Rossmann, the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group, said in a YouTube video. "They will not allow me to replace batteries, because when I import batteries that are original they'll tell me the they're counterfeit and have them stolen from by [CBP]." CBP seized the batteries on September 6, then notified Rossmann via a letter dated October 5. Rossmann produced the letter in its entirety in his video.
Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a package containing 20 Apple laptop batteries en route to Rossman's store in New York City. The laptop batteries were en route from China to Rossmann Repair Group -- a NYC based repair store that specializes in Apple products. "Apple and customs seized batteries to a computer that, at [the Apple Store], they no longer service because they claim it's vintage," Rossmann, the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group, said in a YouTube video. "They will not allow me to replace batteries, because when I import batteries that are original they'll tell me the they're counterfeit and have them stolen from by [CBP]." CBP seized the batteries on September 6, then notified Rossmann via a letter dated October 5. Rossmann produced the letter in its entirety in his video.
To prevent this, you could just have the protection lasted as long as the product was being sold/supported by the company.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
This is the free market. It will correct.
Companies like Apple use "intellectual property" laws to circumvent prohibitions on tying.
It's illegal to require me to buy my battery from Apple just because I bought my computer from them.
And what's happening here is even worse: trying to make it illegal for anyone to sell batteries for computers Apple wants their customers to replace.
keep you warm at night when you open their source
Tim Cook is that you?
Main concern that this batteries should not have apple trademarked logos and names. Louis suppliers should take care about scrapping off or covering that marks and names.
Because if batteries will start exploding, it will have impact on Apple reputation, and they will have to spend lot of PR money fixing that.
And the refurbished batteries from China are most likely to fail with the fireworks, as grey market manufacturers squeeze the last drops from the lithium elements, setting crazy values in the controller. Also, this elements might be "rejects"(didn't passed Q&C) from various manufacturers, including those who make batteries for Apple.
The CBP and Apple are wrong.
They are not counterfeit. They are what they say they are.
LR needs to lawyer up and sue.
Wasn't there a recent case in Europe with exactly the same situation?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
And here we find the Apple lover.
Your mouse is broken, that will be $500 please.
Your Mouse pad needs replacement, that will be $125
Your charger is broken, that will be $250
Your screen is dirty, that will be $50
Your "Apple" key is sticky, that will be $125
Your drive is full, that will be $1200
heck, might as well chuck it into the trash and buy a shiny new one, you like shiny new stuff.
That's like the tires on my car being worn, and the manufacturer saying, well, just buy a new car! duh!
You can't repair them
Same with Microsoft.
Same with Amazon
Same with all phone manufactures
Same with consumer laptops. (You can generally repair desktops and business laptops.)
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
I don't buy Apple products myself; but when I took my neice's puppy-destroyed laptop charger to an Apple store to find out the price of a replacement, they just gave me one for free.
Base unit still overpriced, but excellent service in my experience.
Just Post a revised Price List:
Diagnostics - Bad battery on unsupported model $100 diagnostics fee + free entry into nearest dumpster
Still cheaper than the Apple store, and just as effective.
This is only funny to me because it's not something I use or care about.
If you buy apple, you buy it knowing you're getting ripped off at every single step of the way and you are OK with that because it's Apple.
If you're not OK with that, you dont buy apple products. It's simple.
I can't really relate to the kind of person who wants an apple product but isn't into their culture of overpaying for hardware. I thought if you were stupid enough for the first part, you'd be a shoe in for adopting their culture as well. Maybe there's some kind of confusion in the messaging when it comes to the poors, which I'm convinced they only started selling devices to in order to curb the theft of devices from their intended customers and to reduce the second hand market that they dont get a piece of.
Apple should design cars, think of it.
-after a set number of fuel-ups, the performance decreases to save fuel economy
-after a set number of fuel-ups, the car can no longer function, because the gas tank is non-replaceable
-if the tires wear down, you must purchase a new car
-if the windshield wipers need replacement, just replace the whole windshield assembly
-refilling the wiper fluid will cost $250
-the floor mats are non replaceable
-if you blow a headlamp, purchase a new car
-if the remote keyfob battery dies, purchase a new car
The 1337 go hackintosh, triple boot partitions ftw
And here we find the Apple lover.
