Then why are we disagreeing? I said early on that size didn't matter. Anti-competitive is anti-competitive, whether you are big or small. That was my point from the very beginning.
Size of the COMPANY doesn't matter. Size of the MARKET SHARE matters. It's hard to be a monopoly with only 10% of the market share...
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Now wait just a minute! You JUST got finished saying size was of no importance!
Attempting to monopolize using anti-competitive practices is illegal. Period.
When a monopoly gives something away for free (IE) it's predatory pricing.
When a normal company gives something away for free it doesn't matter.
Of course, it's pretty much impossible these days to nail anyone on predatory pricing (dumping) in the US. It applies mostly in the international scene.
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"Apple writes OS X for their Mac..." which runs on an Intel processor, which uses the x86 instruction set. There's no possible way Apple can code OS X "for their Mac" and NOT code for the x86 instruction set. The "unfortunate" side-effect for Apple is that by doing so, their OS becomes inherently compatible with all hardware designed to work with x86 systems.
Except it doesn't have to release it for all hardware nor can generic hardware run OSX without hacks.
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A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
A very big IF. Plus the courts have been very favorable to software copyright holders and EULAs of late.
Besides, quality control of product is an affirmative defense against tying although most examples are for franchises. The close integration of hardware and software certainly by Apple certainly leads to a higher quality product than under Linux or Windows. You'll note that Apple carefully noted that the quality of its product and brand was impacted by Pystar.
The fact of the matter is all these scumbag practices work against the consumer.
Real competition drives down prices, it drives up the quality of products and that's good for everyone. Companies should thrive or fail based on the quality of their products. Not on the effectiveness of their legal team.
Standardization and interoperability help the market to function. It encourages competition, and prevents monopolies. Witness how standardization of of PC component parts has driven down costs, and performance has rocketed ahead.
Monopolistic methods (such as artificial incompatibility) allow companies to build walled gardens. Lock-in consumers or overcharge them for services and supplies. Competition dries up or is restricted to limited domains.
So while you *can* change printer brand, none of the brands compete on ink-price. Consequently, printer ink costs more than gold. Each version of Windows is slower than the previous one. Mobile phones were crammed with silly features, but none were usable. Mediocrity triumphs.
Sometimes governments spot that a market has gone bad and intervene. Which should be the role of the law.
But often as not, the bribes work and the legislators turn a blind eye. The monopolies go unchallenged, and companies exploit copyright and patent law to beat down competitors, instead of beating them by simply making better products.
If governments don't act, then consumers should. Even if that means bending the rules.
I don't think Apple is crooked. But it is acting like a kid that was once bullied. He's now acting all tough, but he still dare not leave the house. I hope that one day, Apple comes out to play with the big kids.
Well, sorry, Sir Sensitive! I was just being goofy, no harm intended... calm thyself
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"Well, your honor, "borrowing" the encryption keys from the plaintiff's systems and using them in a kernel extension in order to run their copyright protected and encrypted software on our hardware without their consent is hardly a violation of copyright."
No one is borrowing anyone's encryption keys, I do not understand your analogy.
Additionally, please know that just because something gets "copyrighted," or is pronounced copyrighted, it does not mean that particular claim of copyright is legal.
I believe what Pystar is doing is unethical but I do not know if it's illegal, there's some gray area here which they may be able to leverage. All sorts of things can happen when you're explaining all of this to 12 jurors over weeks of testimony and declarations. Anyone who claims they can predict what a jury will decide needs to hie themselves hither to Vegas and start placing bets on the upcoming college football season as well Also, I'd love to know what the lottery numbers will be
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"Well, your honor, taking my boss' keys and making copies at Ace Hardware so that I could go into his house while he's at work, grab his jewelry and sell it at a pawn shop is hardly considered theft."
I think this analogy is very much off the mark. But it's all academic, we'll see what happens in court!
Size of the COMPANY doesn't matter. Size of the MARKET SHARE matters. It's hard to be a monopoly with only 10% of the market share...
But Apple owns 100% of the Mac OS X hardware market. This is the market where Pystar's right of involvement and participation is being challenged by Apple's attorneys.
Or to be more exact and completely precise, Apple dominates the Mac OS X computer hardware market with a market share of 99.9999999999999999%, if you include Pystar and other home-spun and garage-installed open source alternatives.
A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
-Clive
Now you are arguing the EULA language not the concept of fair competition. If this is the case then Apple can legally prevent Psystar by replacing the "Apple branded computer" with something like "This version shall only be used as an upgrade to an existing Mac OS X". I am sure the lawyers can write it better than me but you get the idea. Then Apple can sue anyone even if they did not create a software check during installation. Apple sell their OS without keys, serial numbers, or digital checks but that does not make it legal to install single license Mac OS on more than one computer.
Of course that's Apple's intent, but they don't specifically sell OS X as an "upgrade" and moreover, they constantly remind users that if they buy OS X, they are getting the full version! The fact that a Mac comes bundled with OS X is irrelevant. If a consumer buys OS X from a store, he can "only" use if it he owns a Mac. If the user doesn't own a Mac, he "must" buy one to use it. That Mac may be new from an Apple Store, or it may be used from eBay, but either way, the software that he purchased is "useless" unless he buys a Mac. Of course it's not actually useless since it'll work just fine on generic hardware... That sounds like Tying to me.
But no one is forcing you to buy OSX in the first place. Apple is no where near a monopoly. You can buy Windows or Linux to use on your PC. You will have a hard time proving that you are forced to use OSX. You can't claim foul because you are forced to use a Mac with OSX when no one is forcing you to use OSX in the first place.
Hey, I bought a BMW fuel pump. But it only works on a BMW. So I'm forced to buy a BMW if I want to use the fuel pump. The BMW fuel pump is usless. Well not exactly, I can wrap some rubber around it and use it as a door stop. I'm going to sue BMW for being anti-competitive. See how silly that sounds.
Yes they do sell an "upgrade" version of OSX. The only difference between an "upgrade" version and "full" version is that an upgrade version needs to have a previous OSX on it's hard drive before it loads. Thus it's a little cheaper. The full version will load onto a completely blank hard drive. A lot of people will buy the full version even if they own a previous copy of OSX because it saves them the hassle of loading a previous version on to a new hard drive before they can load the new OS. But you get the exactly the same OSX once it's loaded.
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Then why are we disagreeing? I said early on that size didn't matter. Anti-competitive is anti-competitive, whether you are big or small. That was my point from the very beginning.
Now wait just a minute! You JUST got finished saying size was of no importance!
Attempting to monopolize using anti-competitive practices is illegal. Period.
