Re: Copyright Misuse

[Barry Margolin]

In article <76qdneqU4cbzB-PVnZ2dnUVZ_sTinZ2d@giganews.com>,
 rjack <robjack@insightbb.com> wrote:

> The current copyright suit filed by Apple against Psystar
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/images/apple.pdf
> states under General Allegations:
> 
> ³21. Apple has never authorized Psystar to install, use, or sell the Mac OS 
> on
> any non-Apple-labeled hardware.²
> 
> The term ³non-Apple-labeled hardware² is so broad and
> non-specific that as a scope of use restriction in their license, it may 
> violate
> the doctrine of copyright misuse.

What's so non-specific?  Non-Apple-labeled hardware is everything other 
than Apple-labeled hardware.  The actual license text says that the 
software may be installed "on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time."

> 
> http://digital-law-online.info/cases/15PQ2D1846.htm
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse
> 
> The scope of use term does not restrict use to a specific platform (i.e. 
> Intel
> X86 or IBM¹s POWER) but applies to *any* computer hardware, regardless of 
> what¹s
> inside the box.

It restricts it to a specific brand of hardware, namely those carrying 
the Apple brand.

If Apple were considered a monopoly, I think there might be antitrust 
issues (wasn't IBM forced many years ago to allow its mainframe OS to 
run on competitors' hardware?).  But Apple's market share is hardly 
large enough for this to apply.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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