Apple wins clone suit

[Aloone_Jonez]

A federal judge rules in Apple's favor in the Psystar copyright infringement case


Psystar's $600 Open Duo. Photo: Psystar Corp.

Nearly a year and a half after a Miami company called Psystar announced that it was selling "Open Computers" pre-installed with Apple's (AAPL) Mac OS X Leopard — and 17 months after Apple sued Psystar for copyright infringement — the case has come to its all-but-foregone conclusion: a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday in Apple's favor.

"The material facts are not in dispute," Apple wrote in its request for summary judgment. "Psystar deliberately copies and modifies Mac OS X without Apple’s permission and in violation of the laws protecting copyright."

District Judge William Alsup agreed. At the end of a long preamble, he wrote:

"In sum, Psystar has violated Apple’s exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works. Accordingly, Apple’s motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement must be granted." (PDF.)

And so it went for Apple's secondary claims of contributory infringement and copyright misuse. Psystar's motions, meanwhile, were all denied. A hearing to determine remedies is set for Dec. 14.

Apple has several other outstanding claims, including breach of contract, trademark infringement and unfair competition. They could still go to trial, if Psystar has the stomach — and the funds — to persevere.

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/11/14/apple-wins-clone-suit/

I can understand why Apple don't actively develop for third party hardware but I think they're shooting themselves in the foot by actively perusing those who do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSx86#Legal_issues_and_Apple_objections

I think they should give up. Remove the statement in their EULA forbidding installation on other hardware, after all if people have payed for their OS why should they give a fuck?

Surely if people are buying their software, it benefits them. I suppose they could argue that it reduces their hardware sales but does it really? My guess is that most people who would install it on a non-Mac would have otherwise installed Windows or Linux.

If I buy a piece of software I should be able to install it on whatever hardware I like. I wouldn't mind giving Mac OS a go but I wouldn't buy a new PC for the privilege.

Copyright law was never initially devised for software vendors to stop people from doing this kind of thing but prevent illegal redistribution of their work. I think things have gone too far.

[piratePenguin]

I think the world is fucked up.

[Calum]

yes but apple have always believed that their software will run poorly on hardware it was not designed for and tested on, and that this will harm their image, and most likely the value of their stocks.

[Lead Head]

Like Calum said, I believe its because they don't bother testing much other hardware then what their systems ship with. Its optimized for their systems and hardware configuration, so they don't want their brand image being hurt by potential clone systems having weird errors and being unstable.

[Aloone_Jonez]

May be so but aggressively perusing those to install their software on non-Apple computers isn't doing their image any good either.

They could simply not enforce it or allow it to install but provide a warning stating that the hardware isn't Apple-approved and that performance may suffer.

[davidnix71]

Apple makes money selling hardware that happens to have a solid OS pre-installed with plenty of useful and necessary apps. They are doing it the way that they need to in order to stay in business. The only time I had a kernel panic on a Mac was in Panther on a dialup connection that was so bad that the OS thought the modem was failing.

If Apple allowed installing OSX on anything, then they would have to put a serial number on it and have it call home to run like Windozes. I wouldn't use if it that were so.

[Calum]

hmm. in my opinion it's possible to sell O/Ss that don't send information back to the vendor, that's a separate issue.

[piratePenguin]

I dont think apple needs to make os x call home and require a serial key to have users pay, I think the entirety of their current user base would be brought to tears if the software simply said "i hope ur not stealing tut" at first boot. This might even make most of them pay twice.