Apple finally — FINALLY — sues Psystar
No surprise here: Apple just sued Psystar, makers of bargain-basement Mac clones. The lawsuit's charges are predictable: violation of Apple's shrink wrap license and trademark / copyright infringement.
The timing of the lawsuit's interesting: it appears that Apple was waiting for Psystar to distribute a hacked version of Apple's own 10.5.2 update to their customers.
That Psystar will be punched so hard by Apple's lawyers that Psystar's whole family will die is certain. But you have to wonder what Psystar's game plan is. Surely they saw this coming. Surely they were planning on being sued. So what was the overarching scheme?
I imagine a dummy corporation daring Apple to sue them in order to challenge software copyright law in a massively public, high-profile show case. A secret reserve of crackerjack copyright attorneys, waiting to be turned loose from the belly of Psystar's Trojan Horse. But that's just far too exciting to be true. The answer will probably be far less interesting: indiscriminate "wokka wokka" style corporate buffoonery.
Apple finally sues Psystar [Ars Technica]
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Their defense will probably be "Your honor, I thought it was 1996!"
I was also wondering if this was some attempt to get all EULA's invalidated, but sadly have to agree they are probably not that clever...
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. See the SCO case - completely *Pwned by their own bad court strategy (and by reality, obviously).
DIY and head 'em off at the pass. I have that case... So-So. Pretty, Avg room inside. But inexpensive at NewEgg.... Asus Case
Hmm. Would be nice if they'd beat Apple and killed EULAs once and for all. I would have two reasons to smile on that day.
What amazes me is why even make a clone. Apple does charge a premium, but honestly it's not as high as it once was. RAM, Hard Drives, Optical Drives and even CPUs are generic. Ditto with external drives. It's 2008. There's no benefit in time or energy to do this.
I paid a bit more for my Mac and I'm happy. Same with others. Only hardware geeks who are penny-wise & pound-foolish would even think of using a hacked machine like this.
I just wanted to say that the phrase "indiscriminate "wokka wokka" style corporate buffoonery." made me belly-laugh.
In order for Psystar to be a scheme to invalidate EULAs, they would have to be purchasing copies of OS X at retail for distribution with their boxes. Is that what they're doing? I've been operating under the impression that Apple wasn't seeing a dime on Psystar sales.