Apple wants life ban for clone maker
No sequel for Psystar
Apple is seeking a permanent injunction to stop Psystar ever again selling cloned Mac software or hardware.
Apple won a recent injunction but wants this to be extended to cover Snow Leopard, because otherwise Psystar will not stop copying its intellectual property. The company is also seeking damages and attorney fees.
It is asking the court to permanently prevent Psystar from infringing Apple copyrights in Mac OS X, circumventing protection measures in the software, possessing or selling such circumvention devices.
One document filed by the court reveals that Psystar actually saw the litigation as a positive benefit and included it when pitching for venture capital money.
A presentation given to potential investors said:
The on-going litigation will insulate Psystar from competing with other PC manufacturers in the OS X arena
* The anti-competitive nature of Apple's EULA makes it an illegal contract.
* Once the litigation is over that contract will become invalid, opening Mac OS to other OEMs.
* This presents us with a unique window of opportunity to gain market share and achieve brand recognition before competitors can even enter the market.
But Apple's licensing agreement was not thrown out by the court. Still nice to see "get sued" being used as a business plan again.
Groklaw has all the details and documents. ®
COMMENTS
Read the ruling
"But I missed that part entirely. I thought that they LEGALLY BOUGHT software that is sold by Apple, and then they installed that software on some hardware they put together."
Please read the ruling. You are very, very confused as to the facts.
1. Psystar didn't buy the software. They licensed it.
2. They violated the license agreement
3. They violated DMCA
4. Installation of the software on non-Apple hardware was ruled to be illegal.
Please stop posting nonsense until you've read enough to understand the court ruling and its implications.
Contradictory
"On the other side, some part of this ruling should require Apple to open up at least a little, and offer OEM licensing agreements at reasonable prices (say $250 for the OS, without iLife). "
Sorry, if you understand and agree with the ruling, the above statement is contradictory. Apple has the complete right to do whatever they want with their software. Just why would the court affirm that right and then take it away?
Apple has no legal or moral obligation to license their software. They have apparently decided that they have no financial reason to do so, either - and they have undoubtedly done much more detailed market research than you have.
@BristolBachelor
This has to do with Apple's business model - they are a hardware company that produces an OS that makes the hardware work better. Note that the OS upgrades are cheap... (I know that one might consider them service packs.) They do the same thing with iTunes and the iPod/phone. SO Apple has put limits on the software use to protect their hardware sales.
I'm on the fence
On one side I completely agree with the ruling, that Psystar broke the law, and Apple is right in this case. I'm also no fan of any company selling cheap shit, half baked systems at any price, especially one using questionable business tactics.
On the other side, some part of this ruling should require Apple to open up at least a little, and offer OEM licensing agreements at reasonable prices (say $250 for the OS, without iLife). Yet at the same time I know Apple could never support any kind of mad sales increase. They're only 9% of the market now, but if they doubled or trippled in less than a couply of years, there's no way support could keep up, and the user experience would go to crap. The only way apple could reasonable arrange OEM deals would be on strict hardware requirements, and to force the vendor to provide their own support (except for the OS, for which support from Apple would be extra as it is from M$). That's not going to provide cheap systems to anyone who;s not willing to saccrifie support... There's no way Apple's going to be able to support an ad-hoc Os-on-a-shelf model either.
Psystar did a bad thing. Apple won, and further strengthened their position. They however seem to be showing some caution, like they know the coults could do things to make life very painful and much less profitable for them.
Re: Great Idea
I seem to recall Apple granting a licence to Motorola to produce & sell Apple Clones in the 1990's, under the name Power PC's, running Apple's (Current at the time version) OS until Apple realised that the clones were faster, better engineered, & generally more capable, and most importantly cheaper than the equivalent official Apple Product...
Suddenly & apparently without warning, Apple pulled the licence from Motorola...
