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OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English
- archmikhail 11y agoWow, that was really not as bad as I thought.
- tymekpavel 11y ago"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?
- threeseed 11y agoIt is to do with MPEG-LA licensing. Apple and Microsoft licensed the H.264 codecs for content creation which is a per user cost. They know this based on how many downloads. Users who sell their videos need to pay MPEG-LA a license per view which Apple/Microsoft can't determine. Hence you are on your own. http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-H.264-Licensing-Labyrinth-65403.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Ar...
- dogweather 11y agoThanks, this is a good explanation of the "why".
- JohnTHaller 11y agoThe tech industry sold its soul, mainly because of Apple, and standardized on the "free" H.264/MPEG standard for videos. The caveat is that it is only free to end users for consumption (hence "free") and the bits included to handle encoding/decoding within your operating system or browser, doesn't legally allow you to produce content for others to consume.
- threeseed 11y agoH.264 comprises a ridiculous number of companies. It isn't just Apple. As we saw with VP8 there is no such thing as a truly free and open codec. Back in the day MPEG-LA was going to setup a VP8 patent pool but didn't bother and instead just licensed Google the infringing patents. If they didn't do this VP8 could have been open but not free. There are just too many large and powerful players with competing interests and a penchant for litigating against any possible upstarts. The only way to fix the situation is to exempt all file formats from patent claims as it is clearly anticompetitive.
- Silhouette 11y agoThe only way to fix the situation is to exempt all file formats from patent claims as it is clearly anticompetitive. This is clearly the correct answer, or at least part of it. Many real world problems in the technology industries would never have existed if intellectual property laws could not be applied to restrict communication and compatibility. Allowing patents to effectively restrict the transfer of data, because the tools available to either or both parties effectively require patented formats or similar, is either a tax on communication or a tool for censorship, depending primarily on the willingness of the patent holder to licence on useful terms. Ironically, the US actually got this right in the case of fonts and copyrights, in that while a specific program to describe a font might be subject to copyright, the design of the font itself is not. Thus unlike certain other creative industries, no-one can go around claiming royalties on every publication displayed in a sans serif font because it looks a bit similar to something from the early 1900s and (insert dubious legal argument about derivative works restarting the copyright clock here).
- nitrogen 11y agoMPEG-LA had a very long time to assemble their VP8 pool, but nothing ever materialized. The impression I got was that Google paid them for silence, in a way that let them save face. Regardless, it's a clear sign that patents are failing our society when it might be impossible to write a free video codec from scratch.
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- Kequc 11y agoThis is why we aren't seeing things like Opus codec support in Safari. Apple is engaging in a codec war. I really hope it makes them a lot of money because for me as a developer doing web audio it's like the difference between FireFox circa 2005 and IE.
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- Udo 11y agoInteresting, this means you can't use OS X to make your videos if you're a Youtuber.
- reagency 11y agoDoes YouTube pay the license fee for YouTube viewer? I would expect so.
- Udo 11y agoThat's not the point. With the built-in encoder, people create movies which they make money from. Now, Youtube recodes those when you upload them, however, the "original" movie was created on a Mac. And apparently the license states you can't profit from making H264 videos on OS X. Whether this is something people could actually get sued for is doubtful. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if some shady company who is nominally a member of the consortium chose to go after the more successful Youtubers. At the very least it's something a consortium company could use to take down videos they don't like.
- reagency 11y agoI think the MPEG-LA $ license is about distributing encoded videos that the viewer decodes. If YouTube transcodes, you aren't distributing encoded videos to anyone , except maybe YouTube itself, for one play. But I could be mistaken, I haven't checked carefully.
- liquidise 11y agoThis was both insightful and highlights, i would argue, an unmet need. I would love simple write ups like this for specific software licenses. In theory, tldrlegal.com is positioned to take this on, but in my experience they tend to deal with more pervasive licenses like MIT, GNU, etc.
- dogweather 11y agoThanks! Maybe I've found my niche. I checked out tldrlegal.com first, but saw what you're talking about. It's more of a comparison tool for the bigger licenses.
- mayneack 11y agohttps://tosdr.org/ https://tosdr.org/
- dogweather 11y agoYes! That's a great site. Thanks for reminding me.
- burnte 11y agoI always include a "plain english" copy of my contracts when I send them to customers. I state that it's there for reference only, not a substitute for a lawyer on their part, but that I've made the best effort to make it representative of the contract. Most of my client love it, some don't care, but I think it's something that has helped a lot of folks. I think most contracts should have one.
