Apple Anti-Piracy on Intel build

[QUOTE]Originally posted by AsLan^
[B]Why does Apple waste their time with the anti-piracy crap? No OEM distributor can ship a machine with a hacked version of OS X so it's not like it's eating into Apple's bottom line.

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Yeah the threat isn't Dell installing Mac OS X on their PCs, it's the casual PC users who pick up an old torrent to install on their PC instead of buying a new Mac mini. Or existing Mac users who decide to save $100 by buying a Dell PC and installing a bootleg copy of OS X/Intel rather than buying 10.5, or a new Intel Mac.

Apple doesn't otherwise waste a lot of time on piracy and DRM, and there will likely always be people trying to steal copies of OS X to run on their PC. Apple's just making it less convenient and less rewarding to steal than to buy, the same strategy that has worked so well for the iTMS.

If you can pick up a new Mac at a good price that works really well, why go through all the "crap" to get a stolen copy working on a PC, and then suffer through all the incompatiblities?

Apple isn't in the same position as the DVD consortium or the RIAA's crippled CD inititive; they don't have to make something bulletproof; it just has to be broken enough on PCs to not be worth the effort to steal it.

I think danielEran got most of it. But, I think I'd like to add that the business world is a world of appearances. Apple may agree with some of the folks around here that say that the best way to get the software to sell is to get it into the hands of users - no matter what. But, no analyst will go along with the idea of giving away intellectual property for free. Apple being a public company, they actually do try to please investors, and encourage more people with money to hop on board. There's no way they could attract these old-worlders without showing that they're at least trying to maintain control. Even though this piracy-control scheme may be broken, its presence still gives Apple the business image they want.

CrazyWingman nailed it. A lot of posters on all the various forums show little knowledge of business 'mechanics' and what is required of a company by its investors in maintaining fiduciary responsibilty. While Apple might eventually get some mileage out of having OS X on Intel shopped around, they simply cannot be seen by the business world and investors as standing idly by while piracy rages on.

It still amazes me that so many posters still don't seem to care about intellectual property rights and the need to protect profit and turf. I assume that none of these people would report the theft of their wallets/purses/cars since that distribution of wealth would seem to be a fair and reasonable thing.

Well, this also works out good for them because it allows them to test their anti-piracy 'crap' on testers before putting it out to the general public. You know, it would be so embarrassing if they released a new version of OS X to the public, and in three days someone hacked it to work on a dell box.

Oh, and Apple has all the right to try to restrict their OS in any and all ways they feel like it, since it is theirs, just like you have the right to not purchase said product because you don't like the restrictions.

BTW, rjwill246, I think the reason most people don't care about IP rights is because they don't work in that field. I'm sure their tunes would change very quickly if it was their hard work being usurped by others without paying for it.

depends upon whose wallet it is and who is taking it.
it amazes me how people forget about the robin hood theory.

i completely support stealing anything from the likes of Dick Cheney or Walmart if possible.

a more structured and stable distribution of wealth and labor would certainly be preferable, but we simply aren't there yet. you can't even get mainstream Democrats to talk about bringing us up to speed with the rest of the industrialized world by offering a universal healthcare system or bringing social security benefits back down to a more reasonable age.

absolute morality (e.g. stealing is wrong always regardless of circumstance) is perhaps the worst legacy of religion and we will be fighting it for generations to come.

MS doesn't make it easy to steal their software. They do whatever they can to prevent it. It just doesn't work very well. Apple hasn't done anything to prevent it because, up 'till now, they haven't had as much at stake.

With MS's software, any loss is a total loss as they don't sell the hardware to run it on, except for the XBox.

It's different for Apple. They sell the equipment to run the software, and as we should all know by now, with Apple, it's the hardware that makes up the vast portion of their business. Therefore if they lose some software sales to pirates, it's at least to their own customer base - the people who bought Apple's machines. If getting away with this because Apple doesn't make it too difficult, makes them more inclined to buy another Apple hardware product next time, it's to Apple's advantage. Remember that a lot of the software, excepting the Pro products, are given away with each new machine anyway.

When Apple comes out with the Mactels, it will be different. If people can get the OS and other software to work on some 3rd party PC, then Apple loses the hardware sale they rely upon for most of their business. They can't afford for that to happen.

If Apple manages to get more business in other ventures, iPods, music, cell phones, audio/visual equipment etc, it might reduce the computer sales to perhaps 25% of the business. If that happens (and I keep wondering if that is what Apple is trying to do), they might be able to take the chance of licensing the OS to perhaps Dell, and others. In that case, if they lose 25-35% of their computer sales, they might be able to make enough back with those licenses, as well as the sales of software to those people, because their marketshare might increase enough that way. They could get into the enterprise market with Dell the way they can't now.

