Of course they are. However, 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.
Apple's lawsuit should be thrown out. No business should have the right to dictate to me how I should use their product after I have purchased a legitimate, legal copy of it. If Apple wants to control who uses its OS, it should consider renting it out instead.
Apple dictates to you how you can use their product before you buy it.
So, does Psystar have this OS running off the distribution disk, or do they copy the OS to a non-”Apple-labeled” PC hard-drive and run it from there. If so, that would be an unauthorized copy, wouldn’t it?
Psystar WAS making unauthorized copies of the product and selling them. They were making a copy on to other media and then selling that. The media they were copying it to was a Hard Drive on a Psystar Open Computer. It is irrelevant what other accessories Psystar may have attached to that other media.
Psystar is not even arguing their case from the doctrine of First Sale because that already has established case law that supports Apple's position. They are arguing that Apple is misusing its copyright rights to unlawfully restrict the installation and sale of their copyrighted products. This was after they attempted to claim that Apple had neglected to Copyright OS X Leopard.
When you bought the hardware and software from Apple, you agreed to their terms. If you do not like their terms, do not buy their stuff.
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?