- querious 11y agoShould there be an intermediary the client needs to sign that the summary isn't a perfect representation of the contract? Kidding, of course. Mostly.
- peterkelly 11y agoThere is, but that's a detail omitted from the summary
- danr4 11y agoNice read. You should do more of these. It would be great to have a site for crowdsourced EULA explanations of this sort.
- dogweather 11y agoThanks! I never expected that so many people would want to see this. So now I'm brainstorming about the best way to publish more of these, enable crowd sourcing, and get other lawyers involved.
- stanley 11y agoCan anyone explain the Sudan thing?
- dogweather 11y agoThe prohibition is against sending it to any “embargoed country”. Sudan is on the list: http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/ http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/
- johansch 11y agoSpecifically against exporting "dual-use" technology (suitable for both military and civilian use), in this case likely strong cryptography. Of course it's completely pointless since they would just pirate the software anyway.
- tomsmeding 11y agoFunny, China seems to be on the list too... Or am I interpreting that list incorrectly?
- X-Istence 11y agoChina is indeed on that list, however to understand what you may or may not export to China you will have to read all of the relevant laws, which may or may not be the same as those for any other country.
- carlosrg 11y agoI think in China case only bans selling weapons and other defense-related items.
- weinzierl 11y ago"I’ve got to read the separate rules that came with the fonts, and obey them. (I can only borrow those too.)" Thanks for writing this. It would be great to have the font licenses in plain English too.
- idlewords 11y agoSomebody buy this person a beer
- msravi 11y ago> Apple didn’t sell me this software. They still own it, in fact. I’m just borrowing it. Does this also apply to older versions of OS X that are actually paid for (such as Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion)? Or is this only for the "free" versions like Yosemite and El Capitan?
- dchest 11y agoIt applies to pretty much all software: you're licensing it, not buying.
- Silhouette 11y agoThough it's actually a very bad summary in this particular case. If you've paid real money for a permanent copy of some software then in many jurisdictions you do effectively own that copy of the software. In those places, there may be quite severe restrictions on what the copyright holder can then restrict you from doing with your copy, even though they retain the main rights to the software itself, and in some cases there have been lawsuits which have made it to court and upheld limitations on the rightsholders' powers. Even where there used to be potential distinctions between physical copies and things you acquired in purely digital form such as on-line downloads, the law is catching up in a lot of places. It's just doing so painfully slowly compared to the pace of development of technology, and sometimes with a few accidental/deliberate (delete as applicable) loopholes written into the newer laws that still seem rather favourable to copyright holders and the like.
- Joeri 11y agoThey'll still put it in for the jurisdictions that it's valid, or maybe just as a chilling effect. I've signed an employment contract before which contained clauses that were invalid under the law (non-compete and also forced repayment of mandatory training when you leave too soon after), and when the employer was asked whether they knew they were invalid, they admitted they did. Those clauses were only enforceable to people who didn't know any better, and apparently that was sufficient reason to have them in there.
- ck2 11y agoWhy is Sudan of all places singled out and not like North Korea or Iran? Or was that just reduced for brevity.
- jnpatel 11y agoIn the comments of the original article, the author mentions this condition applies to any country on the embargoed list [0] (which includes Sudan). 0: http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/ http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/
- dogweather 11y agoJust for the alliteration: sending it to Sudan. No offense intended.
- gcb0 11y agoi always want to have free time just to break that and test how the old-apple "sosumi" bravado affects now-apple in court.
- anjbe 11y agoI think there’s a lot to be said for a license that’s so simple it doesn’t need a summary. For example, take the ISC license: “Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. “The software is provided ‘as is’ and the author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, direct, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.” Yes, there are a lot of things it doesn’t cover. There’s no copyleft in this license, and no restriction on commercial use, and so on. Some will argue the problems with that, but it’s also a strength—because the license does less, explaining these concepts is unnecessary, and the resulting license text is much simpler. There aren’t that many licenses like that. Even Creative Commons summary pages state: “This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. This deed highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. You should carefully review all of the terms and conditions of the actual license before using the licensed material.” Who actually does that? But it seems dangerous not to. $ wc -w * | sort -n 60 wtfpl 118 isc 140 zlib 167 mit 190 unlicense 207 bsd 1055 cc0 1234 lgpl3 2487 gpl2 2699 cc-by 3111 cc-by-sa 4025 lgpl2.1 5174 agpl3 5209 gpl3 25876 total
- DanBC 11y ago> The software is provided ‘as is’ and the author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, direct, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.” Not compatible with law in some jurisdictions. Which is one of the problems with complex licences - the more stuff there is in them the more chance they have of not being compatible with local law.