Your mouse is broken, that will be $500 please.
Your Mouse pad needs replacement, that will be $125
Your charger is broken, that will be $250
Your screen is dirty, that will be $50
Your "Apple" key is sticky, that will be $125
Your drive is full, that will be $1200
heck, might as well chuck it into the trash and buy a shiny new one, you like shiny new stuff.
That's like the tires on my car being worn, and the manufacturer saying, well, just buy a new car! duh!
Apple Mouse: $79.00 or $99 for Space Gray
Apple Mousepad: They don't sell them, and generally you don't need them
Apple Charger: $19 5W iPhone, to $79 87W USB-C
Screen Cleaner: Not sold. Genius bar will do it for free if you ask nicely.
Stuck keys: Warranty makes repair free for next 4 years. Otherwise it is a hell of a lot more than $125
Full drive: Delete porn stash - Free
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
There are aftermarket batteries for vintage models that do not copy apples logo, such as the Rayovac ones for the original MacBook. The statement about batteries from demo machines running in stories is incredulous. Seriously suggesting that customers want repairs with batteries that have been trickle charged while continuously running, as would be the case for batteries from demo units, just fails Occam's razor. Story sounds like someone that is complaining after they got caught or at least should have done more research into their supplier.
The rule for importing “branded” items is pretty clear.
If you bring something that you claim is by a brand you better have a license with that brand. Else CBP will just assume it’s counterfeit. You could claim it as a replacement part for a device but the moment you say that part is original, you’re in trouble. You could go into a Gucci store in Italy, buy 10 bags and ship it to yourself, CBP will stop that shipment and claim it’s counterfeit even if you show the original receipt.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...
Rossmann group recovered data from an iPhone my wife dropped in the water. Of course Apple was unwilling to help me, but Louis was! It's insanity to think that a product you purchase can be held hostage by a company for the entire time you "own" it. I'm done with Apple. They suck, a cancer in the tech arena. Tech is beginning to suck everywhere because of this type of bull$h1t. It's time for me to purchase a new car and I am actually considering purchasing a 1960's to 70's vintage restored vehicle to avoid all the nasty tech involved .. and I'm a IT professional!
Oh is that what happened to you? Does that 'fair universe' make you an obsessive piece of shit who catalogues the minutiae of some fat idiot's life? For several years, day in, day out? Like the lonliest creature ever? Kind of hard to end up looking more pathetic than a fat retard who collects anime.
It does seem fair though.
A few replacements are build in to the original cost of apple products.
If apple spent 1% of the time they spend on policing others and designing planned obsolescence devices maybe they would actually innovate something.
The Basel network would say this is China shamelessly exporting electronic waste to the US, where barefoot children will breath harmful fumes from the open fires they lit to harvest small amounts of metal.
> you can't buy vintage Apple hardware anywhere
Obvious shill is obvious, and obviously lying. I can sell you an 8 year old ipod. It's not a counterfeit; it's an 8 year old ipod. I'm sure your paycheck makes you believe that it's a knockoff if I wrap new cells in an old case, but that's not meaningfully different than leaving the ford symbol on the block of a rebuilt ford engine.
The "Genius" will report that the mouse is broken because an unsupported mousing-surface was used. Lucky for you, they have an apple approved surface!
the "Genus" will report that the charger is water damaged, not covered by warranty. Dog slobber counts as water.
The Dirty Screen can only be cleaned by authorized apple repair centers, otherwise the water damage sensor gets flagged.
Stuck Keys, you are not using an apple aproved typing finger protector, lucky for you, we have a product for that.
Space, you need to use an apple provided hard drive, with an apple provided cable, with an approve provided power adapter, using an apple approved file manager.
Despite the heavy sarcasm on the OP part, mouse / trackpad in the laptop will probably cost about that much
Does anyone dual boot any more?
With computers being as cheap and powerful as they are now, and virtual machine software being so advanced, I'd think the "1337" would be running virtual machines. Dual booting means having to save everything, shutdown, boot up, taking care not to miss the boot menu timeout to the default OS, or having no timeout and finding the computer waiting for someone to push a button before finishing the boot up.
I'm thinking dual booting is for losers.