Once again. It's market share size the matters. All I'm saying is that what may constitute anti-competitive practice when you are a monopoly may not be considered anti-competitive when you only has 10% of the market share. Selling your product at a loss is one of these practice that is frowned upon when you are a monopoly. But consider good for competition when you're only 10% of the market.
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"Apple writes OS X for their Mac..." which runs on an Intel processor, which uses the x86 instruction set. There's no possible way Apple can code OS X "for their Mac" and NOT code for the x86 instruction set. The "unfortunate" side-effect for Apple is that by doing so, their OS becomes inherently compatible with all hardware designed to work with x86 systems.
No, OSX is not inherently compatible with all hardware designed for x86 because not all x86 hardware can be found or will ever be found on a Mac. Apple only needs to write OSX to be compatible with the x86 hardware found on a Mac. This is nowhere near "all". Plus there are certain hardware on a Mac that are not found on any other x86 computer. So therefore, OSX is not inherently compatible with all x86 hardware. And Apple doesn't have to make it compatible with all x86 hardware. They only need to make it compatible with a Mac.
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Whoever it was, it isn't important. The fact is that Windows included code in Windows to cause inoperability with another technology. Apple is doing the same thing by checking to make sure it's running on a genuine Mac. Yes, that's correct, there are lines of code in OS X which don't contribute to the functionality of the OS! Their purpose there is solely to ensure that the user stays confined to Apple's hardware.
Apple can do this because OSX was written only for Apple hardware. MS had no right to limit the function of third party software that was written properly to run in their Windows OS.
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Sounds like the eprom chip was being used more as a pirating mechanism than a fair use mechanism. I think the circumstance is different here. Hackintosh builders aren't modifying OS X to bypass a security mechanism. They're teaching their hardware how to communicate with OS X natively.
No. the hack is tricking OSX into thinking that the hardware is something it isn't. Once OSX loads the hack is no longer needed. It's the same as tricking the Playstation into thinking that the disc is something it isn't. It doesn't matter the reason, you are still rewriting some one elses copyrigthed software to do something it was never written to do.
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A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
How in the hell can the court find Apple's HW/SW arrangement anti-competitive when Apple owns both the HW and SW. You think that they going to find that the deal Apple made with itself constitutes an anti-competitive practice because Apple won't let other companies use their SW? Since when do a company have to help a competitor compete against them. The only way for the arrangement to be anti-competitive is that Apple made some sort of arrangement with another company or that Apple is a monopoly in either the OS market or the computer hardware market.
Here's what it's going to come down to. The court is going to determine what harm is done to the clone maker because they can't use OSX. The court will see that Apple has less than 5% of the World computer market for computers. Therefore the clone maker is only locked out of 5% of the market. The clone maker can still compete in the other 95% of the World computer market using Windows or Linux. Until Apple reaches the point where other hardware venders are locked out of 75% (not exact here) of the market because they can't use OSX, Apple is safe to lock OSX to Macs.
But Apple owns 100% of the Mac OS X hardware market. This is the market where Pystar's right of involvement and participation is being challenged by Apple's attorneys.
Or to be more exact and completely precise, Apple dominates the Mac OS X computer hardware market with a market share of 99.9999999999999999%, if you include Pystar and other home-spun and garage-installed open source alternatives.
There is no "Mac OSX hardware" market. Macs are part of the consumer computer market. Where they are about 10% of the US market and 4% of the world market.
Is there an Xbox console market? No, Xbox is part of the consumer gaming console market.
Like someone stated earlier. Everyone has a monopoly if you define the market narrowly enough. Microsoft has a monolopy on the Zune MP3 player market. See what I mean.
Apple and Apple shareholders will be saddened to learn of this news.
You completely missed DavidW's point by cutting out the crux of the argument. There is a big difference between a market for a product and a market of a product, especially in view of the discussion here. A market is not defined by calling a brand a market (though NASDAQ and NYSE are exceptions). For the purposes of anti-trust, if you can't define a market using generic terms, then it's not likely a market in that legal sense.
There is no legal right for Psystar to use Apple's copyrighted material without Apple's permission. If Apple doesn't want other companies marketing products using Apple's copyrighted works, then that's Apple's business under US and international copyright laws. The same goes for the trademarks too.
Really it's no use even responding since nobody here will even *consider* the possibility that their precious Apple *might* be doing something wrong.
Not once have I stated that I was confident in a certain outcome and I've even admitted that it was possible a court may rule against Psystar in the anti-competitive argument... but there's no point of me being open-minded about the subject when you all have your minds made up.
So here you have it: Psystar will lose and Apple (& other tech companies) will continue to tighten down the vice on you and me by locking us down into their ever-more-restricted "integrated" systems. Now you all have the happy ending you were looking for.
"Court documents show that Psystar's theory rests on its belief that Macs and Windows-based PCs are not interchangeable, either technologically or in the minds of users. The latter fact is the result of carefully crafted and pervasive Apple ads, dating from the 1990s to the present, in which Apple users are challenged to "Think Different", like Gandhi, or to "Get A Mac" so they can be hip like Apple pitchman Justin Long.
"The Mac OS and Windows operating system are not merely different operating systems with no interchangeability but cultural icons representative of different lifestyles, markets, and that the computing devices of each environment are used for wholly different audiences," Psystar argues in court papers."
Really it's no use even responding since nobody here will even *consider* the possibility that their precious Apple *might* be doing something wrong.
Not once have I stated that I was confident in a certain outcome and I've even admitted that it was possible a court may rule against Psystar in the anti-competitive argument... but there's no point of me being open-minded about the subject when you all have your minds made up.
So here you have it: Psystar will lose and Apple (& other tech companies) will continue to tighten down the vice on you and me by locking us down into their ever-more-restricted "integrated" systems. Now you all have the happy ending you were looking for.
You're trying pretty hard to paint a large group of us as Job's choir boys, but frankly, this looks to me to be more of a desperate swipe.
I think what you have there is a possible confusion between a legal right and some moral/ethical right, which is generally more subjective and doesn't always align with legal right.
Legally, I really don't see how Apple isn't going to win, based on how copyrights are. Do the existing laws hurt us in the long run? Does copyright go too far? That's where most of the the subjectivity lies. That's more of a philosophical debate.
What disturbs me more is certain people in this thread (though not necessarily you that I remember, though I see potential there) seem to suggest that they're heavy proponents of capitalism but they then bizarrely propose a socialistic act of forcibly redistributing Apple's ownership of the software that Apple made, for the good of the market.
"The Mac OS and Windows operating system are not merely different operating systems with no interchangeability but cultural icons representative of different lifestyles, markets, and that the computing devices of each environment are used for wholly different audiences," Psystar argues in court papers."