- cooper12 11y agoDoes anyone know if #10 changed in El Capitan? I remember reading that Apple allowed hackintoshes.
- toyg 11y agoThis summary is precisely for El Capitan, so no, it has not changed.
- dogweather 11y agoI never heard about Apple allowing hackintoshes. The thing they DID begin to allow at some point is OS X running in a VM, on Apple host hardware, I believe.
- MichaelGG 11y agoWell they allowed others to sell Mac-compatibles, like PCs. But that was quite a while ago and not hackintosh.
- morganvachon 11y agoIt's not that they allow them, they simply don't go after individual infringers because the effort is far more expensive than the outcome warrants. They have gone after and will surely continue to go after third parties trying to sell Hackintosh machines at retail.
- gurkendoktor 11y ago> Slideshows made with Photo; same deal, don’t even think about using them for some commercial purpose. ??? Was Apple too cheap to buy the proper license for the default slideshow music? That sounds completely arbitrary and unexpected. (I doubt anyone will ever enforce this rule, but why is it there?)
- deckiedan 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10407399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10407399 may have more to do with it.
- togusa 11y agoVersus BSD: Whatever, just remember we wrote it and if it fucks up, don't blame us.
- yxdfasdjkljasdf 11y agoWhich is what Apple's license says, but with a bunch of additional terms unfavorable for the user and without access to the source code.
- togusa 11y agoNo it says nothing of the sort.
- yxdfasdjkljasdf 11y agoJudging from the article it does: The author is clearly Apple and they are not responsible just as in the BSD license: The Capitan is AS-IS, of course. Unlike BSD, there is no source and a bunch of other very restrictive limitations, which is what I was commenting about. 1. I can’t use the Capitan with illegal copies of anyone’s stuff. 2. Apple didn’t sell me this software. They still own it, in fact. I’m just borrowing it. 3. If I install more Apple software, those are on loan as well. ... And so on.
- togusa 11y agoThey place restrictive rights on the usage of the software and retain the ability to revoke your license. BSD does not, ergo it is different.
- hobarrera 11y agoI'm not sure if this is also true in the US, but the ability to revoke a licence is implicit by law in many places - though the revoker may be liable for any losses caused by the revocation.
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- demarq 11y agoIts weird that we do this dance, no one reads the terms and we if we ever have to choose between the agreement and our immediate need well... If a client needs you to spin up a vm but you're already running two who gives a rat's behind!
- andersthue 11y agoThere outh to two sets of license agreements with all software, the legalese one and one like this - then I might actually read it. I'll add one like this to my software now!
- noonespecial 11y agoSo we're at the point now that legal documents need comments to be human readable. I wonder how long it will be until they look like perl.
- hmahncke 11y agoOne company - http://www.legalese.io/turing.html http://www.legalese.io/turing.html - is working on this, perhaps inspired by Charles Stross' comments on this idea.
- phyllostachys 11y agoOh man! I was thinking about the whole legal language should be something of a formal language a little less than a year ago. I'm glad someone is doing something along those lines.
- djhn 11y ago> So we're at the point now Has that not been the case for most of our history? Prior to the 20th Century most humans couldn't read legal documents of their time because they couldn't read. There's a reason "scribe" was a profession. As for the 20th century, is there any evidence that legal documents were more legible earlier than they are now?
- wtallis 11y agoIIRC, #7 about the voice synthesizers appeared with 10.6. Prior to that, there was no mention of the voices in the license and commercial use of narrations produced with the system's voice synthesizer might have been legal.
- joosters 11y agoThat's bizarre, especially since as far as I can tell, the voice synthesizer hasn't been improved in years. (the command 'say hello' sounds something like 'yellow' to my ears)
- pidg 11y agoI can only think of one commercial track that uses the voice synth - Cow Cud is a Twin by Aphex Twin[1] uses the 'Hysterical' and 'Bells' voices. And those aren't "remixed" - they're used straight - which makes me wonder what the full license terms are (I agreed blindly and can't find a copy of the license now...) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOqgWifXgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOqgWifXgU
- dogweather 11y agoHere's the license text: http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf > F. Voices. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you may use the system voices included in the Apple Software (“System Voices”) (i) while running the Apple Software and (ii) to create your own original content and projects for your personal, non-commercial use. No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or redistribution of any of the System Voices in a profit, non-profit, public sharing or commercial context. So while you can be creative with these in private, you better not share it with anyone. I wanted to sum it up simply, and decided that no remixing probably captured the spirit of this well.