For all we know the batteries actually are counterfeit and buyer is oblivious.
Regardless problems are easily solved by having sender cross out Apple markings on batteries before sending and tell Apple to make sweet sweet love to a cheese grater.
Tim Cook is the one who likes to suck it.
could we soon see all third party ink cartridges be declared counterfeit if apple is able to get away with this.
right to repair laws need to fix this!
An item is only counterfeit if you're claiming to be manufactured by the brand in question (Apple in this case). As long as the batteries don't claim to be *made by Apple* they are NOT counterfeit... And I would think the court would agree...
What a shock!
They cost 3X as much as comparable market items with no real benefit from the cost increase.
Then they do stuff like this.
You're not a lawyer, and your glib description of "illegal products" is nonsense. Even the legal expert cited in the original article wrote:
> “This strikes me as an abuse of trademark law by Apple,” he added, “one clearly designed to maintain its stranglehold over the repair market and, ultimately, to force customers to buy new hardware.”
So now we have a real legal expert who says that Apple marked products sold by Apple manufacturers to a third party are not an abuse of trademark law. Secondly laws don't cover products, so there's no such thing as an "illegal product", "illegal battery", "illegal gun", etc. There are violations of the law that people can do... such as violate trademark law, import laws, customs laws, which our heror here did not do.
Hero: The guy trying to service "vintage" laptops by replacing batteries in devices Apple and their "genius" people won't touch. NB: Apple has nobody on their staff with the IQ to be a genius.
BadGuy: Apple for using a US Government agency to help them promulgate their exclusionary practice of stopping 3rd party repair, even if it's for products they themselves refuse to repair.
Winner: Apple. It cost them nothing to do this.
Loser: Everyone using an Apple device that is either now or one day will be unilaterally declared by Apple to be "vintage" and non-repairable.
Please don't play lawyer on slashdot. Or anywhere. UPL is a violation of the law.
Ehud
You're not a lawyer, and your glib description of "illegal products" is nonsense. Even the legal expert cited in the original article wrote:
That's cute, but you don't actually know anything about my credentials, and "legal experts" are not necessarily lawyers, either. The one quoted is a professor, who doesn't seem to have been a practicing lawyer for 10 years.
Still, let's actually read the rest of his quote, written about a different (but similar) case:
“Assuming that: (1) the cable bearing the Apple mark is a genuine Apple product, (2) the cable used on these screens is the same as the one Apple uses in the U.S., and (3) the importer/seller clearly communicates that the screens are a non-Apple aftermarket product, then Apple’s case for treating these as ‘counterfeit’ goods is very weak,” Perzanowski said in an email. “Refurbished or repaired products are generally permissible under trademark law’s first sale doctrine, so long as they are clearly labeled as such.”
(emphasis mine)
The key detail is that the parts have to be labeled accurately. In the case of batteries, if the cells are replaced or anything is done that makes them not the original Apple part, they can't carry the Apple logo, making these an illegally-marked part.
You might like to cast Apple as the Big Bad Corporation, but they're the ones following the law here. The Chinese company who didn't follow American product-marking laws when exporting a product to America are the ones actually at fault for this.
As for your "hero", he's a very noisy importer who gets a lot of attention for playing the victim, when he could try just a bit harder to ensure compliance and have no problem (and no fame, either). My company imports materials (whole and parts) from other countries on a daily basis, and we rarely have any customs issues. We do have to contractually force certain suppliers to put their own logo on their parts, rather than the well-known American brand, though.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
He doesn't want to fix Apple products. He wants to and does fix other items/brands. It's just Macbooks break so often that it has taken over his business.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The market can alter dumb decisions like Apple's fight to prevent you from fixing your own hardware. Simply only buy hardware that you can service or other companies service. You should be able to use third party components to fix your own device if the component has similar or better specs. This is the reason why I dumped Apple. I have a MacPro late 2013 black can desktop with the Dual D700 GPU failure problem. There are no third party replacement boards. I fixed it alright. I built up an Intel Hades Canyon NUC, used 32GB Dual Ranked memory, 500GB internal NVME SDD. It works fine with my external thunderbolt JBOD (home directory, /opt ). I installed Ubuntu Bionic Beaver 18.04. Steam works great. It's faster than my 6Core MacPro. Cheaper.
