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Court refuses request to review Psystar case
You have to give Psystar credit for being tenacious. The Mac clone company spent four years fighting Apple and took its legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court. According to a CNET report, the Supreme Court on Monday refused Psystar's request to review a lower court decision that prevents the company from selling non-Apple hardware with OS X. The decision upholds the original ruling in 2009 which said Psystar "violated Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works." Apple was awarded a permanent injunction against Psystar and the company was forced to stop selling its Mac clones. This Supreme Court rejection should put an end to litigation between the two companies.
Apple and Psystar still battling in court
Like a league of zombies that just won't go away, Mac clone maker Psystar just keeps coming back for more punishment. In the most recent chapter of this ongoing courtroom drama, Psystar filed an Opening Brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its request for an appeal to the permanent injunction that keeps the company from making Mac clones. Contrary to its former tactic of making all court filings open, Psystar requested that the Opening Brief be sealed. Apple, on the other hand, made its Answering Brief public and the contents were interpreted for The Mac Observer by an attorney who said that Psystar's strategy seems to be focused on "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." Apple's Answering Brief noted that "Because Psystar has no proof that Apple has inhibited competition or suppressed creativity, Psystar urges this Court to abandon long-standing precedent and create a new doctrine of per se copyright misuse. Under this doctrine, any license agreement - such as Apple's SLA - that restricts the use of copyrighted software to particular hardware is per se copyright misuse." Apple also stated 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." The court system is unlikely to completely revamp the long-established tenets of copyright law, but the way this case seems to keep coming back from the dead, anything is possible.
Psystar's lawyer: Psystar not done yet
Last night on the Talkcast, we talked about the big news last week that Psystar seemed to be down for the count, and the consensus was that we'd heard the last of them. But not so fast: their lawyer now says that they're not calling it quits just yet. The company that has gotten pummeled by Apple for selling Mac clones apparently "does not intend to shut down permanently," according to K. A. D. Camera of legal firm Camera & Sibley. According to him, they're still working on selling their Rebel EFI product (also currently entangled in legal problems), and they're planning on pushing forward on their antitrust case against Apple (which has already been thrown out once). We're not sure where they'll get the money for all of this legal action after already being ordered to give a couple million dollars to Apple, but maybe those 768 computers they sold made more than we thought. There is one bright point in all of this: while Rebel EFI is still listed as out of stock on their website, they are selling official Psystar t-shirts for $15 which they say will also include a Rebel EFI authorization code later on and now those appear to be gone too! I don't know about you (and I don't really want to give these guys any credit card information), but one of those shirts would look great sitting under my tree later this week. If this whole installing-OS X-on-unauthorized-hardware-in-violation-of-Apple's-EULA thing doesn't work out for Psystar, maybe they can have a second life as a merch vendor.
Psystar releases Open(3), plays with fire
Say, just for the sake of argument, that you're Psystar. You've been served by Apple for selling (they claim) illegal clones of their machines, and selling their OS (which you claim isn't even copyrighted) on illegitimate hardware. Sure, you've won a minor victory in the battle, but generally, the opinion is that you're a dead company walking -- when a company like Apple not only has it out for you but has pretty legit claims to back themselves up, you could be said to be in trouble. And so, what do you do?Well if you are Psystar, you apparently release more computers. Determined to stick it to Apple as hard as they possibly can before they're legally wiped off the map, Psystar has announced the release of the Open(3), a desktop running OS X and packing up to a 2.53GHz Core2Quad Q8200 processor, up to 4GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and all of the other usual options you'd want on a machine like this (6x Blu-ray burner, GeForce 9500GT). Technically, the box starts at $599, but as Engagdet notes, even if you max it out to around $2000, you're still paying less than an equivalent Mac Pro.This is pretty much the computer retail equivalent of Bugs Bunny kissing the hunter. We can imagine Apple's lawyers steaming from the ears at this point -- here's hoping Psystar gets to have their fun while they can.
Psystar to countersue Apple for antitrust violations, will ask court to declare Leopard EULA void
Wannabe Mac cloners Psystar hired itself some hotshot lawyers to defend against Apple's lawsuit, and they're not wasting any time earning their fees -- as Psystar's hinted in the past, it's going to countersue Apple for antitrust violations and ask that the court declare the Leopard EULA void. That's a pretty longshot argument, especially since EULAs have traditionally been upheld in California and Florida and we find it hard to believe a court would find a company with ten percent marketshare to be abusing a monopoly position, but we'll see how everything goes down -- this one is going to have some fireworks for sure.