- zeckalpha 11y agoMore voices have been added.
- tajen 11y ago"I can't use El Captain with illegal copies of anyone's stuff" or break any local law. In which case I must delete everything. Do you think Apple is required to write this? or is it just lawyers maxing out on the possibilities of licensing?
- 746F7475 11y agoI guess it's more about Apple washing their hands, like if someone uses a Mac to plan a bombing or hack into something, no matter what happens no one can point a finger at Apple. It's a long shot, but it's same kind of thing when your microwave says "it's not suitable for drying living animal"
- tajen 11y agoThe microwave is interestingly slightly different, it doesn't disown you. It's more like a cascading penalty: Say if you do something wrong in the house, then the house doesn't belong to you anymore. It's far fetched to accuse Apple in case of bombing, although we've seen anything in the US jurisdicting; as far fetched as it is to disown someone of their computer if they pirated an ebook (which has already happened with Amazon Kindle).
- 746F7475 11y agoI think that "you are just loaning our software" will become (or is) defacto standard, say Apple discontinues iTunes, they can just remove it and no one can sue them because the lost their MP3 library because they were just loaning the content in the first place. Another company that does the same is Valve with Steam, you do not own any of the games you have in your library, you just have momentary right to play them and if, say, Valve goes bankrupt and Steam just vanishes from the Internet you have no right to complain that you can't play your games anymore. It's just to cover their asses so some nutjob doesn't find a loophole and milk them for half their worth.
- jmpeax 11y agoThis is cool. If I do something illegal, I'm not only allowed to, but obligated to delete all evidence of it.
- suneilp 11y agoIf I'm just 'borrowing' El Capitan, then that means the copy I'm running belongs to them. Therefore, any intellectual property I develop using my copy could technically belong to them?
- x5n1 11y agoCome to Linux my brother, heed the call of salvation!
- suneilp 11y agoX Windows has traumatized me in the past.
- zeckalpha 11y agoYou don't have to use it.
- zeckalpha 11y agoDownvoted for some reason, but there's Wayland and Mir.
- fernandotakai 11y agoit got a lot better. on my archlinux install (on a macbook), the only thing that did not work out of the box was wifi (i had to install proprietary broadcom drivers). other than that, everything is fine and dandy. and it boots a lot faster than osx ever did.
- hobarrera 11y agoYup, indeed, running Arch on a 2013 MBA here. It's been a pleasure so far. Installing the broadcom driver was a breeze, and never had any issues.
- dogweather 11y ago
- Maarten88 11y agoI did not read anything about installing Windows on Apple hardware and then running OSX Capitan in a virtual machine. Is that really allowed?
- dogweather 11y agoI think it might be!
- joosters 11y agoAs long as the OSX VM runs on Apple hardware, it's allowed. Apple does not put any legal restrictions on what OS you choose to run on Mac hardware, you're free to install Windows on it (but then you'd better be complying with Windows' license terms)
- wila 11y agoThe problem with VMs is that it presents virtual hardware to the Guest OS and as such it is not apple hardware by definition. Besides that Apple has a restriction that your guest OS must run under an Apple host OS. Note that there is an interesting side case with vSphere ESXi where the host OS is a hypervisor not an apple provided OS. This appears to be legal as VMware clearly supports it, if an only if vSphere runs on apple hardware, but I'm not sure how that fits in the EULA.
- wila 11y agoThis is a question I see pop up every now and then, it was never legal, but I just looked it up again. Unfortunately, no, that's not allowed, your host OS must be an apple supplied OS. See also [1] and here's the excerpt: (iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software [1] http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf
- hobarrera 11y agoTechnically, you can install windows, iTunes, and then an OS X VM. That would seem to comply with the "is already running Apple Software". Or did I miss something?
- moe 11y agoEnglish isn't really a better exchange format for licenses than legalese. Arguably it's even worse due to the lossy conversion. What we really need is a common legal markup language[1]. Sadly, the few efforts that I've heard about seem to be stagnating. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_XML
- jzwinck 11y agoThe problem with legal markup is the same as with FIX, the financial data protocol (which is widely used). Lawyers (finance people) will never stop innovating (increasing complexity), and they will not be one moment delayed by a protocol which falls short of their aspirations for sophistication (bamboozling). Therefore, the only adoptable protocols are mere transports. They might rigidly specify some commonly used things like property titles (stock orders) but foreseeing unusual or unknown requirements, such protocols will include custom extension features (user defined fields). The end result is a protocol which is sort of useful but still does not suffice for the development of generic tooling. An example from FIX is the field which tells whether an order added or removed liquidity. The standard didn't have such a field, so now every exchange has its own different one.