Wow. That's some bind-blowing baloney right there. ARghhh... I'm going to do it. Sorry all, I have to. It's time for a car analogy.
Insert BMW and Ford in place of Mac OS and Windows in the above paragraph and see if it doesn't make you laugh.
Imagine a world where you buy a phone at a fair price. And then use it with whichever service operator you chose. You could even go abroad and plug in a local sim. If you get bad service, boom! You can change service provider.
Most of the World is like this now. I can do this with a Nokia. Today. And what prevent you from buying a unlock phone (at a fair price) from Amazon. And using it on the carrier of your choice. Today
Or is it that you want one of the lastest and greatest phone for the price of a Razr.
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Imagine a world where printer inks are standardised and you buy your preferred brand of ink to go into your brand of printer. And where the scummy printer manufacturers did not try to use the DMCA to prevent you from buying whatever ink you damn well wanted.
There are plenty of printers that you can purchase that have third party ink availble from day one. All you need to do is a little research as to the ink cartridge it uses and see if it's sold by a third party.
However, when a printer manufacturer develope some new technology for their printers that most consumers will benifit from. The printer maker has two options. They can sell the printers at a much higher price to recoup the cost of R&D. Or they can sell them at a competitive price and recoup the cost of R&D through sales of their ink. Either way they need to recoup the cost of R&D. And eventually the new technology will trickle down to the lower cost printers. This is the same with most products that depends on innovation to drive the market. If companies can't recoup the cost of R&D, we will never see anything innovative on the market. All the products will go the way of Dell. Just find a way to make them cheaper not better.
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Imagine a world where you can walk into a shop and pick a Sony or an Apple Laptop - and then go to the next shelf to select your preferred flavor of OS.
You can do this now. Pick an Apple Mac and you can choose from nearly every single OS out there. And this is also true if you pick a Sony PC. Or is this about OSX?
But really. It's too late for this (have a large selection of OS's). No comapany, other than MS, will ever be able to survive by marketing just an OS. We would not have OSX if it weren't for the fact that Apple makes their money selling Macs. Don't blame the companies for this. Blame the consumers. Linux is almost free and yet consumers won't use it. Linux can probablly do 100% of what an average consumers need an OS to do. So what is going to convince any company out there that there is money to be made competing in the OS market?
And you really can't blame MS for the way it is today. Consumers had choices of better OS before. Even IBM couldn't make a go of it with their OS2. The consumers always voted for low price over paying more for quality.
People can bitch all they want about how Apple is depriving them of OSX on a cheap PC. But the truth is that OSX would not exist today if it weren't for Apple selling Macs. Not even Apple can make money just marketing OSX against MS Windows. It's like the printer company that has to recoup money spent on R&D by selling their ink. Apple knows this. I know this. Many here know this. But there are cheapskates among us that don't want to believe this.
The OS war is over. MS has an 80% margin on Windows. They can lower their price a long ways down before they begin to lose money on Windows. They can match any competitors price without being anti-competitive.
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Or would you rather have a world where shifting bank accounts was penalised like cellphone contracts? Where every camera has non-standard memory card or non-standard film. Sorry sir - we only sell gas for Toyota's here.
A contract is a contract. There are benifits. Locked in higher interest rate on your money or locked in lower price for the term of the contract. Or do you believe that consumers has the right to terminate their contracts when they please, without any consequences?
If a company developes a camera that is way better than any camera on the market today. And they think they can sell this camera using a non-standard memory card that requires the memory makers to pay them for a license . Then let them. The consumers will make the ultimate choice of whether this camera is worth paying for. If the consumers buys it, then the other camera makers makers must follow suit and make their cameras better. If the consumers don't buy it. Then the camera will no longer be on the market. This is what a free market is. Companies are free to test the market with new products. And the consumers are free to choose whether that product survives.
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Companies shy away from trading openly in flat markets because they fear competition. If OS X and Vista were sold as direct competitors - OS X would be a better product, and Vista would be a better product too. And you know it!
No. If OSX had to compete in the same market as Windows, OSX would no where be the product it is today. For sure Windows would be better if they had to compete against OSX. But OSX is a better product now because Apple only has to concentrate on making it for a Mac. If Apple had to make OSX run on every POS PC out there. OSX quality will suffer like that of Windows.
Remember, it's not really OSX mocking Windows on those Apple commericails. Though Gates may think different(ly). Is a Mac mocking a PC. It's a Mac guy not an OSX guy.
In a nutshell, the World is very much like the way you want it. But if every company had to adhere to your vision, there would be no incentive for companies like Apple, HP, BMW, Merck, pfizer, Boeing, GE, etc to spend the money for R&D to come out with new innovative products. The World is a better place because companies has the incentive to make a better product. And the consumers has the choice as to whether that product survives. Or would you rather that every computer be like a Dell, every store be like a Wal-Mart and every car be like a Kia?
In a nutshell, the World is very much like the way you want it. But if every company had to adhere to your vision, there would be no incentive for companies like Apple, HP, BMW, Merck, pfizer, Boeing, GE, etc to spend the money for R&D to come out with new innovative products. The World is a better place because companies has the incentive to make a better product. And the consumers has the choice as to whether that product survives. Or would you rather that every computer be like a Dell, every store be like a Wal-Mart and every car be like a Kia?
Nonsense.
Companies should compete by developing products and pitching them into a market against other products.
When this happens, we see extraordinary levels of competition. We see products dramatically improving, and prices falling rapidly. The consumer wins.
There are two classes of market co existing in the world; Flat markets where competition works properly. And the walled gardens which are rife with monopolistic practices, DRM, lock-ins and contracts. These crooked markets arise because governments are too timid to outlaw the practices.
Flat markets, give you great products, new stuff every few months, and prices that fall year on year. Flat screen TVs. Japanese Cars, PC Hardware, Clothing.. Fair markets do give us Wallmart and Kia, but also gives us Waitrose (Publix) and Bugatti. Diversity and choice is another benefit of competition.
Now compare and contrast your experience with the other type of market.
We encounter frustrating contracts that limit what you can do with your own stuff. EULAs which pretend to change your legal rights. Paid for DVDs that don't work in different players. DRM. Penalty clauses. Invalidated warranties. Abysmal customer support. And you encounter products which don't really work. because behind this is a pervasive arrogance which means that the company does not have to really respond to your needs.
Companies do need to make money back on their investment. But that is *their problem*. That's the nature of commerce. They make use of legal contracts, to build their walled gardens, but that does not mean it should be legal.
Companies should compete by developing products and pitching them into a market against other products.
When this happens, we see extraordinary levels of competition. We see products dramatically improving, and prices falling rapidly. The consumer wins.
