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What's the Latest in the Psystar Appeal?

By Pamela Jones et al.

Let's catch up quickly in the Psystar/Apple situation, so we don't miss any of the action. When I read the new DMCA exemptions EFF won, I immediately started to think about Psystar, so I wanted to see what's new. Maybe you did too. So here's the latest I could find. The appeal is going forward. Presumably the next step in the appeal will be oral argument, although I can't swear to it, since Psystar filed its brief under seal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals back in May, so we can't read it, and that's when they would have made the request or not. I can't believe the entire document needed to be sealed, but that is what happened. Perhaps they'd prefer we not get a chance to analyze it? Apple has now filed its answering brief [PDF], along with a request [PDF] that the court take judicial notice of the Florida litigation, and Psystar has just filed its reply brief [PDF], and these documents are not sealed, so we finally get to find out what it's all about.

What Psystar wants is nothing less than to overturn copyright law as we know it and create a new doctrine of per se copyright misuse any time a copyright owner restricts use of its software to particular hardware.

Wait. Isn't that kind of what TurboHercules is whining about too? Here's what TurboHercules told us it wants: "We simply want IBM to agree to allow legitimate paying customers of its z/OS mainframe operating system to deploy that software on the hardware platforms of their choice - including, should they so choose, on low-cost servers using Intel or AMD microprocessors and Hercules." Psystar and TurboHercules are going after different software, but they want exactly the same thing, to force the software creator to let them use it on hardware the owner doesn't want it used on. And of course, they are two noble hearts with no interest in the buckets of money they'd thereby gain, without having to do the hard work of actually creating their own software. Let Apple and IBM pay for all that, and then they swoop in and make sure the creators don't benefit from their labor, so that Psystar and TurboHercules can.

You know what I find so striking? This is just one of four cases trying to grab some measure of control or use of other people's software against the owners' will, starting with the SCO v. IBM case.

Full post as published by Groklaw on July 28, 2010 (boomark / email).