Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court | Hacker News Reader

Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court

businessweek.com

14 pointsjamesbritt29 comments

How long until your startup is crushed by someone with money that doesn't like what you're doing?

Probably the instant I violate DMCA and break a company's user agreement. But I make it a point not to launch startups whose revenue is based on breaking the law.

How long until what you're doing becomes against the law?

Are you saying that it should be legal to steal another company's work and use it in your product? Because Apple makes a good product and I don't think it should be legal to break it and force it into your box. If I was doing something so despicable I'd hope it was against the law.

I'm a happy guy, though. I trust my government not to go batshit.

How is any stealing taking place? The Psystar folks are inserting a DVD they bought at the Apple Store into their computer and are booting it. They then sell that computer and DVD to someone else. (The "illegal part" is that Apple's DVD will only work if the hardware gives it a magic number. The Psystar folks made their computers give Apple's software the magic number, which is apparently a crime.)

If Apple's business model is to prosecute anyone that puts their shiny widget into a computer that They Don't Like, then that is a pretty shaky business model. (But of course, that is not their business model, they are just being dicks.)

You can make registration codes sound silly by calling them "magic numbers" all you'd like, but they're there to make sure things go according to their designer's plans. This isn't grey territory. It's not DRM, which inconveniences anybody. It's black-and-white. Apple sells you the DVD and lets you know up front it works with Macs and only Macs. They're so nice they don't even prevent you from installing one copy of a program on a hundred Macs. And their DVD doesn't work on a non-Mac, and you know this buying it.

When you get the DVD with any other intention, you're buying it with false intent. You've agreed not to do what you're about to do.

That's like suggesting that I could write some robotic surgery software and design it such that it would work only on certified surgery hardware.

Oh, wait....

You can do that, just don't let people buy the install DVDs at Best Buy.

Re-purposing your own possessions is not illegal. I bought a "dining table" at IKEA, but I use it as a "computer desk". IKEA also sells "computer desks". Am I doing something illegal by not using it for the purpose they sold it to me for? Of course not. (What makes OS install DVDs so special?)

Continuing with the analogy of tables, imagine there exists a set of tables and chairs and the table has special slots so that only approved chairs can slide under the table. You can use unapproved chairs, but they don't work very well, and don't slide under the table for storage.

Is it a crime to saw off the things that prevent normal chairs from fitting under the table and reselling the table?

So then why is it illegal when someone does the exact same thing but with software.

Re-purposing your own possessions is not illegal.

Mac OS X does not become your own posession just because you bought a copy on DVD. The DVD, however, is yours. If you want to re-purpose it as a coaster, go right ahead. I think you'll find Apple has no problem with that or any power to legal recourse to stop you if they do.

The software on the DVD is a physical property of the DVD, if you look at a low enough level. Repurposing the item based on that physical property, than than (e.g.) it's shape or weight, is the same thing, in principle.

...but not in law.

(in the relevant jurisdiction)

It is only the same if you throw out the extremely relevant difference that the software is under copyright. You do not hold the copyright on a book just because you own a copy of it made from ink on paper. Why do so many intelligent people not understand this?

From the article: "The judge said [the first sale doctrine] only applies to legal copies and that the way in which Psystar had modified the software to let it run on clones meant that the copies did not meet this standard."

But of course, the judge is simply wrong about modification. Saying this is modification is like saying that an orange is "modified" if you duct-tape an apple to it.

(In this case, the duct-taped apple is the software that fakes the hardware encryption keys.)

Similarly, if this is illegal, so are the "imaging" procedures employed by every IT department I have ever encountered. I wonder why Apple wants to go down that road. (Of course, laws are only applied when someone is bothered. If modifying Apple's software makes them money, it's fine. If they don't make enough money, it's suddenly a violation of federal law. Just like if you're a rich white guy with cocaine, it's a fine, but if you're a poor black guy, it's life in prison. Glad that we approve of this here on HN...)