There are two classes of market co existing in the world; Flat markets where competition works properly. And the walled gardens which are rife with monopolistic practices, DRM, lock-ins and contracts. These crooked markets arise because governments are too timid to outlaw the practices.
Flat markets, give you great products, new stuff every few months, and prices that fall year on year. Flat screen TVs. Japanese Cars, PC Hardware, Clothing.. Fair markets do give us Wallmart and Kia, but also gives us Waitrose (Publix) and Bugatti. Diversity and choice is another benefit of competition.
Now compare and contrast your experience with the other type of market.
We encounter frustrating contracts that limit what you can do with your own stuff. EULAs which pretend to change your legal rights. Paid for DVDs that don't work in different players. DRM. Penalty clauses. Invalidated warranties. Abysmal customer support. And you encounter products which don't really work. because behind this is a pervasive arrogance which means that the company does not have to really respond to your needs.
Companies do need to make money back on their investment. But that is *their problem*. That's the nature of commerce. They make use of legal contracts, to build their walled gardens, but that does not mean it should be legal.
C.
Suppose you invented a product that you know everyone would buy and that no other company has. Should you be able market your product when there's no competition for your product. Or do you think that you should have to share your invention with others so that the consumers can benifit from competition? Or maybe you think that other companies should be allow to reproduce your invention without having to pay you for it because they bought one and should be able do as they please with their "own stuff". When other companies tries to improve their products to compete with yours, the consumers wins. When other companies are allow to steal your idea and find a way to make it cheaper in China, the consumers ultimately loses. Because companies will cease to innovate. Why should they invest the money to innovate, if no one is willing to protect their intellectual property and their right to make money with it in a free market.
Do you think that if you read a book and decided that it would make a great movie. That you should be allow to do make it into a movie without paying the original author? Just because you bought the book and it's "your own stuff".
Do you think that it would be OK for you to create and market your own greatest hits CD that you made from a dozen music CDs' that you bought? Since you made it from your "own stuff".
Do you think that you should be able to buy a computer program, alter a few lines of code and then market that program. Because you paid for it, so it's your "own stuff".
Where would you draw the line between protecting the consumers right to do has he pleases with his "own stuff". And protecting a company's right to derive income from marketing it's own intellectual property in a free market?
Here in the US that line is drawn when you try to make money off of some elses copyrighted material. Even though the industry would like for it to be illegal and states that it is, you can make your greatest hit CD, use a clip from you DVD movie to spice up your home movie, alter lines of code in a program so that it might run better on you own computer and the industries will not go after you. However, try to market any of the above for money without a license and you will have the industries breathing down your back.
You give the companies way to much credit for building walls and hiding behind them. It's the consumer that has the money and it's the consumers that can tear down those walls. If consumers don't like the shoddy service, the price of a product or the terms of a contract they can take their business elsewhere. And soon enough these companies will cease to exist. There are very few monopolies here in the US. There are very few companies that can exercise monopolistic power in their market. The funny thing is that most of the companies that owns a large market share are the ones offering the lowest price for consumers. It is very rare that a company that own a large market share to charge exhorbant prices for their product becauise they can. Consumers have many choices in nearly all markets. But having consumer choices comes at a price. And if they're not willing to pay that price or protect the rights of the companies that are offering them those choices, they may soon find their choices diminishes down to choices of which product is cheaper rather than which product is better.
It is the problem of the companies to make money. And therefore they should be afforded the right to protect the income they can derive from selling their products in a free market. It would be a shame if drug companies stop searching for a cure for HIV, cancer or other diseases. Fuel cell battery companies stop researching for more efficient electric car batteries. Solar power company stop their research on solar panels. Musicians stop writing songs. Disney/Pixar stop making movies. Programer stop writing programs. All because no one is willing to protect these companies (or individuals) rights to recover the cost of such ventures from the "it's my own stuff and I do as I please with it" people.
You completely missed DavidW's point by cutting out the crux of the argument. There is a big difference between a market for a product and a market of a product, especially in view of the discussion here. A market is not defined by calling a brand a market (though NASDAQ and NYSE are exceptions).
Jobs killed the Mac clone market to protect Apple's margins. Apple could not effectively compete in an open Mac hardware market (there was no OS X back then, obviously, but there was still, and is still, a Mac hardware market).
If there is no Mac hardware market - as you and DavidW assert - why would Apple have killed the clones, and why does Apple use encryption keys to lock generic Intel hardware to the Mac OS? If there is no Mac hardware market, why do they go thru these extraordinary steps and measures to bar any competitor?
The answer is: there is a Mac hardware market, and Apple, having created this market (even long before there was a Windows hardware market), and having prohibited competitors - even having killed several off - dominates this market with a virtual 100% share.
I'm playing devil's advocate, of course. But this will be some of what Pystar's attorneys will argue, and when you put 12 jurors in the box, who may or may not fully understand the computer hardware market... man, anything can happen.
Anyone who tells you they know exactly what's going to happen in a court of law is blowing smoke.
Jobs killed the Mac clone market to protect Apple's margins. Apple could not effectively compete in an open Mac hardware market (there was no OS X back then, obviously, but there was still, and is still, a Mac hardware market).
If there is no Mac hardware market - as you and DavidW assert - why would Apple have killed the clones, and why does Apple use encryption keys to lock generic Intel hardware to the Mac OS? If there is no Mac hardware market, why do they go thru these extraordinary steps and measures to bar any competitor?
The answer is: there is a Mac hardware market, and Apple, having created this market (even long before there was a Windows hardware market), and having prohibited competitors - even having killed several off - dominates this market with a virtual 100% share.
I'm playing devil's advocate, of course. But this will be some of what Pystar's attorneys will argue, and when you put 12 jurors in the box, who may or may not fully understand the computer hardware market... man, anything can happen.
Anyone who tells you they know exactly what's going to happen in a court of law is blowing smoke.
Apple killed the clones because they were hindering their ability to compete in the computer hardware market. Both the clones and Macs were competing in this market.
Like JeffDM stated, from a legal standpoint, you can not define a "market" derived with a brand name. This would automatically create a monopoly for the maker of the brand. No matter what brand you use.
Every company that create their own market with a product has a monoloply in it.
RIMM has a monopoly in the market that consist of Blackberry users. But they do not have a monopoly in the cell phone market. GM has a monopoly in the market that consist of Corvette owners. But they do not have a monopoly in the consumer auto market. Apple has a monopoly in the market that consist of Mac users. But they do not have a monopoly in the consumer computer hardware market. But it's the cell phone market, consumer auto market and consumer computer hardware market that stands up to the legal definition of a "market".
Microsoft has a monopoly in the market that consist of Windows users. But the only thing that legally counts is their monopoly in the consumer computer OS market.
