Psystar Asks Court To Appeal Ban On Selling Mac Clones

John Brownlee ()

Psystar Asks Court To Appeal Ban On Selling Mac Clones

Once infamous Hackintosh manufacturer Psystar’s name is popping up again in the newsfeeds. That’s discordant enough to have me tapping the flux capacitor trephined into my right temporal lobe like a faulty odometer: is it somehow 2009 again?

But nope, Psystar’s well and truly back after filing an Opening Brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking them to overrule the order that has prevented the company from making Mac clones.

According to the Mac Observer, Psystar’s strategy is “getting the court to adopt a radical revision of the Copyright Misuse doctrine that would in effect destroy copyright and force all copyrighted works to be licensed.”

Needless to say, Apple’s not about to stand around and let a strategy like that go ahead without interference. In their own Answering Brief, Apple argues that “Psystar’s grossly overbroad per se theory of copyright misuse would eliminate fundamental rights guaranteed by the Copyright Act — the rights to control the reproduction, modification, and distribution of copyrighted works.”

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One would imagine that the appeal court will promptly reject Psystar’s latest brief demanding a complete revision of copyright law, but if anything’s certain, it’s that the Florida-based Hackintosh maker is a glutton for punishment. How many times does Apple need to curb job them before they get sick of spitting up teeth?

8 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Hardware Hacks, News |

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    I imagine this will be instantly rejected. Piledriver from the courts!

    Is the CEO of Psytsar really this delusional that he thinks copyright laws should be abolished?

  • charli

    in a word Ben. Yes.

    I love how they tried to keep their arguments sealed but they can’t require it from the other side, thus Apple revealed it via their answers.

    They are basically asking for the end of copyright, at least on all software and tech and the end of the DMCA with it. No one is going to stand by on that. If they get lucky and win, which is very unlikely Apple will fill an appeal, starting with an injunction prohibiting Psystar from making any clones until after the decision.

    And Apple will go to the top. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a way for Apple to file with the US Supreme Court right now and they did. If the SC sides with Apple, no court can overrule.

  • Bob Forsberg

    Its about time our court system starts charging those bringing frivolous law suits with relevant court costs.

    If Psystar and other like them realized they would have to cover the court costs instead of being picked up by us, the taxpayers, less of these morons would tie up our judicial system.

  • http://www.fuzzypig.com Fuzzyig

    System simply isn’t that simple. Psystar so deluded to think that the MPAA/RIAAs of this world will simply watch DMCA and copyright law simply disappear?! What about all the lawyers who make a nice tidy sum every day from practising in copyright protection law?

    As they say, “We’ll hear you out, then throw you out!”

  • Stephane

    Can’t someone like we see on TV: break into their bank account and find out who is subsidizing these morons?

  • Antonio

    Quite inaccurate. Psystar doesn’t pretend, in any way, to abolish copyright. The basis of the whole case is the freedom of technology usage. Apple sells their software with a usage agreement that may be legally valid to them, but quite questionable. I can tell you in Europe this case would be very succesful for Psystar.

    The client buys the technology, the Snow Leopard installation CD, for example, and it’s understandable that Apple will “forbid” reverse engineering, and similar things, which are already covered by the law, but not that it will forbid the client to use it on hardware other than Mac. If I buy software, the company can’t force me to use that software only on their machines.

    Software license agreements are hillarious, and not just Apple’s. Microsoft has a very hillarious usage agreement in Windows, and I can assure you half of it is not even legally valid. From what I know, the European legislation, in Europe Psystar can perfectly sell Snow Leopard distributed in their machines and actually in the following years, the European Comission may even force Apple to let other companies to do so.

    Cheers from Spain,

    Antonio

  • the flying macaroni

    The fact it could/can be installed on an unauthorized system does not grant you automatic and unrestricted rights to install it on anything and anywhere you please. Get over it! If you (or a stealing company) don’t agree with the software license, don’t open and use the software. I wish Apple would sue Psystar into permanent PITA oblivion, where they belong.

  • PH83

    ppl are overlooking the big issue here its not that they should be taught a lesson for stealing or that they just are trying to find a way around the copyright law so they dont look at fault. This is a copyright restriction that is similar to the lawsuit the cell phone carriers just lost, its my property i should be able to do with it as i please and not have to worry about prosecution.