But they have to increase that other part of the business first.

There is no such thing as the Robin Hood Theory. That's just used by people who would rather steal something than go and spend money on it. They always find some lame excuse for their theft.

For you nathan22:



Go rob a bank...for the good of the people.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by danielEran
[B]
When will people learn the difference between copyright infringement and theft?

You are stealing Mac OS X if you walk into an Apple store and take a copy without paying. You are infringing upon Apple's copyright by downloading it off of a torrent.

Theft implies that you are taking someone's property and consequently depriving them of the use of it. Copyright infringement (especially in this case) is more like fire. If Apple makes and sells matches and one of your friends has lit a candle with it, you could either light your candle by buying a match from Apple or by getting the fire from someone else's candle. By lighting your candle from an acquaintance's candle, you are not depriving Apple of anything except your business, which is another matter altogether, especially considering that you might never be willing to shell out enough money to pay for a match from Apple in the first place.

Of course, you are right. One thing is, that people need to keep in mind that semantics arguments doesn't necessarily make it just. And it is still illegal.

nathan22: As much as I agree with your politics, I disagree with your morality. You can't criticize Chaney and then emulate him. That's like M$ complaining about Apple's success with proprietary iTunes.

This has been tried in other societies and it has failed. The possibility to become better, earn more is what drives the economy of a country. To equally distribute wealth would remove this drive, stagnate creation and pretty much make life boring.


Have you ever been attended to by a medical professional who works in a country where the is a social healthcare system in operation? Until you have you, or someone you know has, you speak from ignorance. I have a good friend who moved here from Poland. He and his family have complained numerous times about the the Polish healthcare system and praised the American Health care system many time. I worked for a gentleman who brother practiced medicine in Canada. And have heard stories of the poor health care. Why do Canadians come to the US to receive health care? Cheep does not always mean good. You get what you pay for and pay for what you get.

And before you start with the Polish jokes, my friends are very successful, intelligent people. Their parents have worked hard and saved all their lives. They just built, and paid for in cash, a multi-hundred-thousand dollar house. His brother is a lawyer in Chicago and also a successful real-estate investor. I'm not talking about run down apartment I'll talking about multi-million dollar real-estate such and shopping centers, apartment complexes, and housing developments.

And before any of you socialist individuals assume that I equate money with happiness and success, think again. When I speak about money in the above post it's not to say money equals happiness. Usually, in a free market economy such as the one we live in, it take intelligence to turn $1 dollar in to $2, $2 in to $4, $4 in to $8, etc.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tirefire
[B]When will people learn the difference between copyright infringement and theft?

You are stealing Mac OS X if you walk into an Apple store and take a copy without paying. You are infringing upon Apple's copyright by downloading it off of a torrent.

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Taking a retail box from a store is not different than downloading it. In both cases, you've enriched yourself without paying the fee asked by its creator. Do you think the dollar of costs involved in making a cardboard box and pressing the DVDs makes the retail box MORE valuable than obtaining the software without any packaging? If so, you are a simple person.

There is a lot of work that goes into development and testing for software. The cost of packaging and distribution is tiny compared to the actual effort in planning, coding and management involved.

You can choose to be morally bankrupt and steal whatever you want (there are plenty of people like that), but making up a story to suggest that you are doing something noble or wise. But if you take stuff that's not yours, you are a thief.

Nobody owns the idea of fire. Apple clearly owns Mac OS X, so if you take it without paying, you are a thief.

If you are a starving student, you can sign up as a developer or student and get OS X cheap. If you are a PC gamer who just paid $4000 for parts to build a l33t game PC, you should spring for a KVM and a Mac mini to see how much Windows sucks in comparison.

That's one of those lame nonsense arguments I was talking about. There are many kinds of theft. Copyright pirates can still go to prison like everyone else. Grand theft is usually $5,000 or higher, so stealing OS X whether the boxed version or a copy won't get you a prison sentence. But it's still illegal. You are still getting the benefit of the use of someone's work that you are not entitled to, as well as depriving them of income they are legally entitled to collect from you.

There is also "theft of services". Stealing telephone services, power, cable usage, etc. You don't "take" a physical copy of those either.

If you don't understand that as being theft, then your mother didn't raise you properly.

Fine Mr. FreeMarketeer, but I have lived in many places with many types of social services and I found some better than the US in different respects, for example Austria was better for me than here. As good as the US is, for 90% of every day medical needs can be accomplished in a less litigous and profit driven situation. Yeah the US is tops in the 10% of high end stuff, but we pay a big price for that and THAT is why people come to the US for SOME medical stuff. I bet a survey of the border would show more people going to Canada for medical attention (lasik, pharmaceuticals, etc.) than the other way, so put the flag back in the drawer, homer.

Also talking to only wealthy Poles isn't really a good indicator either.

