German Mac cloners: "We know our product won't last long"

Nilay Patel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:24:00 EST

We knew the loophole in German contract law that would-be Mac cloners HyperMegaNet claimed exempted them from the OS X EULA was too good to be true, and it sounds like they do too: in an interview with the New York Times, owner Dirk Bloessl says that although he doesn't "fear Apple," all Cupertino needs to do to shut his PearC machines down is label the Leopard retail box "to be installed only on a Mac" or even just point out that the license is available on the Apple website. Until that happens, Dirk says he'll be selling his hackintoshes to anyone who wants "a fast machine, but does not need a good looking computer," even though he knows "the product does not have a long life time." That's certainly more reasonable than the increasingly wild-eyed defenses mounted by Psystar, but we've got a feeling Apple's German legal team is going to crack down just as hard.

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German Mac cloners: "We know our product won't last long" originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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German Mac clone company thinks Germany doesn't have laws

Nilay Patel — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:36:00 EST

We're never going to get tired of the insane legal theories would-be Mac clone companies trot out to try and circumvent incredibly basic copyright and contract law concepts -- like Psystar claiming Apple has a monopoly on its own products -- and today we've got German cloners HyperMeganet, who'll sell you a 3.2GHz Core i7 Blu-ray-equipped PearC tower with Mac OS X preinstalled for €2,408 ($3,111). According to the wonderfully-named Hypermeganet, German law requires EULAs to be available for review before purchase, so Apple can't enforce its license restrictions since the Mac OS X EULA isn't printed on the outside of the box. Leaving aside the fact that the OS X installer displays the EULA on-screen and that you have to click "Agree" before installing, we'd just like to point out that all of Apple's license agreements are available for your leisurely perusal before purchase right here -- including the German OS X license, which we're damn sure Apple's foreign counsel has made sure is valid and applicable in that country. Oops. We'll see how long Hypermeganet can keep itself out of trouble -- seriously, when will these companies learn that all they're doing is hurting the homebrew OS X hacking scene by tempting Apple into locking down their systems even harder?

[Via TUAW]

Read - Spiegel Online article about PearC
Read - PearC website

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German Mac clone company thinks Germany doesn't have laws originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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