Apple seeks injunction against Psytar
Apple is on the warpath with Psystar, using its summary judgement to argue the case for a permanent injunction.
As reported by PC Magazine, the Cupertino-based company has used the findings of Judge William Alsup - who issued a summary judgement against Psystar arguing that the resale of Mac OS X on third-party hardware represented a violation of "Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works," - as the basis for another filing which asks for Psystar to be permanently prevented from reselling its operating system.
As part of the filing, Apple claims that "unless Psystar is permanently enjoined, it will not stop its unlawful conduct – conduct that is causing irreparable harm to Apple's business, brand, and goodwill," - damage that the company claims is "undisputed and overwhelming."
If the courts find in Apple's favour, the injunction would see Pystar prevented from further infringement of Apple's intellectual property rights with regard to Mac OS X, while bringing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to bear in order to further prevent the company from circumventing protection measures built into Mac OS X and designed to prevent installation on non-Apple hardware - in other words, pretty much 90 percent of Psystar's business.
Apple is also requesting damages as part of the suit, but claims that "money damages alone could never compensate for the irreparable injury that Apple has suffered," and that "accordingly, this Court should grant a permanent injunction of a scope that will unequivocally end Psystar's unlawful conduct."
The hearing is due to start on December 14th.
Do you think that Apple is using an extremely large hammer to crack an incredibly small nut, or does the company have every right to protect its image - and profits - by preventing resale of its operating system? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Previous Article
48 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyWhat I can't understand is that they won't sell the OS separately for themselves. Sure less people would may buy the workstations / laptops, but there will always be a hardware market share for Apple - especially as many people seem to live by a form over function ethos.
The fact that people will still install it shows that there would be a market for the OS on it's own - if there wasn't a 4 figure sum involved for the overpriced hardware to go with it.
TLDR - They're not going to stop people using OSX on non-apple systems. People in the know will still go out and do it. Why not make money from the people that want the software and not the hardware...
They usually do if you ask them - a cheaper one can be found at a scrapyard, but they will sell it to you if you ask...
Besides I wasn't saying to ONLY sell the OS - I know some people that have bought Macbooks, only to put XP on them as they like to look of the laptop.
this would be more a case of wanting to buy only the engine, not the chassis
But it this just not another example of badly used power?
They can just stop Psystar making these systems, and cripple the business nevermind the rest of this crap.
And in terms of damages, honestly what non tech person knows what a hackintosh is?
Its a load of BS. Theres still millions of fanboys out there.
It's also not as simple as just changing the eula to allow the installation on other systems. There are numerous drivers to write, training for support staff, and providing support for all of these new possible system combinations. Whether you think its a good thing or not, Apple systems are more generally stable, and support(not claiming reliability) is better because of the limited number of systems they support. Apple is going to stay a hardware company for now, and if I were a stockholder, which I'm unfortunately not, I would want them to prevent the sale of cheap OSX boxes as well.
Fair point. I can understand that they are a successful company building on an existing marketing ethos (not sure if that is the correct term). I was merely saying I don't understand why it is the way it is. Until reading the reply from frojoe - I forgot to take into account the costs for support staff and new drivers :(
/has admitted defeat already
+1 I'd let them ( Psystar ) pay a fee to use it then pay for the support as well. At least that way more consumers could get a feel for the Apple OSX which in turn could lead to more people buying Apple hardware as well. Can't really see how they ( Apple ) could lose if they took this route.
If the cheap psystar machines ran into troubles it could harm Apples reputation of being problem free. I'm not saying that would happen, but it is a possibility. I could see it going either way for Apple if they let psystar continue.
It'll just add the first quote from teh BT comments section:
"It removes sort of a specialness of owning a macbook if people can get a budget one. Kind of annoying if they bring it in."
Most Mac users I've met have this attitude, I used to spend alot of time fixing the things so have come across alot of Mac users (probably 2000+)
Thanks to Apple's narrow mindedness this'll never happen.
What if it were the other way around? What if some company bought a bunch of legit copies of windows and installed them on, say, a PS3 (I know it's not possible, but bear with me here). Can you see MS even raising an eyebrow, much less suing to stop them? I agree that the IP in OSX is a valuable commodity, but being a commodity means that it can be bought and sold, and once sold the seller does not get to say how it can be used.
Why not? Easier to make a steering wheel than a car, and your still making a sale of some sort. =)
lol ... although this doesn't surprise me in the slightest, it's still funny that someone actually posted that. Smugness isn't a unique thing to some Apple owners, it's the same with houses, cars, jobs, handbags, jewellery, PC's even ... you'll always get people like that ... that's life.
