the common law doctrine of first sale should trump this because as I own that particular copy of Mac OS (or any other product), I should be allowed to do whatever I want with that product, be it resell it at a profit or loss, use it as a Frisbee, feed it to the dog, or whatever provided I do not make unauthorized copies of the product.
Let's see . . . according to that doctrine I can buy a copy of a record and put it in a jukebox, and I get all the proceeds over and above the cost of the record. Is that your theory?I don't think the record companies would go for that.
The PC software industry would have been throttled in its crib if database companies and so forth couldn't sell licenses for their software at a lower price for use on a PC without subverting their ability to charge the big bucks for use on a mainframe.
This whole fuss is about the fact that Apple makes a good OS (else why the desire to obtain the use of it on the cheap?), bundles that OS with their good-quality Mac computers, and then sells upgrades to the OS for a modest price as a way of maintaining the value of its customers' Macs over time, thus supporting the value proposition of its new Macs in the showroom. Rather than following the Microsoft business plan of imitating the best features of the competition (never leading the state of the art as Apple endeavors to do) and charging higher prices for upgrades which typically require hardware upgrades in order to be useful. Clones of Macs subvert the business model of Apple, which makes its money on the hardware with which it bundles the right to use its OS. And would if permitted to flourish force Apple to move toward the Microsoft model. Do we actually need two Microsofts?
No. I don't see how you got that idea at all. A proper analogy would be my buying a CD, throwing it a box with a CD player and then selling it.