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Apple Wins Like a Champ - Psystar is Toast -- What? You're Surprised?

43 points by butterfi 17y ago

"Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. Here's the order [PDF]. It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal."

nkurz 17y ago
Interesting judgment, but I could do with less attitude in the writeup. But I suppose that that without the opportunity to perform the summary would never have been written. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. Psystar used a master copy because it was more efficient, and because they thought it would work. But this still leaves the question of whether their operation would have been be legal if they had paid someone $10 to rip open the box and install the DVD manually. Perhaps this fits within their efficiencies, or perhaps it doesn't, but for me it's a legal question that I'd like to know the answer to.
- tptacek 17y ago
  They still would have been creating a derivative work, and so they'd probably still be screwed.
  - mbreese 17y ago
    I'm not sure about that. I don't know much about their process, but if they treated each individual machine as a separate "walled off" machine and installed a retail copy of OSX, I don't think that they would be creating a derivative work. Even if their updates/hacks were scripted, I don't think that this would be a derivative work. In this case, first-sale doctrine might apply.
    - carussell 17y ago
      I'd like to point you to Section 2(C). Judge Alsup's words indicate that, under your conditions, he would have found Psystar still in violation.
indiejade 17y ago
This is bad, bad news! I wish that for once, the little guy could go up against the big monster and actually win.
- bumblebird 17y ago
  It's not about little guy vs big guy. It's about what's right and what's wrong. I think the judgement was right.
  - jcapote 17y ago
    My favorite line from the article which I think captures the real point here is: "So, if freedom matters to you, don't sell out the goal of a completely free operating system, without any proprietary blobs at all." This is not about freedom, this is about making money off someone else's work.
    - ghshephard 17y ago
      There is nothing wrong with making money off of someone else's work, if they allow/encourage you to do so. The Creative Commons "Allow commercial use" and the GPL _explicity_ give someone else the permission to make money off of my work. Red Hat, a $5Billion+ company, owes much of it's value to the work of others. What's happened with PsyStar, is that they tried to do this _without_ the permission of Apple, and did so with software that was distributed under a restrictive commercial EULA. They didn't respect the Author's (Apple) intent regarding their software. That's the issue at hand (in my opinion) here. I'm actually celebrating this judgment a bit - It highlights the value we get from Free Software. Nobody is going to come knocking on my door, sending lawyers, or dragging me into court because I'm running a business installing (modified) Linux on Computers. Indeed, the community will actually support me in my efforts to do so, http://www.linuxdriverproject.org http://www.linuxdriverproject.org.
      - thras 17y ago
        "They didn't respect the Author's (Apple) intent regarding their software." Huh, is there a law about respecting author's intents?
alaskamiller 17y ago
A profile of the Psytar brothers two days ago: http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/1744650 http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/1744650
- felipe 17y ago
  Excellent article. The author does a great job highlighting the parallels between the Psytar and the rebellious early stages of Apple. I find this Shanzhai phenomenon fascinating. These are the true hackers of today. http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai
  - tptacek 17y ago
    The true hackers of today create pirated electronics?
    - felipe 17y ago
      I really wish you could take a look at the link I posted before calling it simply "pirated electronics"
yardie 17y ago
I never understood how they could think a business model that circumvents DMCA was going to succeed. Folks, every hackintosh uses a kext called dsmos.kext. It's purpose is to decrypt Apple encrypted system binaries. It wasn't written or authorized by Apple. As an avid OSX86 tinkerer I was conflicted about the case. Part of me wanted Psystar to win while the other part wanted the entire thing to go away. If Psystar had prevailed it would only bring difficulties for the hackintosh community. Apple would have taken drastic measures to secure their business at the expense of hackintoshers.
- drewcrawford 17y ago
  False. The new fakesmc.kext replaces dsmos and doesn't perform any decryption. It simply fakes the SMC hardware device and provides the same encryption keys to the software that a real mac has in hardware, allowing Apple-provided code to do all the decryption just like what happens on a real mac. This is still a violation of the DMCA. But it's no more of a DMCA violation than selling software that plays DVDs on Linux, something that, IMHO, should definitely be legal.
  - drinian 17y ago
    Unfortunately, "should be legal" and "is legal" are not the same thing. AFAIK there is, or was, a "legal" DVD player for Linux that pays the CSS patentholders' license fees. The situation is ridiculous. I was hoping that Psystar's case would at least help expose some of the DMCA's problems.
JamieEi 17y ago
Apple has always had good lawyers.
sfk 17y ago
They should move their business to Europe. Here, overly restrictive EULAs are regularly ignored by the courts. Which is a good thing.

kls 17y ago

My intent for my new software that I am writing, is that white people do not use it. Seriously, this is not a troll (it is not really my intent), but you must realize that is a dangerous mindset. The authors intent of use terminates at first sale, if you buy a painting from me, I cannot tell you that it can only be framed in a gold frame. I can make it a stipulation of sale and make you provide a gold frame before purchase but if you transfer it to a walnut frame after sale, I have no rights to enforce. Now if you start making prints of my painting then you have violated my copyright which does not transfer. if that nuance changes then the business tactics of the Apples and Sonys will get measurably worse. On a more realistic note what if Apple decides that their offerings caters to the 175+ IQ group and decides that they will only sell to those individuals, any secondary sale by a different entity to a non 175+ individual would violate their rights and their intentions.

ghshephard 17y ago
I'll point out the obvious - PsyStar was making duplicates of Apple's software and reselling it. There is a difference between restrictions such as "You may not make copies of this software and sell it for $$$", "You may not make modifications of this software and resell it" and some fundamentally illegal restrictions. I, and most people in the community, believe that the author of software should be able to restrict whether others have to attribute them as the author, can sell duplicates of it, whether others can redistribute duplicates of it, and whether others can modify and redistribute duplicates of it. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons. These are separate issues from the First-Sale doctrine that you are referring to. PsyStar wasn't selling PCs with retail box purchased from Apple in the same Bag. I would have been cheering PsyStar on if that were the case.
- kls 17y ago
  I understand what PsyStar was doing and that was covered in my post, with the copyright portion. My post was specifically focusing on the intention that you stated. In which, rightfully so the intentions of a company after first sale are none existent. PsyStar was trying to confuse this with a host of other items to try to convolute the issue.
  - ghshephard 17y ago
    Fair enough - can we agree that we should all respect the author's intent (even after sale) when it comes to: o Whether you can distribute duplicates to others. o Whether you have to provide Attribution on duplicates o Whether you can distribute modifications o Whether you can resell duplicates for $$$
    - kls 17y ago
      o Whether you can distribute duplicates to others. Yes and no depends on who produced the duplicate. Each OSX apple produced dvd is a duplicate of the original work. o Whether you have to provide Attribution on duplicates Yes o Whether you can distribute modifications This is dependent on copyright, but in the case of Apple's stance I would say no. o Whether you can resell duplicates for $$$ Yes, if they are duplicates produced by Apple. No, if you are producing the "back-ups" and you are just a reseller. The "US" courts have been clear on personal use back-ups before.