Apple’s list of grievances against Mac clone maker Psystar spans 16 pages, but, in the end, its argument boils down to the one expected. Psystar, Apple says, had no right to do what it did, and should be stopped and forced to pay.
In its lawsuit, a copy of which was seen by CNET News courtesy of our colleagues at ZDNet, Apple alleges copyright infringement, inducement of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, as well as a couple of other legal claims. It seeks any profits earned by Psystar from its Open Computer, triple damages for willful acts, a permanent injunction against the sale of the product, as well as recall of those units already sold.
John Ferrell, chairman of the intellectual property practice at Carr & Ferrell added that One Infinite Loop, the road that stretches through Apple’s headquarters, “is littered with the wrecked business plans of companies that have tried to copy and sell Apple look-alikes.”
Lots of lawyerly quoting in the article. No one thinks Psystar has a snowball’s chance.
And here is the fundamental reason Apple does not have the market share.
And once again Apple slams the door shut on becoming the #1 PC in the world.
This is why I always laughed at people who said MS
was a monopoly. Companies refusing to compete is not equal to not being able to compete.
So I built a Hackintosh myself just to see what the OSX experience is like, without ‘investing’ in Aplle hardware. Everything worked fine, but I really really hated it. It felt like I was computing with one hand tied behind my back. It was dual boot with Vista, and try as I may, I just kept going back to Vista to get some real work done.
I am more convinced than ever that OSX is for posers that never do anything but email and maybe Photoshop. Say what you may about Microsoft products, but if you are past the “Ohhh look at the pretty colors’ level of computing that OSX offers, the real andswer is an XP or Vista system.
The ‘real’ real answer lies in what you wish to accomplish.
I really like #1 and #2: the sort of insight that built great American corporations. Like GM.
#5 Your Holyness – If GM used the Apple business model they would have a very good car that would require specialized tires, gas, oil etc.. that were made specifically for GM cars. There would be a small group of GM enthusiasts that would keep the brand going but the open platform type cars would always dominate. In fact there would probably be a few that would be able to use the specialized tires, gas, oil etc.. but who would care.
#1 No that isn’t the reason. Apple tried the licenced hardware route and their market share dropped while they were doing it.
I really think when the history is written and there is little to no emotion involved in the issue the reason will be that Apple didn’t embrace games on the Mac. If you look back when the Apple IIe was THE computer most if not all games came out for the Apple first and then were ported to the PC IF they were ever on the PC. When the Mac rolled around they said this is going to be our workplace computer and went out of there way to snub the gaming community.
I think it is interesting that with the iPhone apple has done just the opposite. First they make it almost impossible for business to adopt it then with version 2.0 they add features that make it more business friendly.
Some judge is going to struggle with this – either struggle, or issue a dumb ruling.
On the surface at least it seems like the OS is jsut another type of “content” being “played” on a piece of hardware.
Can a music company sell me an MP3 with a license saying it can only be played on a specific player?
Can GM sell me a car with a license agreement stating where I can drive it or who can be in it?
As memory serves me, I remember the Intel PC running DOS had the business market pretty much sewn up. It was because businesses trusted Big Blue from the days of the AS 400 so when it came time to move to PCs they felt more warm and fuzzy. The Apple computers with the cute names like Lisa and Macintosh seemed inappropriate for the business culture. Apples best decision was to flood the academic world with their computers and thus creating a devoted underground or cult of student users that would ultimately end up in the business world.
#8, “Can a music company sell me an MP3 with a license saying it can only be played on a specific player?”
The equivalent is done all the time in the console gaming market.
I have used OS X in a virtual machine on a pc. I didn’t like it at all. Debian with KDE 3.5.x is so much better than apple or wingoes. konqueror is the best file manager and universal document viewer. KDE 4 and Dolphin is crap like os x!
Yep, its called an illegal tying arrangement where you have to buy product A in order to get product B where A really is a separate product from B. I forget if you have to have monopoly power before its illegal, or if its illegal no matter what. Since Apple has been doing it from the get go, but does not have monopoly power, I would guess that is a requirement.
But, there are many violations of law that people just don’t have the interest in suing over. “Women Get in Free” is one such law, but then how did Hooters get by with requiring big tits and no men? The republican packed court at some level I assume?
#13, thanks for bringing up some excellent examples of bad regulations enacted based on some emotional claim of fairness, rather than a more legitimate issue of actual fraud or deceit. You’re my hero =D
Being a tad more serious though, I would say that Apple couple probably make a valid claim that their hardware and OS are not entirely separate products since all of their computers ship with it as the sole operating system choice, and that they only sell a separate retail boxed copy of the software to provide a means for existing owners to upgrade.
Also, that tying standard would make any other software Apple creates illegal if it is only designed to run on their platform. That’s pretty far-reaching in the effect it would have.
#13 bobbo
Come on bobbo – you pick the oddest things to complain about just to take a political swipe.
At least with Hooters – truth in advertising is a wonderful thing.
I wonder how Chinese law is going to interpret this. It may impact sales to the US, but it’s a big world out there.
Not to mention Psystar never sought Apple’s permission to sell these clones. Therefore, unlike most previous efforts, Apple cannot rescind the licensing agreement because there isn’t any.
