Apple confronts Wired over Mac OS X netbook hacking tutorial

[AppleInsider]

A December video tutorial teaching viewers how to modify a netbook to run Mac OS X has landed tech magazine Wired in hot water with Apple's legal department.

Wired's Brian X. Chen*posted*a video podcast to the*Gadget Lab*blog on December 1st that demonstrated the installation of an "illegal, hacked version" of Mac OS X Leopard onto an MSI Wind netbook.

"I start out by telling you where to download the hacked operating system software," Chen wrote.* "You'll also need to download and install a copy of OSX86 tools.* Then I walk you through the steps of how to put the OS on a USB flash drive (at least 4GB) to copy it onto the netbook."

Just hours ago, Chen*sent an update to his Twitter account: "Just found out Apple is suing Wired for my video tutorial on hacking netbooks to run Mac OS X.* One hell of a way to start off the day." It later turned out that Chen misunderstood the situation, and a formal complaint has not been lodged with the US court system.

Since then, copies of the video have disappeared one-by-one from the original entry at Wired's site and from YouTube. However, a lone copy of the video remained on the video sharing website as of press time, which can be seen below.

Mac OS X running on the hacked netbook.

Apple has most likely sent a cease-and-desist letter to*Condé Nast Publications, Wired's parent company, rather than suing for monetary damages.* The Cupertino-based Mac maker probably took issue with Chen's links and directions to websites where readers could download illegal hacked versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, although he did encourage viewers to compensate.

"It would be very polite to have your own purchased retail version of Mac OS X Leopard," Chen says in the video before giving the URLs.



Apple in recent months has been stepping up its efforts to protect its proprietary software from hackers who wish to free it from the company's encapsulated and tightly-knit ecosystem. This past February, the company fired off a cease-and-desist notice to developers of the Hymn Project, software that stripped FairPlay DRM from iTunes Music Store purchases. A similar legal complaint was delivered last*November*to users of a wiki called Bluwiki who were seeking to modify the iTunesDB index file to enable iPod touch and iPhone syncing with Winamp and Songbird instead of iTunes.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

A December video tutorial teaching viewers how to modify a netbook to run Mac OS X has landed tech magazine Wired in hot water with Apple's legal department....

Can you say "direct fall-out from Psystar case?" I knew you could.

I've seen tutorials like this with the same level of detail on the web for years, but now Apple has an obligation to shut them down. Thanks Psystar!

[bloggerblog]

Encouraging others to install "illegal" software can get them into trouble; however if Mr. Chen demonstrated how to install OS X using middleware Hackintosh, which does not require an illegally modified version of OS X, things would've been different.

[BB Sting]

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

[Denmaru]

I'll gladly host it on my site.
Really, these C&Ds are becoming annoying - in this case, they are even totally baseless, since information about how to do something is never illegal. It's just the same with Torrent Trackers - they are note illegal per se, since no material is hosted on them.

[Leonard]

If you want to make your own Hackintosh, go ahead, but you should know better than to try and sell them, or advertise how to make them, as now your stepping on Apple's turf. Simple as that. Psystar tried, they'll be out of business. This wired video will be down by the end of the day.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by Leonard

If you want to make your own Hackintosh, go ahead, but you should know better than to try and sell them, or advertise how to make them, as now your stepping on Apple's turf. Simple as that. Psystar tried, they'll be out of business. This wired video will be down by the end of the day.

It would have made a better video if the guy had actually used a legal copy of OS-X too. It's way harder that way, but more interesting.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by Denmaru

I'll gladly host it on my site.
Really, these C&Ds are becoming annoying - in this case, they are even totally baseless, since information about how to do something is never illegal. It's just the same with Torrent Trackers - they are note illegal per se, since no material is hosted on them.

The part when he tells you about the site to go to to get the hacked copy of OS-X is illegal AFAIK. He is advising people on how to get around the copy protection and/or how to get a copy of the hacked OS.

[zunx]

Apple, just give us a 0.4 kg Netbook like the OQO or else allow to license Mac OS X for it! The MacBook Air is too limited, too large and too heavy!

http://www.oqo.com

[afishertx]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

It would have made a better video if the guy had actually used a legal copy of OS-X too. It's way harder that way, but more interesting.