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Then why are we disagreeing? I said early on that size didn't matter. Anti-competitive is anti-competitive, whether you are big or small. That was my point from the very beginning.
Size of the COMPANY doesn't matter. Size of the MARKET SHARE matters. It's hard to be a monopoly with only 10% of the market share...
Now wait just a minute! You JUST got finished saying size was of no importance!
Attempting to monopolize using anti-competitive practices is illegal. Period.
When a monopoly gives something away for free (IE) it's predatory pricing.
When a normal company gives something away for free it doesn't matter.
Of course, it's pretty much impossible these days to nail anyone on predatory pricing (dumping) in the US. It applies mostly in the international scene.
"Apple writes OS X for their Mac..." which runs on an Intel processor, which uses the x86 instruction set. There's no possible way Apple can code OS X "for their Mac" and NOT code for the x86 instruction set. The "unfortunate" side-effect for Apple is that by doing so, their OS becomes inherently compatible with all hardware designed to work with x86 systems.
Except it doesn't have to release it for all hardware nor can generic hardware run OSX without hacks.
A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
A very big IF. Plus the courts have been very favorable to software copyright holders and EULAs of late.
Besides, quality control of product is an affirmative defense against tying although most examples are for franchises. The close integration of hardware and software certainly by Apple certainly leads to a higher quality product than under Linux or Windows. You'll note that Apple carefully noted that the quality of its product and brand was impacted by Pystar.
Real competition drives down prices, it drives up the quality of products and that's good for everyone. Companies should thrive or fail based on the quality of their products. Not on the effectiveness of their legal team.
Standardization and interoperability help the market to function. It encourages competition, and prevents monopolies. Witness how standardization of of PC component parts has driven down costs, and performance has rocketed ahead.
Monopolistic methods (such as artificial incompatibility) allow companies to build walled gardens. Lock-in consumers or overcharge them for services and supplies. Competition dries up or is restricted to limited domains.
So while you *can* change printer brand, none of the brands compete on ink-price. Consequently, printer ink costs more than gold. Each version of Windows is slower than the previous one. Mobile phones were crammed with silly features, but none were usable. Mediocrity triumphs.
Sometimes governments spot that a market has gone bad and intervene. Which should be the role of the law.
But often as not, the bribes work and the legislators turn a blind eye. The monopolies go unchallenged, and companies exploit copyright and patent law to beat down competitors, instead of beating them by simply making better products.
If governments don't act, then consumers should. Even if that means bending the rules.
I don't think Apple is crooked. But it is acting like a kid that was once bullied. He's now acting all tough, but he still dare not leave the house. I hope that one day, Apple comes out to play with the big kids.
C.
Wow, thanks for the subtle sarcasm, Matt!
Well, sorry, Sir Sensitive! I was just being goofy, no harm intended... calm thyself
No one is borrowing anyone's encryption keys, I do not understand your analogy.
Additionally, please know that just because something gets "copyrighted," or is pronounced copyrighted, it does not mean that particular claim of copyright is legal.
I believe what Pystar is doing is unethical but I do not know if it's illegal, there's some gray area here which they may be able to leverage. All sorts of things can happen when you're explaining all of this to 12 jurors over weeks of testimony and declarations. Anyone who claims they can predict what a jury will decide needs to hie themselves hither to Vegas and start placing bets on the upcoming college football season as well
I think this analogy is very much off the mark. But it's all academic, we'll see what happens in court!
The fact of the matter is all these scumbag practices work against the consumer.
Outstanding post, thoughtful and hits the mark. Thanks & well done!
Size of the COMPANY doesn't matter. Size of the MARKET SHARE matters. It's hard to be a monopoly with only 10% of the market share...
But Apple owns 100% of the Mac OS X hardware market. This is the market where Pystar's right of involvement and participation is being challenged by Apple's attorneys.
Or to be more exact and completely precise, Apple dominates the Mac OS X computer hardware market with a market share of 99.9999999999999999%, if you include Pystar and other home-spun and garage-installed open source alternatives.
A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
-Clive
Now you are arguing the EULA language not the concept of fair competition. If this is the case then Apple can legally prevent Psystar by replacing the "Apple branded computer" with something like "This version shall only be used as an upgrade to an existing Mac OS X". I am sure the lawyers can write it better than me but you get the idea. Then Apple can sue anyone even if they did not create a software check during installation. Apple sell their OS without keys, serial numbers, or digital checks but that does not make it legal to install single license Mac OS on more than one computer.
Of course that's Apple's intent, but they don't specifically sell OS X as an "upgrade" and moreover, they constantly remind users that if they buy OS X, they are getting the full version! The fact that a Mac comes bundled with OS X is irrelevant. If a consumer buys OS X from a store, he can "only" use if it he owns a Mac. If the user doesn't own a Mac, he "must" buy one to use it. That Mac may be new from an Apple Store, or it may be used from eBay, but either way, the software that he purchased is "useless" unless he buys a Mac. Of course it's not actually useless since it'll work just fine on generic hardware... That sounds like Tying to me.
But no one is forcing you to buy OSX in the first place. Apple is no where near a monopoly. You can buy Windows or Linux to use on your PC. You will have a hard time proving that you are forced to use OSX. You can't claim foul because you are forced to use a Mac with OSX when no one is forcing you to use OSX in the first place.
Hey, I bought a BMW fuel pump. But it only works on a BMW. So I'm forced to buy a BMW if I want to use the fuel pump. The BMW fuel pump is usless. Well not exactly, I can wrap some rubber around it and use it as a door stop. I'm going to sue BMW for being anti-competitive. See how silly that sounds.
Yes they do sell an "upgrade" version of OSX. The only difference between an "upgrade" version and "full" version is that an upgrade version needs to have a previous OSX on it's hard drive before it loads. Thus it's a little cheaper. The full version will load onto a completely blank hard drive. A lot of people will buy the full version even if they own a previous copy of OSX because it saves them the hassle of loading a previous version on to a new hard drive before they can load the new OS. But you get the exactly the same OSX once it's loaded.
Then why are we disagreeing? I said early on that size didn't matter. Anti-competitive is anti-competitive, whether you are big or small. That was my point from the very beginning.
Now wait just a minute! You JUST got finished saying size was of no importance!
Attempting to monopolize using anti-competitive practices is illegal. Period.
Once again. It's market share size the matters. All I'm saying is that what may constitute anti-competitive practice when you are a monopoly may not be considered anti-competitive when you only has 10% of the market share. Selling your product at a loss is one of these practice that is frowned upon when you are a monopoly. But consider good for competition when you're only 10% of the market.