- dogweather 11y agoNaive first thought: it seems like an active standards body is required. Like for HTML. That took care of e.g. The CENTER tag.
- jzwinck 11y agoThere is one. It cannot possibly move as fast as all the individual actors. Standards bodies can provide high quality at slow pace. Participants here want fast pace and only adequate quality.
- moe 11y agoI don't really see that as a problem, that's how all popular protocols evolve. If all exchanges have invented a liquidity-field, then there's a good chance the next version of FIX will standardize it, no? Imho the legal system is very much ripe for digitalization. Both on the low-end (where it pretty much consists of overhead), and even more so on the high-end, where the complexity of legal contracts between companies or states has long exceeded what any team of lawyers (much less a mere mortal) can comprehend.
- joosters 11y agoI don't understand how practically all commercial software can get away with claiming that it isn't fit or warranted for any purpose. Apple's product demos and website advertise the OS performing lots of different tasks. If I bought a Mac and found I couldn't use it to browse the web or store photos, surely Apple's marketing is direct proof that they are warranting that it should be able to do these things?
- hasenj 11y agoIt doesn't do anything and you can't use it for anything. [I agree]
- gilgoomesh 11y agoNothing like that appears in the plain text license here. Are you reading it from somewhere else? In any case, almost all warranty disclaimers start with "TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW" which, under consumer laws in most countries, requires the company to provide a product that can work as shown in all its advertising materials.
- joosters 11y agoSee my other post containing the actual text (all-caps). You're right about the 'permitted by law' bit but who knows what that actually covers? I've never seen a clear summary anywhere. License agreements are long, the consumer laws are probably an order of magnitude bigger (and that's assuming you even know which bits are relevant)
- chrisseaton 11y agoThose are all valid points, but it isn't Apple's job to solve them, so it simply puts 'permitted by law' and moves on.
- joosters 11y agoWell, it's a bit of an irrelevance whether or not they state 'as permitted by law', since everything in any license is restricted by the law. Nothing changes. My point is that Apple (and every other company) makes no attempt to define what their software is meant to be able to do. The license tries to wash their hands of everything that they can. If I buy a camera and it can't take photos, it's not fit for purpose and I can return it. If I buy a computer to be able to (say) Facetime chat with my relatives, and it doesn't do that due to a bug or incompatibility, it's a murky legal quagmire whether or not I could get a refund.
- Narishma 11y ago> I gotta follow all my local laws while I’m using it. (!) (Really? Whereever I live?) Where I live, a lot of those rules conflict with local law.
- rogeryu 11y agoWell then, it's quite simple, but then local law overrules Apple law. And Apple is nice enough to let you know this.
- acd 11y agoLegal agreements was used to be a agreement between two parties where an equal agreement was reached. EULA tends to be one sided agreements where the company take away your rights. "I gotta run it on Apple hardware (no Hackintoshes). I can’t help anyone else do that." Isnt help anyone else doing that taking away your legal right of free speech? I have also seen agreements where the company says you may not publicly mention any security holes that you find in their software. Does a company have the right to take away your free speech in their license agreements? Have this been tried in the highest court?
- lambada 11y ago"Isnt help anyone else doing that taking away your legal right of free speech?" Not in the US at least. In the US the legal right only prevents the government making laws that abridge them. It doesn't prohibit any private person or company from limiting speech in any way they like.
- randallsquared 11y ago> limiting speech in any way they like. ...that you agree to. In theory. And originally, only the federal government was so limited; states could and did have laws that would have been in violation of the first amendment, had the federal government instituted them.
- joliv 11y agoWhen you take a loan from the bank, you sign this sort of one-sided agreement. I think this has always been the case.
- snorrah 11y ago"I can’t sell access to my Mac via any kind of screen sharing." This one was interesting to me. I thought maybe macminicolo.net might fall foul of this, if they rented out a mac mini to you, but it looks like they instead make you straight-up purchase a mac mini. http://www.macminicolo.net/jvmx_secure_signup.html http://www.macminicolo.net/jvmx_secure_signup.html I wonder if this term/condition was in previous OSX releases and that's why they went this way, or whether it was a happy accident that they went with users purchasing a mac rather than renting one.
- hobarrera 11y agohttp://www.macincloud.com/ http://www.macincloud.com/ is similar, though it seems they rent you a mac per hour, so they're not technically giving you access to their mac: you're accessing the mac you rented.