Not that hard - I did it with Boot 132 and a retail copy of OS X on my Dell Mini 9. Was quite painless, and the machine runs great.

[hillstones]

The problem was what he said in the video, to use an illegally hacked version of OS X found on the internet. When I watched the video back in December, I thought he was stupid for telling people to use an illegally hacked version of OS X, and then telling people how to make it work, again illegally. Doesn't surprise me Apple is mad. I would be mad too if someone was telling people how to steal something that was my intellectual right.

[hillstones]

Originally Posted by zunx

Apple, just give us a 0.4 kg Netbook or else license Mac OS X for it! The MacBook Air is too limited, too large and too heavy!

It is pretty funny watching people squinting and straining trying to read and type on their miniture netbooks thinking they are a real notebook computer. Can't exactly hold one up to your face to try and type on it, then you would look even more stupid for wasting your money on one!

Since a netbook is used for nothing more than surfing the internet, why do you need Mac OS X? You're not going to use it for any other programs, so what's the big deal? Windows has a good web browser and email client, so that's all you need. Netbooks are underpowered for anything else.

[Buck]

Originally Posted by BB Sting

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

Apple is in this business for the MONEY! It's not there to help you with free speech. They put great efforts into their products and expecting them to just say "oh, these lovely folks are deprieving us of the expected income - well whatever! - we'll just go play in a field of daisies" is a bit wrong.

[gastroboy]

Originally Posted by zunx

Apple, just give us a 0.4 kg Netbook like the OQO or else allow to license Mac OS X for it! The MacBook Air is too limited, too large and too heavy!

http://www.oqo.com

'xactly!

[Ireland]

They should have just lied and said they bought a copy at the Apple store, at least that wouldn't have sounded as stupid as this. God knows what they were thinking.

[iReality85]

Originally Posted by afishertx

Not that hard - I did it with Boot 132 and a retail copy of OS X on my Dell Mini 9. Was quite painless, and the machine runs great.

afishertx, prepare to be sacked by the Apple lawyers. 3, 2, 1...

[Tony1]

Can this be done on any current non Apple laptop? Just curious.

All the wares I use on a daily basis are legal including all my copies of OS X. I run a business and would feel too much like a leach other-wise. My God, Apples market share is small enough.

The funny thing about this is how many PC'rs there are that put down Apple and yet they invest the time coming up with these hacks. I guess they are Macaphobes? Glad I own the real thing and quality at that.

[Kalachakra]

Why is Apple turning from the "creative" brand to the "locked up, intolerant, inflexible" Nazi brand?

[NeilM]

Originally Posted by Kalachakra

Why is Apple turning from the "creative" brand to the "locked up, intolerant, inflexible" Nazi brand?

Been asleep long? <g>

Apple is in the business of creating Macintoshes, not in having others create Macintoshes.

[g3pro]

I think Apple has lost its mind in more ways than one.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by Kalachakra

Why is Apple turning from the "creative" brand to the "locked up, intolerant, inflexible" Nazi brand?

What non-Nazi brands are you thinking of that don't mind links to pirate copies of their products being promoted by magazines?

Nothing has changed. Apple has always defended their IP, as any company must. The necessary Intel switch opened a can of worms, but it didn't take away Apple's creativity.

[mrngoitall]

It was all a misunderstanding!

From Brian Chen's latest Twitter: http://twitter.com/bxchen/status/1119061463

"Update: Apple is not suing Wired over the Hackintosh tutorial. My misunderstanding. "

[floccus]

Um, Wired is a rather big tech magazine that should have known better than to allow one of its staff to post a video explicitly telling people where to get an illegal piece of software. Enabling IP piracy is against the law. The reason torrent trackers still exist is that they also host non-protected IP and protected works. If notified by the property owner of a hosted torrent, they're legally obligated to remove the link assuming they don't operate in the many Eastern European countries which don't have such IP protections.

And will everyone quit bitching about Apple not making OSX freely licensed. Its their right as a private company to do what they wish. If you to change that, buy a billion shares and become a board member.

