PsyStar respins counter claims…
PsySrar backed off on its anti-trust accusation, but won’t let go of the notion that Apple is illegally tying its software to its own hardware — good luck with that.
AppleInsider reports that, following a ruling by the court nullifying PsyStar’s anti-trust defense strategy, the clone maker has modified its position, which now reads something like this:
Apple’s policies regarding Mac OS X are considered abuse under the legally recognized concept of a ‘misuse doctrine,’ which prevents copyright from being wielded to block competition outside of any officially sanctioned terms.
PsyStar goes on to claim that tying the OS X to Mac hardware violates the Copyright Act and that Apple’s assertions of DCMA violations are obviated by this fact, which may be a perfectly legal defense but sounds like an awful lot like a child saying, “Well, he hit me first!”
More entertaining still? PsyStar alleges that, irrespective of whether or not DCMA comes into play, their approach to installing OS X on generic hardware isn’t a violation of the DCMA because Apple’s copy protection mechanism – causing an infinite loop or kernel panic when specific code isn’t found in the non-Apple motherboard’s firmware / BIOS during the boot process — isn’t a real defense mechanism.
Of course, it bears remembering that PsyStar itself has an end user license agreement (EULA) that reads essentially like Apple’s and that, one assumes, they expect people to take the agreement seriously. Groklaw’s take on the PsyStar EULA is very, very instructive:
OMG. You mean I have to agree to Psystar’s terms or I can’t use the software? Like… um… that meanie Apple? Wait. Wait. How can that be? I thought Apple was supposedly the “bad guy” and Psystar was going to liberate its code for the good of mankind? Folks, did you really think Psystar was fighting to overturn EULAs and set software code free?
PsyStar’s latest claims have to be approved by the before the Florida-based clone maker can formally file them Jan. 15, 2009. Um, good luck with that.
Whatever the outcome of that ruling, here’s hoping the bench moves quickly to force PsyStar to reveal the identity of the 10 John Does that Apple believes have aided the clone maker’s efforts to date. It will be interesting to learn what roles the 10 have played—sugar daddies paying the clone maker’s legal bills and / or software engineers that have engineered solutions around OS X’s copy protection measures…
What’s your take?
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