Apple v. psystar final verdict Ping!
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Posted on 09/30/2011 1:01:00 AM PDT by Swordmaker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has sided with Apple in the company's bitter lawsuit against Psystar.
Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder ruled yesterday that Psystar's Mac clones violated copyrights Apple holds, and the ban on sales will be upheld. According to Schroeder, Psystar specifically violated copyrights Apple holds in Mac OS X, and said that the U.S. District Court's ruling in favor of Apple was just.
Psystar first started selling its Mac clones in April 2008 under the name "OpenMac" after buying copies of Mac OS X on the market and then installing them on its own brand of computers. Soon after, the company changed the name of its devices to "Open Computer."
Even so, Apple filed a copyright infringement suit against the small PC maker in July of that year. Apple argued in its lawsuit that Psystar's clones violated its Mac OS X software licensing agreement and committed "direct and contributory copyright infringement, trademark and trade dress infringement, and violation of state and common law unfair competition laws." Apple also argued that Psystar violated the Digital
Although it seemed that Psystar, a small company, would be unable to fight back against the Apple juggernaut, Psystar responded to Apple's lawsuit, arguing in court that the Mac maker was misusing its Mac OS X copyright by requiring customers to only run the software on its own brand of computers.
After a protracted court battle, a U.S. District Court ruled in Apple's favor in 2009, saying that Psystar "violated Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works." The court also said that "Psystar has violated the DMCA by circumventing Apple's protection barrier and trafficking devices designed for circumvention."
In December 2009, Apple was awarded a permanent injunction against Psystar by the district court.
Today's ruling by Schroeder upholds the earlier ruling, and could prove to be the final nail in Psystar's coffin.
However, Psystar did get one parting shot in. Although Apple requested the circuit court seal all of its records related to the case, Schroeder said that there is no reason to do so.
Apple did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.
This story has been updated throughout the morning.
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I definitely agree with Apple on this one point.
So how is this different from ‘jailbreaking’ an Iphone?
Aren’t we talking about the same basic principles here? Honest question as this seems kinda strange. Dunno, perhaps I’m way off.
The Psystar website allowed comments and reviews for each model. I saw zero complaints. Customers were very happy with their PsyStar computers. A few would say, “I own an Apple computer and my PsyStar computer is faster and better. Plus at a much better price than what Apple charges” The big bullies at Apple sued Psystar in violation of all free market concepts
If Apple Inc was smart they set up their own clone company in China to compete against Apple products at lower prices. Apple could also sue they clone company to keep plausible deniability. Everyone likes competition so this would boost Apple revenue. Intel could put AMD out of business but would then have anti-trust headaches. Apple is going to be the subject of restraint of trade and anti-trust lawsuits. If they had that Chinese clone company to play off of there would be no such problems
Anyways, Windows 7 is superior. This is why Apple devotees always have Windows 7 installed on their Apple computer for when they have real work to do, not just moping around on MySpace and FaceBook
I have loathed every Windows OS since I left the old Amiga 1200 behind, but Win7/64 I love. Stable as hell even when bridging 32 bit apps on an AMD Phenom2 Quad. I have not had a single crash that was not self induced (doing weird things in dodgy music apps)and VERY FEW of those.
LOL. I run W2K in a VirtualBox on my iMac. Mostly so I can run the old windows based game: Homeworld.
Jailbreaking lets you run non-Apple approved software on Apple hardware.
Psystar was running Apple OS software on its own hardware.
I can think of lots of reasons for Apple to take a hard line on this:
Apple wants to control the quality of both hardware and software to protect its image. That image is in contrast to Windows which has a reputation for being a buggy virus magnet, and bloated in memory use. Having non-Apple software crash on Apple hardware looks bad but having OS X crash looks even worse. Having OS X run FASTER on cheaper non-Apple hardware also makes Apple look bad. They don’t want to be relegated to software only like Microsoft and susceptible to the vagaries of hardware makers.
I'm sure all 3 of Psystar's customers were very happy.
“Jailbreaking lets you run non-Apple approved software on Apple hardware.
Psystar was running Apple OS software on its own hardware.”
Exactly and this is why I’m confused. Isn’t it the same basic concept? A non Apple product is still being used on an Apple product either way. I totally get why Apple is suing, I am just brainlocked how one way is considered ‘legal’ and what appears to be the same basic concept, IP wise, the other way isn’t. Then again my argument supposes hardware to be IP as well.
Not being argumentative, just wholly confused. Then again it’s 3:45 am here ;)
my argument supposes hardware to be IP as well.
Yes - and although the design of a computer - and of the chips which constitute it - is a big deal, and although the production of those chips and printed circuit boards is done via processes which are very similar to photographic copying, the computer is hardware.The argument of Phystar was essentially that OS X is hardware - a physical disk. The court's ruling was that even tho software may be stored on hardware, that hardware - the physical disk - is not OS X itself. And the traditional understanding, that software usage can be licensed subject to restrictions was upheld. Apart from restricting the license to a particular brand of computers, licensing may be more expensive on a mainframe and less expensive on a less capable machine.
Phystar was attempting to force Apple into Microsoft's business model of charging for the OS directly. Apple's business model is to sell the whole system, software and hardware. This has an advantage to the customer, in that Apple then takes system responsibility and doesn't point fingers at the hardware manufacturer or the software manufacturer - Apple is both.
Apple doesn't price OS X copies on the basis that OS X has to make money independent of the hardware it sells. In fact, Apple distributed Lion on line, no physical copy involved in the transaction. So Phystar's model for claiming that OS X copies are "hardware" would be defeated in that way.
OK, NOW I get it. Thanks for making sense out if it for me. ..Need sleep ;)
What really should have happened is that the US Department of Justice should have filed an anti-trust suit against Apple for monopoly practices on their OS and not allowing other (younger and more nimble) computer makers to build and sell computers using the Apple OS Tiger or whatever it is called today
Psystar would still be around and taking larger and larger bytes out of Apple if they hadn’t been sued to death. Apple won only because they have the money to hire the best legal talent plus the cases were tried in California on Apple’s home turf where Steve Jobs is called Saint Steve.
The comments I saw on the Psystar site were that Psystar computers were a better value. Get the same Apple OS but on superior and cheaper equipment. Of course don’t show up at a Genius Bar with one and expect to be helped :)
Your inanity is tiresome.
That’s a bit like saying the United States won a “key battle” over Japan in Hiroshima. Psystar is toast.
Quo Computer (http://www.quocomputer.com/), on the other hand, markets its computers as good Hackintoshes, but doesn’t sell or pre-install OS X, and they’re still around. I hope their machines are better designed than their craptacular Web site.
stooge!
Sticks and stones will .... :-)
You know we’re going to disagree on everything but PsyStar being a shady operation selling crappy computers. We’ll leave it at that.
I heard they actually sold several hundred computers. But there are enough idiots in the world to be able to sell pretty much anything.
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