[Wiggin]

Originally Posted by BB Sting

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

So if I break into your house and steal all your stuff, it's your fault for not having a better lock on the door? It's logic like that that causes companies to waste so much time, money, and effort and creates hassles for their customers (Windows Activation anyone?).

If you were a software developer and made your living selling your applications, and then you found out a major publication was providing links to a site were poeple could download your application for free, are you telling us that you wouldn't ask them to remove the links? Really?

Originally Posted by Kalachakra

Why is Apple turning from the "creative" brand to the "locked up, intolerant, inflexible" Nazi brand?

This was worse than what Psystar is doing. At least Psystar can argue about the enforcability of the EULA. This guy was stupid enough to provide links for people to download 100% illegal copies of software. There's no gray area here. I'm surprised his editor ever let him publish it.

[GmanMac]

Originally Posted by BB Sting

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

Ughh one of the complaints Pystar is basically making is the code doesn't allow for hacks.

So you want to try again?

[aaarrrgggh]

Originally Posted by hillstones

Since a netbook is used for nothing more than surfing the internet, why do you need Mac OS X? You're not going to use it for any other programs, so what's the big deal? Windows has a good web browser and email client, so that's all you need. Netbooks are underpowered for anything else.

Netbooks are adequately powered for most applications I use for work on a daily basis, however running Windows forces you into running an antivirus program, which eats up your precious resources (and battery life).

Switching between <fn>/<ctrl>, <ctrl | alt>/<windows> and <cmd>/<alt> is annoying. Mac users prefer a consistent interface... or to not have to be bothered by the inconsistencies.

For those of us that travel extensively, carrying a netbook vs (for me) a 17" MBP is often the difference between needing to check luggage and not. It is also compact enough to be practical for use on a train or airplane.

It might be stupid, but I am happy to give Apple an extra $100 for an apple-branded Aspire One with an Apple keyboard layout. I'll also happily pay an additional $100 for a more well built unit.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by BB Sting

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

You are confused. This has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with copyright infringement and promoting the use of illegally hacked software.

[ecking]

Cnet did something similar but not as in depth if I remember correctly. It's irresponsible for them to do tutorials like this. It's one thing users or a forum privately try to do things like this and another if someone like wired does.

Wired isn't doing it for free, they make money off ads and their magazine, and Brian Chen is on their payroll, he's getting paid to do that video. That means wired is doing 2 things wrong, profiting off the video by having people go to their site and possibly get new subscribers because of the video and profiting off the work of the people who created those methods in the first place. If some guy on youtube wanted to throw that up, fine, but Wired isn't doing it for charity, they're doing it to drive traffic and thus generate income, off of an illegal method of OSX install, that's just plain wrong.

note: I'm typing this from a hackintosh that I made with a retail leopard copy I bought, I don't use this one for business, I use my real macs for that.

[pmjoe]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"I start out by telling you where to download the hacked operating system software," Chen wrote.

I'd suggest not starting out like that in the future.

A similar legal complaint was delivered last*November*to users of a wiki called Bluwiki who were seeking to modify the iTunesDB index file to enable iPod touch and iPhone syncing with Winamp and Songbird instead of iTunes.

I'm a little more bothered by this one. If a group of people want to figure out how to sync their devices with other software or vice versa, more power to them (as long as they aren't selling the hacks).

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

Netbooks are adequately powered for most applications I use for work on a daily basis, however running Windows forces you into running an antivirus program, which eats up your precious resources (and battery life).

Switching between <fn>/<ctrl>, <ctrl | alt>/<windows> and <cmd>/<alt> is annoying. Mac users prefer a consistent interface... or to not have to be bothered by the inconsistencies.

For those of us that travel extensively, carrying a netbook vs (for me) a 17" MBP is often the difference between needing to check luggage and not. It is also compact enough to be practical for use on a train or airplane.

It might be stupid, but I am happy to give Apple an extra $100 for an apple-branded Aspire One with an Apple keyboard layout. I'll also happily pay an additional $100 for a more well built unit.

I just want to point out, that there is a significant market for netbooks. I think you are right on the money here. If apple introduced a 499 netbook (even 599) I bet they would be gobbled up in an instant. I have an Aspire One, and I found a plethera of forums of people trying to load OS X onto theirs. Even the MSI Wind has its own OSX DVD floating out there somewhere (not legal of course).