"Apple writes OS X for their Mac..." which runs on an Intel processor, which uses the x86 instruction set. There's no possible way Apple can code OS X "for their Mac" and NOT code for the x86 instruction set. The "unfortunate" side-effect for Apple is that by doing so, their OS becomes inherently compatible with all hardware designed to work with x86 systems.
No, OSX is not inherently compatible with all hardware designed for x86 because not all x86 hardware can be found or will ever be found on a Mac. Apple only needs to write OSX to be compatible with the x86 hardware found on a Mac. This is nowhere near "all". Plus there are certain hardware on a Mac that are not found on any other x86 computer. So therefore, OSX is not inherently compatible with all x86 hardware. And Apple doesn't have to make it compatible with all x86 hardware. They only need to make it compatible with a Mac.
Whoever it was, it isn't important. The fact is that Windows included code in Windows to cause inoperability with another technology. Apple is doing the same thing by checking to make sure it's running on a genuine Mac. Yes, that's correct, there are lines of code in OS X which don't contribute to the functionality of the OS! Their purpose there is solely to ensure that the user stays confined to Apple's hardware.
Apple can do this because OSX was written only for Apple hardware. MS had no right to limit the function of third party software that was written properly to run in their Windows OS.
Sounds like the eprom chip was being used more as a pirating mechanism than a fair use mechanism. I think the circumstance is different here. Hackintosh builders aren't modifying OS X to bypass a security mechanism. They're teaching their hardware how to communicate with OS X natively.
No. the hack is tricking OSX into thinking that the hardware is something it isn't. Once OSX loads the hack is no longer needed. It's the same as tricking the Playstation into thinking that the disc is something it isn't. It doesn't matter the reason, you are still rewriting some one elses copyrigthed software to do something it was never written to do.
A license agreement can only be as restrictive so far as that license doesn't break any laws. If a court finds Apple's hw/sw arrangement to be anti-competitive, the EULA will be overruled.
How in the hell can the court find Apple's HW/SW arrangement anti-competitive when Apple owns both the HW and SW. You think that they going to find that the deal Apple made with itself constitutes an anti-competitive practice because Apple won't let other companies use their SW? Since when do a company have to help a competitor compete against them. The only way for the arrangement to be anti-competitive is that Apple made some sort of arrangement with another company or that Apple is a monopoly in either the OS market or the computer hardware market.
Here's what it's going to come down to. The court is going to determine what harm is done to the clone maker because they can't use OSX. The court will see that Apple has less than 5% of the World computer market for computers. Therefore the clone maker is only locked out of 5% of the market. The clone maker can still compete in the other 95% of the World computer market using Windows or Linux. Until Apple reaches the point where other hardware venders are locked out of 75% (not exact here) of the market because they can't use OSX, Apple is safe to lock OSX to Macs.
But Apple owns 100% of the Mac OS X hardware market. This is the market where Pystar's right of involvement and participation is being challenged by Apple's attorneys.
Or to be more exact and completely precise, Apple dominates the Mac OS X computer hardware market with a market share of 99.9999999999999999%, if you include Pystar and other home-spun and garage-installed open source alternatives.
There is no "Mac OSX hardware" market. Macs are part of the consumer computer market. Where they are about 10% of the US market and 4% of the world market.
Is there an Xbox console market? No, Xbox is part of the consumer gaming console market.
Like someone stated earlier. Everyone has a monopoly if you define the market narrowly enough. Microsoft has a monolopy on the Zune MP3 player market. See what I mean.
There is no "Mac OSX hardware" market.
Apple and Apple shareholders will be saddened to learn of this news.
There is no "Mac OSX hardware" market.
Apple and Apple shareholders will be saddened to learn of this news.
You completely missed DavidW's point by cutting out the crux of the argument. There is a big difference between a market for a product and a market of a product, especially in view of the discussion here. A market is not defined by calling a brand a market (though NASDAQ and NYSE are exceptions). For the purposes of anti-trust, if you can't define a market using generic terms, then it's not likely a market in that legal sense.
There is no legal right for Psystar to use Apple's copyrighted material without Apple's permission. If Apple doesn't want other companies marketing products using Apple's copyrighted works, then that's Apple's business under US and international copyright laws. The same goes for the trademarks too.
Not once have I stated that I was confident in a certain outcome and I've even admitted that it was possible a court may rule against Psystar in the anti-competitive argument... but there's no point of me being open-minded about the subject when you all have your minds made up.
So here you have it: Psystar will lose and Apple (& other tech companies) will continue to tighten down the vice on you and me by locking us down into their ever-more-restricted "integrated" systems. Now you all have the happy ending you were looking for.
Happy Birthday.
-Clive
"Court documents show that Psystar's theory rests on its belief that Macs and Windows-based PCs are not interchangeable, either technologically or in the minds of users. The latter fact is the result of carefully crafted and pervasive Apple ads, dating from the 1990s to the present, in which Apple users are challenged to "Think Different", like Gandhi, or to "Get A Mac" so they can be hip like Apple pitchman Justin Long.
"The Mac OS and Windows operating system are not merely different operating systems with no interchangeability but cultural icons representative of different lifestyles, markets, and that the computing devices of each environment are used for wholly different audiences," Psystar argues in court papers."
The best bits are here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2472
Plus a link to the full document.
Really it's no use even responding since nobody here will even *consider* the possibility that their precious Apple *might* be doing something wrong.
Not once have I stated that I was confident in a certain outcome and I've even admitted that it was possible a court may rule against Psystar in the anti-competitive argument... but there's no point of me being open-minded about the subject when you all have your minds made up.
So here you have it: Psystar will lose and Apple (& other tech companies) will continue to tighten down the vice on you and me by locking us down into their ever-more-restricted "integrated" systems. Now you all have the happy ending you were looking for.
You're trying pretty hard to paint a large group of us as Job's choir boys, but frankly, this looks to me to be more of a desperate swipe.
I think what you have there is a possible confusion between a legal right and some moral/ethical right, which is generally more subjective and doesn't always align with legal right.
Legally, I really don't see how Apple isn't going to win, based on how copyrights are. Do the existing laws hurt us in the long run? Does copyright go too far? That's where most of the the subjectivity lies. That's more of a philosophical debate.
What disturbs me more is certain people in this thread (though not necessarily you that I remember, though I see potential there) seem to suggest that they're heavy proponents of capitalism but they then bizarrely propose a socialistic act of forcibly redistributing Apple's ownership of the software that Apple made, for the good of the market.
"The Mac OS and Windows operating system are not merely different operating systems with no interchangeability but cultural icons representative of different lifestyles, markets, and that the computing devices of each environment are used for wholly different audiences," Psystar argues in court papers."
