Apple Embeds Message to OS X Hackers 575
zentechno writes "Apple has confirmed it embedded a message in the form of a poem to those who would hack its version of OS X on Intel hardware." From the article: "The embedded poem reads: 'Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined/his existing OS was so blind/he'd do better to pirate/an OS that ran great/but found his hardware declined./Please don't steal Mac OS!/Really, that's way uncool./(C) Apple Computer, Inc.'Apple also put in a separate hidden message, 'Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext,' in another spot for would-be hackers."
Re:huh (Score:4, Informative)
maxxuss [hotbox.ru]
When you care to quote correctly... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pirate? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's called a violation of their user license agreement.
Quote:
Re:Pirate? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, ask yourself, what is the legal and moral position of a company which is attempting to lead purchasers of its products to believe they have entered into an agreement which is unlawful in the jurisdiction of sale?
If this is wrong, please do cite a few EC cases or precedents showing it is. But no-one ever has, yet.
Forgot... (Score:5, Informative)
This is the UK sale of goods legislation (Score:5, Informative)
Test of fairness A term is unfair if: * contrary to the requirement of good faith it causes a significant imbalance inthe parties' rights and obligations under the contract, to the detriment of consumers."
"Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
"Consumer Sale of Goods Contracts
"Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution. For example, notices such as "We do not give refunds" are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments."
These quotes are from Department of Trade and Industry Guidelines.
It must be very doubtful that a EULA which forbids you to do things with the product after you have bought it, that you can perfectly well do, and which you have some reasonable reason to want to do, can be lawful in the UK or the EC. In fact, putting clauses in a Eula which mislead the consumer about his rights under the law in this regard appears, from the above, to be criminal.
Re:Endlessly expanding the definition of "stealing (Score:4, Informative)
Tiny correction here... (Score:4, Informative)
That should read "Because it uses DRM, you cannot legally install it under your brand-spanking new vanilla x86 machine, at least not under US law and other insane jurisdicitons with (also insane) DMCA-like regulations".
Law 9609/98 (Brasilian "Computer Programs Intelectual Property Act"), art 6: "It is NOT infringement to the rights of the author of a computer program: (...) IV - to integrate it, maintaining its characteristics, to an operating or application system, if it's technically indispensable to the use of the software, and it's promoted by the user". IOW: if you bought your copy of MacOS X, you can hack it to use on your computer.
Law 8078/90 (Brasilian "Consumer Defense Code"), art 39: "It is prohibited, to any supplier of products and services: I - to condition the supply of any product or service to the supply of another product or service" (this is called in Brasilian Consumer Law "venda casada" == "married sale", where one product/service only goes where the other goes). IOW: If I want to buy MacOS X, Apple cannot refuse to sell it to me, even if I don't own a Mac.
Re:huh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pirate? (Score:3, Informative)
Moreover, because of the practical differences in contract law among civil code countries, the common law countries (UK, CY, MT, IE) and the former communist member states, the EU tends to avoid acting on contract law per se administratively, legislatively or judicially. The ECJ is unlikely to ever hear an appeal from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (which for clarity was separated from the House of Lords by the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005).
Secondly, you probably mean the law of England rather than UK law. EULAs centre on the law of contracts. Contract law is different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and there are occasional subtle differences between English and Welsh law.
In the Scottish case, Beta Computers (Europe) Ltd v Adobe Systems (Europe) Ltd (1997) it was established conclusively that an EULA is part of the contract between the retail vendor and the user, and that the contract is not concluded at the time of sale, but persists. Adobe decided not to accept the EULA terms when they became known to them (upon opening the software) and refused to pay Beta. The latter sued, and lost, since Adobe had not accepted the licence terms by using the software.