Just shows that there really is a market for the device that people will do these things to make it themselves.


As for me, my Aspire One is my main computer at work. Perfect for the train, plane, and what not! It does more than just internet and office. I've used it to program a whole LED system in LA, edit some video in AZ, and used it to run other various system critical parts that it could technically be considered to underpowered to do it, and it worked great.

Apple, if you release a netbook, you'll make some happy customers. But for now, we have to do it the backwards way. (And no, I don't have OS X installed on my One.)

[Adjei]

Idiots.

[Marvin]

It seems like Apple don't like to be seen as being wrong. They purposely made the Macbook Air to fit a certain market but the reality is:

Macbook Air = dual 1.6GHz CPU with Nvidia 9400M graphics = £1270
Acer Aspire = single 1.6GHz CPU with Intel graphics = £220

That's a saving of well over £1000. Now you lose a fair bit of performance but if you're going to be making compromises on performance anyway, you just don't want to be paying that much money. The easier the process gets of running a modified OS X, the more people are going to start going this route.

- Aspire
- Kalyway
- replace wifi card

Seems easy enough.

The expensive ultra-portable sector has never been a good market and I think Apple made a big mistake venturing into it the way they did. There are far more important products to be dealt with first. Now if they had teamed up with Axiotron to make touch tablet Macs instead of the Air, things would be a bit different.

[monstrosity]

Good, I hope Apple bleeds them dry. I hate Wired. Its trashy pseudo science bullshit reporting pisses me off on a daily basis.

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by camroidv27

I just want to point out, that there is a significant market for netbooks.

I'd have to say it looks like there is a significant number of people who want to see OS X on their barebones pc too. What is wrong with an OEM OS X for $199, with no Apple support? Too much market share?

Originally Posted by camroidv27

Just shows that there really is a market for the device that people will do these things to make it themselves.

Indeed.

[technohermit]

Originally Posted by Marvin

The expensive ultra-portable sector has never been a good market and I think Apple made a big mistake venturing into it the way they did. There are far more important products to be dealt with first. Now if they had teamed up with Axiotron to make touch tablet Macs instead of the Air, things would be a bit different.

I think they should have concentrated more on a big iPod touch type of thing, like 10" touch screen tablet design or even if it were a notebook form factor. Doesn't need touch screen either. 32GB/2GB running OS X for $549. Something like that would have been better than the Air.

[internetworld7]

You know, I saw this video and I couldn't help but think, why is Wired taking this kind of a chance but more importantly why would someone want to go through the trouble of creating this type of a frankenstein netbook?

One major update from Apple and... BOOM! There goes your garbage hackintosh... The Mac experience will never be complete without a REAL Mac.

[ksec]

What a funny Guy, He said What a way to start the day as if he does nothing wrong.

Right, Mr Chen, Go and start a video podcast, and tell others to download Illegal copy of Windows, and how to crack WGA......

Honestly, Why Mr Chen is still working inside Wired is beyond me. I dont understand why he is not fired yet.

C&D Only? If SJ wasn't on leave he would BE MAD and have wired on Court NOW!.

However if he had post it with how to make it on a Retail Copy of Mac OSX would be a different story.

[talksense101]

Originally Posted by BB Sting

My Gosh, Apples gone stark raving mad, first they shut down Think Secret, now they want to censer Wired, where does it end, there's this little thing called free speech, which you'd think a liberal company like Apple would try to respect. If Apple doesn't like the fact that there os can be hacked, than for crying out loud, change the friggin' code!

How different is this from posting a video teaching someone how to smoke pot and where to buy it? It is illegal. End of story. Posting a video on how to do this including the URL was out of bounds by any standard. Apple has been very polite in asking them to cease and desist instead of suing them in court. I support Apple on this.

[FuturePastNow]

Doesn't matter. This is so easy to do- and so popular- that simply saying "don't do it" is absurd.

[robb01]

Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

Doesn't matter. This is so easy to do- and so popular- that simply saying "don't do it" is absurd.

exactly

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