Now here is the question, does Apple have an exclusive hardware/software lock on it’s systems that cannot be legally bypassed? Has Apple locked up it’s hardware with airtight patents?
Remember Compaq and IBM. IBM believed that it’s hardware and software package was invincible. Compaq promptly trounced that.
Has Apple put itself in the position of IBM? It will be interesting to see.
Oh, and Bobbo – “how did Hooters get by with requiring big tits and no men? The republican packed court at some level I assume?”
This may be the BEST argument to vote Republican!!
#14 – my thinking is that if the OS is useable as a separate product, then it’s a separate product in a legal sense.
There has to be an application of the “fair use” principle, otherwise there’s no limit to the conditions Apple could attach. They could say you can only run Apple programs on their OS, or you can’t change the Apple color scheme, can’t install any add-ons that change or defeat OS functions. They could even say you’re agreeing not to say bad things about Apple.
It doesn’t make sense. A software license agreement can’t be just an open-ended document containing anything the seller would like to force you to agree to.
By way of further explanation, if Psystar stopped selling the software as part of the package, and instead simply told you where you could get the software on your own, would this still constitute infringement?
Also, when Apple went to Intel processors, did they adequately protect the hardware/software from infringement? You would think so, and so did IBM.
Oh, and Apple’s claim for triple damages? Laughable. When it comes to patent infringement, Chinese law limits damages to $300,000 Yuan, which is about $44,100 dollars US. That’s it, that’s all Psystar is on the hook for.
What this lawsuit really amounts to a cheap lesson to Psystar on how to circumvent Apple.
Now let’s see if they are willing to go through this.
on a related note, I think it’s really interesting that Apple implements their software solutions differently for their own devoted fans than for the rest of the computing public they’re trying to snare. For example, a relative recently purchase an iPod Nano 3rd gen, and discovered they couldn’t do it with their version of iTunes. And they couldn’t upgrade iTunes because the latest version only ran on OS X 10.5 (vs 10.3, which they had). And upgrading from 10.3 to 10.5, which at any other company would be a free minor version update, cost the $129 retail price. Hearing all of this, I promptly took the iPod and dumped all of her music on it using my XP laptop and my ancient (ver 6?) iTunes install. For free.
Being the Mac fiends they are, these relatives still went out and upgraded their OS so they could upgrade iTunes.
Whatever.
I’m currently investigating the world of Linux to bypass all of these ridiculous commercial software behemoths entirely. Most normal applications make it perfectly suitable for everyday use – OpenOffice, Firefox, Amarok, GIMP (which replaces Photoshop very nicely for 99% of things). I think with a bit more polish, it’ll zip past Mac OS X in usability and popularity. When market share goes above 15%, the gaming community will start to take note and it’ll explode.
Just my $.02
#19, 10.3 to 10.5 is hardly a minor upgrade. The only reason why they insist on keeping the 10.x versioning scheme at all is for marketing purposes — Mac OS X version 11 doesn’t make any sense.
I thought phystar doesn’t exist. Oh well another day another time someone tries to steal apple’s ideas.
There’s an implicit assumption here that “fair use” doesn’t apply to software. I don’t think a software license can be just an open-ended collection of anything a vendor might want to force you to agree to when you buy his product.
If it were that simple, Apple’s license could include terms forbidding you from running non-Apple software on the OS, or from modifying the functionality in any way, or changing the official color scheme. Or from saying anything bad about Apple.
GM can’t include a “license agreement” with a car that tells you where you can drive it.
Apple, like the music industry, is just making up new “rights” and counting on a combination of expensive lawyers and confused judges to make them stick. It will work, for a while, but it sure isn’t increasing my loyalty to these companies.
[I won’t be posting here anymore (not that I’ll be missed) because the site has become too slow. It now takes minutes, after I hit Submit, before I get the Captcha page.]
Who cares. Everyone (at least smart enough to know the difference) can run hacked OSX in their PC machines. The reason they don’t is that 60% of having a Mac is the ability to show the Mac. 40% is the user Xperience. So Psystar made 2 major blunders:
1st
Used a restricted Software without agreement from the owner company.
2nd
Made Gawd ugly machines.
It’s like some 2cent watch company made plastic replicas and then said “yeah, but inside there’s an original Breitling mechanism.”
You are all wrong…..
OS/2 for the win!
Is there anybody out there who actually knew OS/2 and could use it properly? I could, and damn do I miss it.
It’s almost as if the last 10 years of OS design has actually gone backwards!
SKL
I honestly don’t think Apple wants market share. Exclusivity and outrageous cost make for a better brand, just like how a $2000 purse inspires awe in women even though its the same as a $20 purse.
If apple actually made inexpensive PC’s, they would be jettisoning their high end product line sales in the process, sending it into a tailspin.
The OS might be usible as a seperate probuct but in order to do that you have to fudge something on the machine that runs it or you have to crack the software and that I think is that.
This was tried with the Apple II clones and if it didn’t fly then I don’t expect it to fly now.
What is Apple afraid of? The price of their hardware is cheap enough that clones shouldn’t be much of a threat.
Besides, they are cleaning going into the media and phone business. Their computer days are numbered, aren’t they?
#29 Greg – According to #27 Rick Cain, the computer gives them street cred so they will take a loss in the computer market share.