The DMCA has an exemption for backups.

Your description does not match the description in the judgement:

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/Psystar-214.pdf

Psystar first bought a copy of Mac OS X and then installed it on an Apple Mac mini. Next, Psystar copied Mac OS X from the Mac mini onto a non-Apple computer. This non-Apple computer was used as an “imaging station.” Once on the imaging station, Mac OS X was modified. Psystar then replaced the Mac OS X “bootloader.” The bootloader runs when a computer first comes on and locates and loads portions of the operating system into random access memory. Without a bootloader, Mac OS X would not operate. Psystar also disabled and/or removed Mac OS X kernel extension files and replaced them with other kernel extension files. Psystar’s modifications enabled Mac OS X to run on non-Apple computers. The modified copy became the “master copy” that was used for mass reproduction and installation onto other Psystar computers.

Yes, the IT department at my organization images workstations too. They do so within the scope of the software's license, though, and they certainly do not resell the workstations afterward.

Your analogy is flawed. Fruit-taping is not a violation of copyright law. Circumventing content protection measures for non-excempt purposes is. Presumably the law factored into the judge's decision.

Pystar didn't actually do this. They made duplicates and copied them onto all the computers. It would have been interesting to see whether the court would have provided summary judgment if Psystar actually had inserted a DVD in each computer. Probably on the DMCA clause, but I personally think that clause sucks so would have felt a little better for Psystar had that been the case.

That depends: how far is what you're doing from the fringes of legality, and what is the rate of change along that frontier?

If I were Apple, I'd do the same thing.

There's a lot of low-level stuff in an OS to make things work smoothly. It's impressive how Apple used to go back and optimize things for G3s, while G4s and G5s were the latest models. Each model is practically running its own OS.

So the last thing Apple needs is for their OS to run on hardware that they've never heard of. If something goes wrong because of hardware, it tends to manifest itself as a freezing or crashing machine. Psystar wouldn't be blamed for that, the users would simply think that Apple had made a crash-prone, piece-of-crap OS.

The users would simply think that Apple had made a crash-prone, piece-of-crap OS.

Turns out that this is not illegal. If you install Linux on a Macbook, people will think Macs and Linux are the same thing. Those people are dumb, and it turns out that I have no legal obligation to not confuse dumb people.

Also, as someone who uses OS X on Genuine Apple Hardware, I think that Apple has made a crash-prone, piece-of-crap OS. (This is largely VLC's fault. But VLC works fine on Linux, so the problem is clearly Apple, right?)

(As an aside, I wish I could post a comment at -4 so that nobody would have to waste their time downmodding it.)

This is largely VLC's fault. But VLC works fine on Linux, so the problem is clearly Apple.

10/10, A+++++, would get trolled again.

When you misquote out of context, it does sound like a troll. When you read my entire sentence in the context of the parent post, however, it is clear that I am trying to parody the "dumb user" that will blame Apple for creating crap when it's not actually Apple's fault.

Oh yeah, but I kind of said something bad about Apple, and The Tribe Must Be Defended. (That part was the troll, for those of you keeping score at home.)

I am trying to parody the "dumb user"

i.e. trolling

That is not what trolling is.

Calling every literary technique other than trolling trolling, however... is trolling. Oh the irony.

If someone doesn't use computers much, and you hand them a laptop with a big Apple logo on it that is using Linux, why shouldn't they assume this is one of those Macs they've heard so much about? They aren't "dumb" for not knowing something.

By your logic, I can throw you into any profession that isn't your day job, and consider you dumb for not knowing something.

Yes, Apple should protect us consumers against these hackers. They obviously know what is best for us.

Maybe Microsoft should partner with the PC manufacturers and do something similar.

It would have been easier to release the machines with linux installed and post several artical/posts/tweets describing how to install OSX on it. They dont even have to use there names just some anonymous person make a cool hack for there machines. That ought to work i think, wont it?

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