England has practically no relevant Statutes with respect to EULAs, and little common law. The Scottish case is not binding on English courts, however the stature of the Court of Session is such that it would influence any English case. Moreover, the ruling was consistent with English contract law in that it found for Adobe because Adobe did not use the software. However, there is other Statute law that is relevant (in England) that complicates Adobe vs Beta as a precedent, but on the other hand it is extremely unlikely that any common law judge would find for a defendant who despite rejecting the terms of the EULA nevertheless proceeded to use or copy the software.
Apple would argue that the Beta standards are reasonable and consistent with 50C of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act which was added in 1992 to the 1988 act to comply with European Union legislation clarifying the right to copy programs and data from purchased media (like CD-ROMs) as much as is necessary to run the software as licensed.
Apple is within its rights to licence software for use only on Apple-branded computers. You may choose not to accept these contract terms and return the Apple-branded computer for a full refund, particularly if they are not clearly described to you before the purchase. However, you cannot claim a refund if you copy the software on your Mac (or even physically move the disk containing it) into a non-Apple machine. Under Beta, when you run the software, you accept the software terms, and the contract is completed.
Moreover, Apple would be entitled to claim breach of contract and copyright infringement and proceed to sue you. If you ignored the advice of your solicitor and allowed the matter to come to trial, Apple would almost certainly plead the Adobe vs Beta decision and the Copyright statutory law above and almost certainly win the sympathy of the judge, the balance of the case, and a large chunk of money from you in damages and costs.
It is unlikely that any English judge would accept that a contract licensing software bundled with a particular computer only for use on that particular computer is in any way sneaky or deceptive. Even if she or he did accept that, your remedy would be limited to returning the computer and software for a full refund. You would not be entitled to continue to use the software, as you would not have a contract for a licence, and without the licence you have no right to copy the software to any computer at all.
Re:Pirate? (Score:2, Informative)
Which part of the Sale of Goods Act restricts a copyright holders rights in regards to license terms (other than those which are against specific statutory rights)? If you're saying that this is against specific statutory rights, which?
I also think that the EU wouldn't even consider this as far as anti-competitive practises go. Part of the test for abuse of a dominant position is the relevant market test and the United Brands [1978] ECR 207 test would require OS X to be considered so different from other operating systems that it is "only to a limited extent interchangeable with them" and that it does not compete with any other operating systems. The argument that you want to install this on a standard PC in replacement of Windows/Linux damages that argument significantly, so the court would have to conclude that the relevant market was the OS market and Apple certainly don't have a dominant position in that market. Ergo they can pretty much do what they like and forget about EC anti-competition law, same with UK law. There is just no way either jurisdictions would categorise Apple competing in a market solely filled by Apple, which would be necessary for Apple to be in breach. Can you hand on heart say that OS X doesn't compete with Windows?
Re:That's not bad... (Score:2, Informative)
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Naturally, it requires a slightly modified way of pronouncing pirate and/or great.
Re:Pirate? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:huh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Love your signature... (Score:4, Informative)
If you didn't include the final ,1, then whatever you loaded was loaded into the 38k RAM block set aside for basic programs. If you did include it, it would load into RAM starting at the address the person saving it had designated.
Some programs loaded into the top half of the BASIC RAM, which was fine if you weren't running any BASIC programs, because that was the area BASIC used to store variables. However, there was a 4k block starting at 49152 which was set aside solely for user-initiated macine language programming and/or data storage (i.e. sprites, etc), so some programs would load in with ",8,1" or ",1,1" and then you'd type "sys 49152" to get them started.
Last, there was some set of registers just below the BASIC RAM that you could use to auto-start a program. I think that the way that these programs were written, they'd write a small basic program as a loader that would include a command similar to "LOAD 'MAINPROGRAM',8,1", and then they'd tack something on to the beginning of it which would be unintelligible if you loaded it right into BASIC RAM, but if you loaded it with the final ,1, the pre-pended stuff would fall into a register that said, "Execute the program that's just loaded", and the BASIC would be in the right place. I remember typing in a program from Compute's Gazette that let me create such auto-run files.
Ah, those were heady days!