Apple wins copyright infringement case against Psystar in California

Well, well. Apples won its copyright infringement claim against would-be Mac cloner Psystar in California. Anyone surprised? As weve been saying all along, the key argument wasnt the OS X EULA or Psystars failed monopoly claims, but pure, simple copyright infringement, since Psystar was illegally copying, modifying, and distributing Apples code. Psystar was also dinged for circumventing Apples kernel encryption in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, but thats just another nail in the coffin, really. Theres still some legal fireworks to come, as Apples various other claims like breach of contract, trademark infringement, and unfair competition werent addressed in this ruling, but those are all secondary issues now -- and wed expect this decision to have quite an impact on the other case currently ongoing in Florida. Weve broken down the highlights after the break, hit up the read link for the PDF and follow along.



Okay -- got your popcorn? Lets do this thing. (Were skipping right to the analysis section, but the key piece of info from the facts section is that Psystar didnt install OS X from its purchased DVDs, but from a Mac mini "imaging station.")

• Copyright infringement. The court agrees with Apple right down the line here -- Psystar is illegally copying, modifying, and distributing Mac OS X, and the court basically slams the whole license-vs-own argument into the ground, saying, "Even assuming arguendo that Psystar was the owner of a copy... the copies at issue here were not lawfully manufactured with the authorization of the copyright owner." Psystar was making multiple copies of OS X from its imaging station, and you just cant do that without permission. Furthermore, Psystars argument that it includes a purchased copy of OS X with all of its computers fell flat, as the version of the OS on the machines was often different than the version on the disc, and several of the machines examined didnt have discs included at all. Oops.
• Creation of derivative works. This is part of copyright infringement, but were going to break it out because its a major key to the case. In order to boot OS X on a hackintosh, Psystar replaced the OS X bootloader, disabled and removed Apple kernel extensions, and added its own kernel extensions. That was enough variation from Apples code to warrant a finding of copyright infringement all on its own -- Psystar was essentially selling a custom version of Apples copyrighted code, and youre not allowed to do that without permission. What does that mean? It means that you can throw out all the arguments about EULAs and ownership and fair use, because Psystars main business -- hacking OS X to run on non-Apple hardware -- is illegal. What can we say? We told you so.
• Copyright misuse. After Psystars antitrust and monopoly arguments were thrown out, it tried to argue that Apple was misusing its copyright on OS X by limiting it to Apple hardware. It was an interesting and ballsy argument, and the court didnt buy it for a second: "Apple has not prohibited others from independently developing and using their own operating systems. Thus, Apple did not violate the public policy underlying copyright law or engage in copyright misuse." Put another way, as long as Apple doesnt try to prevent OS X owners from buying Windows PCs, it can sell OS X however it wants.
• DMCA violations. Everyones favorite section of copyright law gets some time in the sun -- the court found that Psystar illegally circumvented the OS X kernel encryption when it hacked OS X and booted it on non-Apple hardware. Amusingly, Psystar tried to argue that Apples encryption wasnt effective because the keys are available on the internet, but thats just not how the law works at all. "Here, when the decryption key was not employed, the encryption effectively worked to prevent access to Mac OS X. And that is all that is required." Ouch.
• Relief. Psystars gonna pay, but we dont know how much, because the court hasnt decided yet. Stay tuned -- thats going down next month.
• Remaining issues. Apples complaint contained a number of other claims besides copyright infringement, and theyre still on for trial. The big one is breach of contract, which is the fight over the OS X EULA -- but since Psystar has already been found liable for straight copyright infringement, we dont think it stands a chance of invalidating the EULA. Theres also a number of trademark claims and unfair competition claims, none of which will affect the main ruling here. In short: things dont look so good for Psystar.

Now, this case only covered Leopard; Apple and Psystar are fighting a separate case over Snow Leopard in Florida, which means we havent heard the end of this yet. If we were betting, though, wed say that case will end up just like this one -- to quote Groklaw, "Judges notice if you were just found guilty of a similar cause of action in another state." Yeah.

Oh, theres also the small matter of definitively proving whether or not Psystar is stealing code from the OSx86 community, and we hope to have more on that next week -- well let you know.