Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 14th Nov 2009 22:32 UTC
Legal As Murphy's Law dictates, this news was destined to come while I'm down and out with the flu, while being miserable on the couch. Dragged my bum to the computer for this one (my iPhone alerted me, oh the irony): Apple has scored a major win in its case against Psystar. Judge William Alsup more or less agreed with just about everything Apple said, granting Apple's motion for a summary judgement. Instant update: Mind, though, that this ruling only covers Leopard. Snow Leopard will be handled in the Florida case.
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RE[7]: Crushing
by SReilly on Mon 16th Nov 2009 09:48 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: Crushing"
SReilly
Member since:
2006-12-28

First of all, please bear in mind that we're speculating. Until this very issue comes up in an European court of law, we're just guessing.

I'm afraid we are not just guessing. Most European countries have strong consumer protection laws, soon to be enacted in the whole of Europe due to the Lisbon treaty granting more power to the European institutions.

One, electronic contracts are valid in the EU. If the software is connecting to the issuer and is ready to transmit your acceptance, and if the issuer is ready to refund you fully should you not accept, then it may work. It's happened in the US. I'm not sure if it has in the EU. Having a law in that respect is all fine and beautiful, but it also has to pass the lawsuit test.

Until Apple puts in place any such scheme, there is absolutely no point in us speculating about it. Currently Apple's EULA has a clause stating that I'm not allowed to installed MacOSX on anything other than an Apple branded computer. This is in direct violation of my rights as a consumer to install said software anywhere I please as long as I abide by copyright law, which brings us to your next point.

Another possibility is that this is not playing on contract law but on copyright. So you buy the software, get home, and it tells you "Hey, by the way, here's the license that covers this piece of software. You don't HAVE to agree to it, but there's nothing else that grants you certain rights unless you agree."

But it doesn't play on copyright law. Copyright law is very strait forward about what I can and can't do. Requiring me to give up even more rights falls directly into contract law. I must agree with the loss of rights in a signed statement before the contract becomes valid. Until that has occurred, any arbitrary clause forbidding me to exercise my rights as a consumer are null and void.

To be fair, the discussion on this site has been driven into a lot of side issues by Thom's ill-informed rants. Take the point we're discussing above, for instance; it has nothing to do with Psystar vs Apple. We're talking about personal use because Thom turned this into a personal use issue. What Psystar did had nothing to do with personal use.

I strongly disagree! First off, this very much is about personal use. I'll grant you that a judge in the US has ruled that Psystar is in violation of copyright law but the overall point still stands. If companies like Apple are allowed to take our rights away simply by requiring us to click on an "I Agree" button than I for one am not going to sit here and let that happen.

I would love to see Apple try to sued a European clone maker.

Reply Parent Score: 2