“Florida’s now well-known unofficial Mac clone maker [Psystar] has modified its counterclaim against Apple to drop some of the riskier assertions of anti-competitive behavior, but has similarly added new sections that refute allegations of violating the DMCA,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.
“The altered response, which would be filed on January 15th if given permission by a Northern District of California court judge, specifically omits the Clayton Act and Sherman Act antitrust claims of monopolistic abuse of copyright that had triggered Apple’s successful motion to dismiss in the fall. Psystar ‘respectfully disagrees’ with the court’s interpretation of a monopolistic market but will abide by the earlier ruling for now,” Malley reports.
“However, the PC builder maintains that copyright is still at the heart of the issue. Psystar insists that 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,” Malley reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Yea, I want to start my own company called Psystar and make computers. A name that good should not be used by one company and it is misuse to lock it down to just the orginal Psystar.
and Boom, now Apple fall is at hand..
.
So they failed at the first counter claim and is going for another……
What I think would be a more interesting story, would be to research the background and funding of Psystar. To me, this really mirrors the SCO-IBM unix suit that Microsoft had bankrolled. What other reason would a little, unknown company start swinging at Apple and staying in the game. If they were a small company, you’d think they’d folded up by now.
Seems to me that Psystar is complaining that Apple holds a copyright on something they invented.
Sorry. I meant to say something that Apple invented.
Psystar is really grasping for straws in this case.
Based on what I know of Federal court cases like this. The Judge is unlikely to accept Psystar amended counter claim as it does not directly address the judges points and reasons for the dismissal of the claim in the first place.
By basically just making the claims more broad and vague (dumbing them up) they’re really are only looking to annoy the judge further. The Judge was clear in the dismissal that the complaint’s circler logic and arguments didn’t cut mustard and he was not impressed. (This is Judge speak for you annoyed me and wasted my time with this crappy legal document)?
There is no way PisStar has made enough money from sales of their OpenMac line to cover legal expenses thus far. Absolutely no way.
Therefore, someone with deep pockets is clearly behind this Potemkin Village of a company, and the sooner Apple finds out who that is, the sooner this will be settled.
“Psystar insists that 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.”
And exactly what the hell does this mean? I was never very good at interpreting legalese.
I’m wondering how they install OS X on any machine without actually paying Apple for a license that Apple doesn’t sell!
How about charging Psystar with grand larceny.
Insisting isn’t going to help there case, bye, bye, psystar TRASH!!!!!
I don’t know US law but I imagine they’re trying something along the lines of ‘fair use’ which always existed in the past under copyright law.
However AFAIK it was never intended to allow the making of money from other’s work as of right, but was to allow review and quotation for academic purposes without falling foul of copyright law. DMCA surely trumps that anyway.
I’m suing voltswagon for its monopoly on voltswagon’s
One of the last advantages the US has over global competitors is intellectual property laws. Especially by the emerging economies of India and China, theft of ideas and piracy is rampant. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chinese (or Iranian, Russian, or Venezuelan) money in this attack on copyright and patents.
As economically vital as this issue is…the US government should be more involved in protecting these rights…and not just leaving Apple to defend the law.
@archy
You really get a “charge” out of a “volts”wagon. A Volkswagen would be a different thing altogether though.
The Dude abides.
How many more filings before they accuse Jobs of sexual harassment on YouTube? Psystar gets more and more credible every day.
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Nice use of Potemkin Village. I hope it made some folks pick up their dictionary, er, surf over to Wikipedia or Dictionary.com to find out what that means. The world could use a little more cultural literacy. Thanks.
MDN Magic Word: growth…outstanding
“… someone with deep pockets is clearly behind this … the sooner Apple finds out who that is, the sooner this will be settled.”
I smell Michael Dell.
hardmanb wrote: One of the last advantages the US has over global competitors is intellectual property laws. Especially by the emerging economies of India and China, theft of ideas and piracy is rampant. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chinese (or Iranian, Russian, or Venezuelan) money in this attack on copyright and patents.
As economically vital as this issue is…the US government should be more involved in protecting these rights…and not just leaving Apple to defend the law.
You are incorrect, hardmanb–one of the last advantages the US has is intellectual property themselves, not the laws that supposedly protect them.
The US cannot easily force other countries to follow such (or any) domestic laws. Just look at the difficulty software patent advocates have had trying to get them recognized in Europe. China? Forget it.
In Apple’s case they’ve been hit from both sides; here they’re defending their IP from Pystar, while they’re also being sued for elements of iTunes, iPod, etc.
Meanwhile, US developers (still on the software angle) are being hamstrung by ridiculous lawsuits over IP, or are wasting thousands and even millions of dollars defending against them. Most of the world doesn’t have this problem, and the US will be held down by its more asinine IP laws, not propelled ahead.
Do we expect Sony to support their Playstation OS on non-Sony hardware?
Do we expect RIM to support their Blackberry OS on non-RIM smartphones?
Why, then, does Psystar to expect Apple to support Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware?
Someone commented elsewhere that this is like trying to sue Nintendo for preventing their Mario games from running on the Playstation.
Just where the heck is the small start-up Pystar getting all the money to fight Apple in court? There just may be something to Apple’s charges that someone big is funding them.
Most people in this thread don’t seem to understand that there with every Psystar sold comes an official copy of MacOSX. Thus it appears that the copy has been paid for.
There may be an issue with the pre-installed copy on the Psystar, though.
But the main point that should be discussed is whether Apple has the right to dicatate what exactly can and cannot be done with a legally purchased copy of MacOSX.
E.g., may it be run under emulation/virtualization on a different processor or programs similar to Parallels Desktop, VMware, Q, etc.? (p.s. for Windows this is now the case for all its variants)
Its chop chop time, who brings the giljotine?
Moronic morons
Groklaw has an interesting take on Psystar’s own EULA… It’s more restrictive than Apple’s!
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081204231414746