Wow. That's some bind-blowing baloney right there. ARghhh... I'm going to do it. Sorry all, I have to. It's time for a car analogy.
Insert BMW and Ford in place of Mac OS and Windows in the above paragraph and see if it doesn't make you laugh.
Imagine a world where you buy a phone at a fair price. And then use it with whichever service operator you chose. You could even go abroad and plug in a local sim. If you get bad service, boom! You can change service provider.
Most of the World is like this now. I can do this with a Nokia. Today. And what prevent you from buying a unlock phone (at a fair price) from Amazon. And using it on the carrier of your choice. Today
Or is it that you want one of the lastest and greatest phone for the price of a Razr.
Imagine a world where printer inks are standardised and you buy your preferred brand of ink to go into your brand of printer. And where the scummy printer manufacturers did not try to use the DMCA to prevent you from buying whatever ink you damn well wanted.
There are plenty of printers that you can purchase that have third party ink availble from day one. All you need to do is a little research as to the ink cartridge it uses and see if it's sold by a third party.
However, when a printer manufacturer develope some new technology for their printers that most consumers will benifit from. The printer maker has two options. They can sell the printers at a much higher price to recoup the cost of R&D. Or they can sell them at a competitive price and recoup the cost of R&D through sales of their ink. Either way they need to recoup the cost of R&D. And eventually the new technology will trickle down to the lower cost printers. This is the same with most products that depends on innovation to drive the market. If companies can't recoup the cost of R&D, we will never see anything innovative on the market. All the products will go the way of Dell. Just find a way to make them cheaper not better.
Imagine a world where you can walk into a shop and pick a Sony or an Apple Laptop - and then go to the next shelf to select your preferred flavor of OS.
You can do this now. Pick an Apple Mac and you can choose from nearly every single OS out there. And this is also true if you pick a Sony PC. Or is this about OSX?
But really. It's too late for this (have a large selection of OS's). No comapany, other than MS, will ever be able to survive by marketing just an OS. We would not have OSX if it weren't for the fact that Apple makes their money selling Macs. Don't blame the companies for this. Blame the consumers. Linux is almost free and yet consumers won't use it. Linux can probablly do 100% of what an average consumers need an OS to do. So what is going to convince any company out there that there is money to be made competing in the OS market?
And you really can't blame MS for the way it is today. Consumers had choices of better OS before. Even IBM couldn't make a go of it with their OS2. The consumers always voted for low price over paying more for quality.
People can bitch all they want about how Apple is depriving them of OSX on a cheap PC. But the truth is that OSX would not exist today if it weren't for Apple selling Macs. Not even Apple can make money just marketing OSX against MS Windows. It's like the printer company that has to recoup money spent on R&D by selling their ink. Apple knows this. I know this. Many here know this. But there are cheapskates among us that don't want to believe this.
The OS war is over. MS has an 80% margin on Windows. They can lower their price a long ways down before they begin to lose money on Windows. They can match any competitors price without being anti-competitive.
Or would you rather have a world where shifting bank accounts was penalised like cellphone contracts? Where every camera has non-standard memory card or non-standard film. Sorry sir - we only sell gas for Toyota's here.
A contract is a contract. There are benifits. Locked in higher interest rate on your money or locked in lower price for the term of the contract. Or do you believe that consumers has the right to terminate their contracts when they please, without any consequences?
If a company developes a camera that is way better than any camera on the market today. And they think they can sell this camera using a non-standard memory card that requires the memory makers to pay them for a license . Then let them. The consumers will make the ultimate choice of whether this camera is worth paying for. If the consumers buys it, then the other camera makers makers must follow suit and make their cameras better. If the consumers don't buy it. Then the camera will no longer be on the market. This is what a free market is. Companies are free to test the market with new products. And the consumers are free to choose whether that product survives.
Companies shy away from trading openly in flat markets because they fear competition. If OS X and Vista were sold as direct competitors - OS X would be a better product, and Vista would be a better product too. And you know it!
No. If OSX had to compete in the same market as Windows, OSX would no where be the product it is today. For sure Windows would be better if they had to compete against OSX. But OSX is a better product now because Apple only has to concentrate on making it for a Mac. If Apple had to make OSX run on every POS PC out there. OSX quality will suffer like that of Windows.
Remember, it's not really OSX mocking Windows on those Apple commericails. Though Gates may think different(ly). Is a Mac mocking a PC. It's a Mac guy not an OSX guy.
In a nutshell, the World is very much like the way you want it. But if every company had to adhere to your vision, there would be no incentive for companies like Apple, HP, BMW, Merck, pfizer, Boeing, GE, etc to spend the money for R&D to come out with new innovative products. The World is a better place because companies has the incentive to make a better product. And the consumers has the choice as to whether that product survives. Or would you rather that every computer be like a Dell, every store be like a Wal-Mart and every car be like a Kia?
In a nutshell, the World is very much like the way you want it. But if every company had to adhere to your vision, there would be no incentive for companies like Apple, HP, BMW, Merck, pfizer, Boeing, GE, etc to spend the money for R&D to come out with new innovative products. The World is a better place because companies has the incentive to make a better product. And the consumers has the choice as to whether that product survives. Or would you rather that every computer be like a Dell, every store be like a Wal-Mart and every car be like a Kia?
Nonsense.
Companies should compete by developing products and pitching them into a market against other products.
When this happens, we see extraordinary levels of competition. We see products dramatically improving, and prices falling rapidly. The consumer wins.
There are two classes of market co existing in the world; Flat markets where competition works properly. And the walled gardens which are rife with monopolistic practices, DRM, lock-ins and contracts. These crooked markets arise because governments are too timid to outlaw the practices.
Flat markets, give you great products, new stuff every few months, and prices that fall year on year. Flat screen TVs. Japanese Cars, PC Hardware, Clothing.. Fair markets do give us Wallmart and Kia, but also gives us Waitrose (Publix) and Bugatti. Diversity and choice is another benefit of competition.
Now compare and contrast your experience with the other type of market.
We encounter frustrating contracts that limit what you can do with your own stuff. EULAs which pretend to change your legal rights. Paid for DVDs that don't work in different players. DRM. Penalty clauses. Invalidated warranties. Abysmal customer support. And you encounter products which don't really work. because behind this is a pervasive arrogance which means that the company does not have to really respond to your needs.
Companies do need to make money back on their investment. But that is *their problem*. That's the nature of commerce. They make use of legal contracts, to build their walled gardens, but that does not mean it should be legal.
C.
Nonsense.
Companies should compete by developing products and pitching them into a market against other products.
When this happens, we see extraordinary levels of competition. We see products dramatically improving, and prices falling rapidly. The consumer wins.