There is no one perfect system for all medical needs, so admit that and move on. What the US has shown is that innovation and stability of any system requires a strong middle class, not just wealthy and poor. There are lots of countries where the unequal wealth also created aristocracies and permenant ghettoes, so get out of Economics 101 and join the real world where inequality (though it happens naturally and it does create incentives) can not be allowed to run unimpeded by such abhorant things such as morality and common sense.

There is nothing wrong with socialism - most families and churches are based on the concept. It just doesn't work on some aspects of macroeconomics in big countries like the US. You actually have to have a sense of community for social economics to work. In the US we have superceded community in favor of individuality for both good and bad and that makes socialism SEEM so wrong.

As for theft - it isn't that difficult. If you take something that isn't yours, that is being sold and you are not paying for it ... you are stealing.

Remind me to never hire you for a job, never do a business deal with you, and never let you anywhere near my home or possessions.

Absolute morality isn't the sole domain of religion. It's pragmatic.

GTSC

A tempting proposition considering what $500 can (or better said can't) get you...It is a great system, but no expandability and a 1 gig max on ram, and they expect people who acctually know what bit torrent is to take it seriously!?!

I love my mini, but I would have much rather seen a ~$699-999 tower with at least 2 ram slots and a agp video card and 1 PCI slot -- what is so unreasonable about that?

To "steal" a phrase from Tom DeMarco...

If you repeat something often enough, consistently, without responding to your opponents using logic or even acknowledging they have a viewpoint, your repeated assertion will catch on. No matter how ridiculous it is.

It doesn't matter how much evidence there is or isn't, that's the magic of repeated assertion.

Now repeat after me: Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.

You must be the new AppleInsider comedian...welcome!

Point well taken!

Nothing!

But that holds true for your argument.

Split thread.

Moving this branch to General Discussion.

Apple lied to us. The developer's machine outperforms the top of the range Power Mac G5.

They lied about the benefits of the PowerPC architecture, and in particular they lied about the benefits of the G4 and G5 processors over their Pentium counterparts. They told us that the G5 was twice as fast as a Pentium processor and clearly it isn't.

I think that Apple should offer to swap all the G4s and G5s for a PC running OS X.

If a copy of OS X on Intel were to fall in to my lap, I certainly wouldn't have ANY quams about installing it on a homebrew machine.

whoa messiah. i think you're stretching a tad. think of the past few years you've been using a g4 and your g5, and think if you were using wintel instead. in which situation would you have had a more fun, secure, stable, productive computing experience?

so you may say, well, they should have given us mac os x on intel then 5 years ago if they were secretly doing it then... but IMO mac os x on intel would just not have been right in early 2000's, given apple's vision, direction, and needing to do the mac os 9 POWERPC to mac os 10 POWERPC transition.

"If a copy of OS X on Intel were to fall in to my lap, I certainly wouldn't have ANY quams about installing it on a homebrew machine...."
yeah, i think it will be fun, but no matter how much i've enjoyed setting up an AMD64-venice-6600gt-sata for a low low homebrew price, the overall hardware-software-OS experience just isn't as fantabulous as when i use my iBook g4 933mhz(!) just need to get shit done and cant afford fucking around with shite

.....homebrew osX-on-intel will for the next few years continue to face this challenge of fun for tinkering but beyond that, well... more for hardcore tweakers i'd say...

Are you kidding me?!?!?!?
Stealing is wrong, period! There are but few if any reasons to steal anything that one has earned to give to someone who has not. (I believe survivors of the hurricane that just hit New Orleans have a right to take food, water and medicine. But thats it.) Redistribution of wealth is one of the most un-American ideas I have ever heard. That is what they did in the former Soviet Union and you can see where that got them. I dont care in what free society you use for example, there will always be the upper, middle and lower classes. Many think that it is wrong but here is the catch you dont have to stay that way. With hard work and dedication you can be whatever you so choose. I myself was a high school dropout and a drug user. Now I have a degree and am clean and sober (for 15 years) with a thriving business. It should not be redistribution of wealth it should be getting off your dead ass and do something with your life. All these people that think I just dont understand the plait of the poor were lucky not to have to walk in my shoes. Poor is a current situation not a way to define yourself. I know what I am talking about because I lived it.

*checks thread title*

*checks forum*

Guys? Political 'discussions' belong elsewhere. Please take them out of this thread, or they'll just be deleted without warning from here on out.

That's a good way to put it. Theft is theft. Downloading an "evaluation" copy, when no such license is provided for in the EULA, is stealing.

Rationalize it all you want to. After all, there are still some folks around who talk about all the great roads that Hitler managed to get built.


[MOD: This sounds like a *MORAL* discussion about software licensing and theft. But if it's too political, just move the thread.]