I've got an NVIDIA GTX970 connected via thunderbolt 3 to use for video rendering and my experimentation with OpenCV and Tensorflow.
It's better. Also when Apple dropped OpenGL for their own Metal API, it was a no brainer to dump apple. A lot of the code I write is based on OpenGL and OpenCL.
If there's a significant enough modification then the logo has to be removed during the refurb.
Also, rules around importing can be more restrictive than rules regarding reselling when the parts never leave the country.
Arenâ(TM)t you the guy who canâ(TM)t afford to retire? Shouldnâ(TM)t you be working on that?
The key detail is that the parts have to be labeled accurately. In the case of batteries, if the cells are replaced or anything is done that makes them not the original Apple part, they can't carry the Apple logo, making these an illegally-marked part.
This is wrong. The simple presence of an Apple logo doesn't make them "illegally marked". If I put a new aftermarket engine in my Ford, I can still sell it without removing the "Ford" badges on the car. If I put new laces in my shoes, I can still sell them without removing the Nike swoosh from the side. As long as it's made clear to the purchaser that the battery is refurbished then it doesn't matter if the Apple logo is on it as the seller isn't representing it as an Apple product. In fact, it sounds like from the article that these aren't even refurbished batteries, they are unmodified second-hand batteries (or at least the subject implies that they are):
In the US it's long been the law that you are free to sell any property you own. If I own it, I can sell it to another person if I wish. The First Sale Doctrine has been the law for a long time. Here, let me quote a little of the Wikipedia article for you:
Please do some further research on the above terms before spouting off with your "illegally marked" rhetoric. If what Rossman alleges is true (these are demo pulls or other legitimate Apple batteries) then he is perfectly within his rights to buy and sell them. Even if they are refurbished it's perfectly legal as long as that's made clear to the buyer.
Enigma
Uh, no. Shouldn't you turn off smart quotes on your cellphone?
Department of Homo Sexuals
Stop buying Apple products. I say this while typing this on an iPhone. But honestly this is how the market works. If you can ding their public persona enough and hit their wallet at the same time theyâ(TM)ll sing a different tune
$79 for a mouse? Fuck off.
This is especially bullshit because these are actual apple batteries made in an actual apple-blessed factory with apple-blessed components on an apple-blessed assembly line by apple-blessed employees to apple specifications. These are *original* batteries taken out of *original* apple laptops... and they're being called counterfeit *why*?
Odd how he has put them on everything else, but excluded this company (one of the largest abusers of "made in China" around given nothing is made in the US).
Apple did not file a complaint. That would be public record and impossible to cover up. And if you think the largest publicly traded company in the world is worried about 20 batteries they don't even sell your an idiot.
And yes contracts do work that way. A manufacturer only has licence to use Apple's logo on the products it sells to Apple. Manufacturing overruns happen all the time. And guess what. They remove the logos and sell them to the gray market.
Apple doesnâ(TM)t make the original cells. Replacing them doesnâ(TM)t make an original product any less original.
because they weren't. they were physically tested and found not to be Apple batteries.
Stop blaming Apple. Third party replacement batteries are readily available from reputable sellers. This guy decided to save a few bucks and screw his customers by buying iffy products from China. They were fakes. Apple doesn't give a damn about $1000 worth of old batteries it doesn't sell anyways.
An OS in a VM can not and will never run as well as it can if it were properly installed.
VM's are for losers.
numbnuts
Many posters here seem to dismiss the idea that these cos be "legitimate" Apple batteries. In fact, there is a substantial "industry" in China built around buying up non-working products, and then parting them out. They disassemble the devices, then sell the parts - screens, batteries, keyboards, motherboards, ribbon cables, etc. - separately. These are all original parts taken from original products. In some cases, the parts are tested or refurbished, but not always.
Repair businesses like Rossmann's buy those recovered parts to repair computers here in the U.S. Louis also buys lots of motherboards that don't work, too use as donor boards for replacement components (e.g., individual chips, resistors, capacitors, etc.).
This is analogous to getting parts from an auto junkyard. These are not counterfeit or NOS parts.