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The Court understands fully why licensing has many advantages for software publishers. However, this preference does not alter the Court's analysis that the substance of the transaction at issue here is a sale and not a license.

This is what the court ruled, in Softman. There is no point at all for people to keep on making the 'license not purchase of copy' argument. It is just legally false.

The case is here, and anyone trying to make the license not purchase copy argument should read it carefully.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/articles/056/5628/softman-v-ado...

Now,you say that by my logic

...if you lease a property it is yours to do with what you want, and indeed sub-let it to whomever you please without having to answer to the owner.

No, my logic would not imply any such thing. When you lease a property you enter into an agreenment which may forbid sub leasing. Such agreements are valid and binding in most jurisdictions.

Not all terms in contracts are binding and enforceable however. In the UK, if a manufacturer of a consumer product offers an extended warranty, and if a condition of accepting it is that you renounce your statutory rights under consumer protection law, that condition will not be enforceable. You cannot in law renounce them.

Similarly, if Black and Decker would supply its drills with a shrink wrapped license which forbade the use of some of them in way of trade, that would not be enforceable in the EU, because it would be a post sale restraint on use. If your car came with a contract that forbade the use of aftermarket parts, that too would not be enforceable, being contrary to EU anti trust law.

People need to get it into their heads that EULA clauses may be binding or may not be. It depends what is in them.

The next argument is that if Apple loses, the software industry will collapse, because without the power to restrict what brand of computer you install software on, people will be able to install multiple copies having bought one of them, they'll be able to hack software and sell derivative works....etc.

No, none of this is true. This is just misinformation and spin, one suspects originating in Cupertino. None of this will happen, because it is forbidden by copyright.

Copyright gives the owner the right to restrict the making of copies. It does not however give the owner the right to restrict what brand of machine the copies are installed on. Read the copyright laws before you argue that it does, and you'll find you are wrong. In fact, copyright law in the US explicitly gives the right of modification to produce interworking.

What the software industry needs is the right to sell individual copies. What it does not need, but would of course like, is the ability to restrict what you do with your purchased copies, including what you install them on.

We will see in November if the particular clause that Apple is seeking to enforce is in fact enforceable. One clue that this may not be as straightforward as the Apple enthusiasts would like it to be is that Apple has not obtained an injunction stopping Psystar from operating. If it were cut and dried, and a matter of either copyright violation or an uncontroversially enforceable EULA, you can be sure they would have done.