Won't happen, Apple's legal costs are a drop in the ocean, Psystar's legal costs will end up destroying them.
MS is a software company, so of course they wouldn't complain!
Slight difference between a £100/$150 steering wheel and a £15,000/$22,500 car ... :P
Apple knows that these are the factors that will greatly affect their phrase "it just works"
They failed to provide receipts for purchases and during the investigation different versions of mac os x have been found which they duplicated and sold to their customers. doesn't seem a legal way, does it?
In order to install a mac os x you need a unique apple id and this is where psystar hacked into mac os and replaced original bootloader with their customized version which used hacked apple id.
You cannot parasite on someone's brand and R&D and build business around it. for those interested in more details please refer to groklaw.net, direct link: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091124092210278
As you can see from that article it's not just this. Psystar tried to use this trial to get VCs to inject money and they tried to use this position to build their brand name and they hoped to gain unique position on the market before other manufacturers try to follow and sell mac os x. so in other words they are bunch of parasites.
Other bit discusses a survey about psystar computers where customers would contact or blame apple if psystar offering fails in any way which isn't really apples fault and is damaging apple's brand name. There are proofs of psystar customers calling appleCare and demanded support from apple although they've bought their boxes from psystar.
Psystar hacked someone's property, parasites on someone's brand name and recognition and R&D. I cannot call this a proper business practice. Bunch of thieves, not mentioning they've stolen bits of code from hackint0sh community and tried to sell it as Rebel EFI.
Really? Their hardware is the same as what's in a "regular" pc. They just charge a huge markup. Want an extra TB hard drive? 200. Want 12gigs of ram? 2000. The parts don't cost that, and sure as hell don't cost that to install.
If Apple is moving us forward faster, please explain how. I honestly cannot see it. I have Mac OSX, I've used it. I've used Mac Pros, and there is nothing they can do that a pc that costs a fraction of the cost cannot do also.
As for "It just works"....I point out the upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6 deleting users files. That's hardly working.
have you updated from 10.5 to 10.6 yourself and lost user files? what user files? or you're just talking about what you've read somewhere few months back? Because i've updated my box and no problem, i've updated 3 other boxes and no problem. And who tells you to buy upgrades from apple? you are free to get your upgrades from whatever shop you like.
And if you cannot really spot any difference between using a mac and a win box then you're the lucky one and can save some money. I'm using both mac and win and i can see the difference clearly - no way i will ever own a win box, actually i've got my win box for sale - macbook pro replaced it completely.
My argument is not with the cost, Im aware that the hardware is the same, but Apple are able to create such a stable system because they can configure the two, that's not something you get with a pc, and that's what Apple are trying to protect. I know that Apple charge a premium for hardware, but if you want to pay less for hardware that doesn't work as efficiently, that's up to you.
You cant see how Apple is moving us forward!! Are you serious!?!? The Ipod, the Imac and the Iphone. I don't think i need to expand any further do i? (but i could) I'm not saying that a PC can't do what a mac can at all, I'm saying that Apple are innovating - that's not hard to see.
All i can go by is my own experience. Im on 10.6 with no problems.
For me, the one killer app on my default mac desktop is iMovie, because it is probably the easiest video editing package I've used and will create HD MP4 files, whereas I've yet to find a Windows video editor that will do that at sizes above ipod and PSP resolutions. It's a shame, because my PC has far more grunt than my laptop, but the laptop has better software....
What's the answer? A mac desktop? Not at those prices. They're way beyond "reassuringly expensive".
As for it "just works", the guest account bug was a bit embarassing...
You can say that they are taking it too far by trying to get some money back for it, psytar have made money from it so it makes sense.
But it is about time that they allow it to be installed on any hardware, people clearly want to use it. If they are worried about it having trouble on different hardware configurations then maybe they should try a bit harder, and stop doing those stupid mac VS PC adverts.
You haven't read any of this thread have you?
As for differences between Mac and Win box. My Pc is both. I run OSX on it to see what it is like, I purchased OSX legally, though I have broken the TOS to run it alright. The difference, I can game a lot better on windows then I can on a Mac (or linux).
All I'm saying is that Apple could release their OS a lot more. People will still go for form over function, and that is what Mac is all about.
iPod accounts for 70% of MP3 market.
iPhone is approaching 50% of smartphone market.
That's right, all these people are brainwashed. yawn.
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/25/apple-records-nearly-half-of-u-s-pc-desktop-retail-industry-revenue/
48% of desktop sales were Mac based. Also note the average selling price further down the page.