There are two classes of market co existing in the world; Flat markets where competition works properly. And the walled gardens which are rife with monopolistic practices, DRM, lock-ins and contracts. These crooked markets arise because governments are too timid to outlaw the practices.
Flat markets, give you great products, new stuff every few months, and prices that fall year on year. Flat screen TVs. Japanese Cars, PC Hardware, Clothing.. Fair markets do give us Wallmart and Kia, but also gives us Waitrose (Publix) and Bugatti. Diversity and choice is another benefit of competition.
Now compare and contrast your experience with the other type of market.
We encounter frustrating contracts that limit what you can do with your own stuff. EULAs which pretend to change your legal rights. Paid for DVDs that don't work in different players. DRM. Penalty clauses. Invalidated warranties. Abysmal customer support. And you encounter products which don't really work. because behind this is a pervasive arrogance which means that the company does not have to really respond to your needs.
Companies do need to make money back on their investment. But that is *their problem*. That's the nature of commerce. They make use of legal contracts, to build their walled gardens, but that does not mean it should be legal.
C.
Suppose you invented a product that you know everyone would buy and that no other company has. Should you be able market your product when there's no competition for your product. Or do you think that you should have to share your invention with others so that the consumers can benifit from competition? Or maybe you think that other companies should be allow to reproduce your invention without having to pay you for it because they bought one and should be able do as they please with their "own stuff". When other companies tries to improve their products to compete with yours, the consumers wins. When other companies are allow to steal your idea and find a way to make it cheaper in China, the consumers ultimately loses. Because companies will cease to innovate. Why should they invest the money to innovate, if no one is willing to protect their intellectual property and their right to make money with it in a free market.
Do you think that if you read a book and decided that it would make a great movie. That you should be allow to do make it into a movie without paying the original author? Just because you bought the book and it's "your own stuff".
Do you think that it would be OK for you to create and market your own greatest hits CD that you made from a dozen music CDs' that you bought? Since you made it from your "own stuff".
Do you think that you should be able to buy a computer program, alter a few lines of code and then market that program. Because you paid for it, so it's your "own stuff".
Where would you draw the line between protecting the consumers right to do has he pleases with his "own stuff". And protecting a company's right to derive income from marketing it's own intellectual property in a free market?
Here in the US that line is drawn when you try to make money off of some elses copyrighted material. Even though the industry would like for it to be illegal and states that it is, you can make your greatest hit CD, use a clip from you DVD movie to spice up your home movie, alter lines of code in a program so that it might run better on you own computer and the industries will not go after you. However, try to market any of the above for money without a license and you will have the industries breathing down your back.
You give the companies way to much credit for building walls and hiding behind them. It's the consumer that has the money and it's the consumers that can tear down those walls. If consumers don't like the shoddy service, the price of a product or the terms of a contract they can take their business elsewhere. And soon enough these companies will cease to exist. There are very few monopolies here in the US. There are very few companies that can exercise monopolistic power in their market. The funny thing is that most of the companies that owns a large market share are the ones offering the lowest price for consumers. It is very rare that a company that own a large market share to charge exhorbant prices for their product becauise they can. Consumers have many choices in nearly all markets. But having consumer choices comes at a price. And if they're not willing to pay that price or protect the rights of the companies that are offering them those choices, they may soon find their choices diminishes down to choices of which product is cheaper rather than which product is better.
It is the problem of the companies to make money. And therefore they should be afforded the right to protect the income they can derive from selling their products in a free market. It would be a shame if drug companies stop searching for a cure for HIV, cancer or other diseases. Fuel cell battery companies stop researching for more efficient electric car batteries. Solar power company stop their research on solar panels. Musicians stop writing songs. Disney/Pixar stop making movies. Programer stop writing programs. All because no one is willing to protect these companies (or individuals) rights to recover the cost of such ventures from the "it's my own stuff and I do as I please with it" people.
You completely missed DavidW's point by cutting out the crux of the argument. There is a big difference between a market for a product and a market of a product, especially in view of the discussion here. A market is not defined by calling a brand a market (though NASDAQ and NYSE are exceptions).
Jobs killed the Mac clone market to protect Apple's margins. Apple could not effectively compete in an open Mac hardware market (there was no OS X back then, obviously, but there was still, and is still, a Mac hardware market).
If there is no Mac hardware market - as you and DavidW assert - why would Apple have killed the clones, and why does Apple use encryption keys to lock generic Intel hardware to the Mac OS? If there is no Mac hardware market, why do they go thru these extraordinary steps and measures to bar any competitor?
The answer is: there is a Mac hardware market, and Apple, having created this market (even long before there was a Windows hardware market), and having prohibited competitors - even having killed several off - dominates this market with a virtual 100% share.
I'm playing devil's advocate, of course. But this will be some of what Pystar's attorneys will argue, and when you put 12 jurors in the box, who may or may not fully understand the computer hardware market... man, anything can happen.
Anyone who tells you they know exactly what's going to happen in a court of law is blowing smoke.
Jobs killed the Mac clone market to protect Apple's margins. Apple could not effectively compete in an open Mac hardware market (there was no OS X back then, obviously, but there was still, and is still, a Mac hardware market).
If there is no Mac hardware market - as you and DavidW assert - why would Apple have killed the clones, and why does Apple use encryption keys to lock generic Intel hardware to the Mac OS? If there is no Mac hardware market, why do they go thru these extraordinary steps and measures to bar any competitor?
The answer is: there is a Mac hardware market, and Apple, having created this market (even long before there was a Windows hardware market), and having prohibited competitors - even having killed several off - dominates this market with a virtual 100% share.
I'm playing devil's advocate, of course. But this will be some of what Pystar's attorneys will argue, and when you put 12 jurors in the box, who may or may not fully understand the computer hardware market... man, anything can happen.
Anyone who tells you they know exactly what's going to happen in a court of law is blowing smoke.
Apple killed the clones because they were hindering their ability to compete in the computer hardware market. Both the clones and Macs were competing in this market.
Like JeffDM stated, from a legal standpoint, you can not define a "market" derived with a brand name. This would automatically create a monopoly for the maker of the brand. No matter what brand you use.
Every company that create their own market with a product has a monoloply in it.
RIMM has a monopoly in the market that consist of Blackberry users. But they do not have a monopoly in the cell phone market. GM has a monopoly in the market that consist of Corvette owners. But they do not have a monopoly in the consumer auto market. Apple has a monopoly in the market that consist of Mac users. But they do not have a monopoly in the consumer computer hardware market. But it's the cell phone market, consumer auto market and consumer computer hardware market that stands up to the legal definition of a "market".
Microsoft has a monopoly in the market that consist of Windows users. But the only thing that legally counts is their monopoly in the consumer computer OS market.