Cheers for that Ash - very interesting.
Nice review of what is considered to be some of the most influential technology and design of the last couple of decades ;) Can't wait to see what ideas you have in the pipeline!
That has just confirmed it, you really don't know what you are talking about.
:( PC = functionality!! :(
Pleasure ;)
As for the mac sales figures. No they weren't 48% of desktop sales. They were 48% of the revenue of the sales, but they sell for a much higher price.
When I first heard about this, way back in time, my reaction was: Apple using their ubercorporate power to unfairly shut down a small plucky company. Now that I've read about this a lot more and have been following the story, I am with Apple on this one.
First some background. Mac hardware has a decryption key built into the BIOS (well, the EFI, actually - PC's haven't got round to fully supporting EFI over BIOS yet), which the OSX software looks for in order to decrypt the software. The OSx86 hacker community have reverse engineered this protection method in order to create bootloaders that bypass the requirement of having an Apple-signed EFI key in the hardware - thus allowing the OSX discs to boot on non-Apple systems. It's not particularly legal (heard of the DMCA?), or above board, for a community of hackers to do this and release the files for free to start with; however it is a completely different thing for someone to actively sell this as a retail product. That is most definitely illegal and an infringement of Apple's IP. Especially when the code that Psystar's RebelEFI product uses is based on (read: ripped off from) the code that the hackers have originally released for free.
There's a little bit of very interesting info that this article misses, but the groklaw article references. This is an extract of evidence submitted to the court; it's a pitch to venture capitalists prepared by Psystar:
What the BT article also missed, which is also in another piece of evidence submitted, is that Psystar have been heavily using Apple's trademarks and copyrighted material in their advertising - implying a legitimate relationship between the two companies (not to mention unauthorised use of Apple's copyrighted & trademarked material). Given that, and their VC pitch, it can be inferred that Psystar were actively trying to get sued by Apple in order to get a head start on what they saw as a market that would emerge.
Their assumption that the EULA is an illegal contract was, of course, completely false: the court has upheld the EULA and did not declare it invalid. Kind of unravels their business plan.
I really hope that Apple crush Psystar so far into the ground that they'll never go near the IT market again - in whatever form the company may be left in. This is an unscrupulous, dirty, illegal and immoral way to do business, IMO.
For the record, I am a die-hard PC user who has never purchased or owned any Mac. I have dabbled with using OSX on my Dell netbook, but I went back to Windows and re-sold the OSX DVD that I bought.
You sir, have hit one of the biggest nails in this case on the head: Psystar's actions will devalue Apple's brand and tar their reputation. Their products have the reputation for being aesthetically pleasing, simple to use and flawless in operation and reliability. That's why the Apple and Mac brands carry such a high price tag. That's where it'll hurt Apple the most, as they have spent millions building their brand & reputation. If that was your money, I'm sure you'd want to protect your baby.
EDIT: Serves me right for not reading all comments - it appears that hexx has already linked to the same groklaw article, and made many of the same points I did... :D Flogging dead horses indeed! :)
However I'm translating those figures as people are willing to spend more to get the quality and service. And I know the other side of the fence will be translating as "mugs! brainwashed victims!"
And the never-ending-argument goes on ;)
My Amiga is way better than your Atari ST! No way, yours can't do MIDI like mine can and it's nowhere near as powerful! Yeah, but my games are way better!
:D ;)
Perhaps I should simply say this. Macs are beautiful machines, excellently crafted. If you wish to spend the money on them, go right ahead. However you can build similar specs for a lot less with a linux or windows box.
In this day and age where money is tight, I know what I'd buy (though if money was no object I think I'd get my mother a mac rather then windows machine. Less to worry about overall).
Sorry, because I don't agree with you I must not have read the thread :|
I am entitled to my own opinion whether it is right or wrong and that was it, whether I have read YOUR opinion has no bearing on that.
I suggest you stop being condescending and keep your comments constructive.
Tell me again what is wrong with my post,
Many people want to use it without paying the premium of a Mac. True.
They would have trouble getting it to work across a wider range of hardware. True.
They really should stick to making adverts that promote their own products, not slate others. True.
Seriously, if your whole argument is that you are right and everyone else is wrong, and apparently anyone with an opposing opinion has the same ability to take in information as a brick wall. Then perhaps you would be better off going elsewhere, this is a forum to discuss, discussion usually involves two or more opposing points which are debated. Not one person telling everyone else that they are stupid because they don't agree.
Aside from that, i couldn't care less if a little company nibbles a bit on Apples moneypile. Keeps the big guys from going too arrogant and complacent.