Psystar is kind of turning into an annoying step-brother by “respectfully disagreeing” with the courts latest findings, but by adding other charges to take the place of the dismissed ones. This whole case seems like it’s going to continue on OJ style, – the first one - never-ending and just wasting taxpayers dollars.

Maybe there is a silent backer, secretly funding Psystar’s lawyers whore funds and praying for Apple’s demise. The latest filings allege that Apple is violating sections of the DMCA by preventing competition. Still, at this point, even the most die-hard Apple haters have to start getting annoyed with the whole process. Finish him!

You would think that these Argentineans would know about Psystar’s legal ‘issues’ with Apple before they decided to release an unofficial OS X machine, but whatever. The company is selling two Mac Clones for a reasonable amount of cake. The OpeniMac is only $990 and ships with 2GB of memory, 320GB HDD, and a 256MB ATI Radeon HD Pro. The OpeniMacPRO will run ya, $1,710 but is a 3.0GHz machine with 4GB of ram and a 20-inch widescreen LCD. Legal concerns aside, if you’re jones’n for a Mac but don’t want to pay the Steve Jobs’ Tax – and can speak Spanish – this might be an option.

OpeniMac via AOL

Oh dear, I think Apple’s legal department is getting paranoid. After suggesting that people taking their ad literally were irrational, they’re now suggesting that a shadowy unknown may be behind the whole Psystar drama. The suits and countersuits have been going on for months and months now (all I care about is that it works), and in an amendment to their suit today, Apple added the following language:

On information and belief, persons other than Psystar are involved in Psystar’s unlawful and improper activities described in this Amended Complaint. The true names or capacities, whether individual, corporate, or otherwise, of these persons are unknown to Apple. Consequently they are referred to herein as John Does 1 through 10 (collectively the “John Doe Defendants”).

Good lord, how mysterious! Can they really think that someone like Dell for example, jealous of Apple’s increasing market share, would set up a shell company to sell pieced-together Frankenmacs? I think Apple needs a drink.
[via MacRumors]

The court proceedings between Apple and Psystar are still dragging on with the latest charges being filed by Apple the day before Thanksgiving. Allegedly, Psystar is violating the Digital Mellennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by circumventing the OS X copy-protection. 

Through this motion, Apple seeks leave to file its Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) and this Court’s November 7, 2008 Case Management Order.  Apple’s Amended Complaint, attached hereto as Exhibit A, adds a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim, additional factual allegations relating to Apple’s previously asserted claims and Doe defendants.  The DMCA claim is based on new information that Apple has learned since the filing of its original complaint.

It’s just a matter of time before Apple steamrolls the clone computer maker.

The never ending saga of David vs Goliath just got a little tougher for the little guy. Unless Psystar strengthens its counterclaims against Apple, it will be thrown out of court. The counterclaim indicates that OS X is not reasonably interchangeable with other operating systems, such as Windows, and therefore compromises its own niche market. So unless Psystar can come up with something better, Apple’s original lawsuit till continue against the Mac clone manufacturer and we all kind of know how that is going to turn out. Probably something like when Bill Gates visited Homer Simpson…

Psystar is still beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men aka Apple but now they’re shipping “OS X-compatible” machines with Blu-ray installed. Sadly, there is no built-in Blu-Ray support which means you’re stuck using Toast 9 to do anything at all.

In our experience, Psystar is basically selling bare bones PCs with a little tweaking – nothing you or I couldn’t do at home. The sheer fact that a small IT company is getting this much press out of doing something anyone with an Internet connection can do is disheartening, but it will be fascinating once these kids get hosed by Apple legal.

via Ars

The latest chapter in the David vs Golitha battle has just unfolded in the Northern District of California with a dismissal filing by Apple.

Jobs & Co. state in the claim,

Defendant Psystar Corporation is knowingly infringing Apple’s copyrights and trademarks, and inducing others to do the same. Psystar makes and sells personal computers that use, without permission, Apple’s proprietary operating system software. In an obvious attempt to divert attention from its unlawful actions, Psystar asserts deeply flawed antitrust counterclaims designed to have this Court force Apple to license its software to Psystar, a direct competitor. The Court should reject Psystar’s efforts to excuse its copyright infringement, and dismiss these Counterclaims with prejudice

So to catch you up to speed, Psystar started selling Mac clones, Biggs buys one, Apple sues the company, Psystar countersues, and now this. Maybe a big group hug would help.

Filing [PDF] via AppleInsider

Psystar is suing Apple under the Sherman Antitrust Act saying that the EULA is a form of illicit tying and restrains trade.

Psystar’s attorneys are calling Apple’s allegations of Psystar’s copyright infringement “misinformed and mischaracterized.” Psystar argues that its OpenComputer product is shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X, and that the company has simply “leveraged open source-licensed code including Apple’s OS” to enable a PC to run the Mac operating system.

Good luck getting it to stick, boys. Don Quixote might start taking pointers from you.

Apple will have 30 days to respond to this new development. Pedraza feels his company is doing nothing wrong and they’re only offering an alternative to Apples high-priced hardware. I don’t think Pedraza understands that the hardware is where Apple makes most of its money. So they’re not going to give up that part of the business without a long, drawn-out fight.

This is probably going to end up being a test of who has the most stamina (money). Since Apple has the most to lose, I can’t see them letting this one go to long. I smell a fat settlement in Psystar’s future.

Despite Apple’s end user licensing agreement expressly forbidding the installation or sales of its operating systems on third-party hardware, Psystar is ‘still shipping‘ the computers. And don’t forget they now come with a restore disk.

via Information Week

Pretty cut and dry. Persons that purchased one of Psystar’s OS X-equiped computers will receive a restore disk thus removing one of the large critizems of the companies systems. Previously, customers had to ship their Mac clones back to the company for OS re-installs.

Oh, and the disks are free. Just fill out a form and either fax or snail-mail it back to Psystar.

Details

Last week I reported that Psystar retained Carr & Ferrell, the law firm that stood up to Apple and won. This week Colby Springer, one of the lawyers working on the case, hinted at their legal strategies during an interview on Thursday.

Springer told reporters:

Read More

Well it looks like the case between Psystar and Apple is going to get interesting. It’s been reported that a law firm that has taken on Apple in the past and won, has been retained by Psystar.

The name of the California law firm is Carr & Ferrell and they specialize in intellectual property cases. You may remember them from the Burst.com case where in the end, Apple settled and paid them $10 million. Also worth noting is that they went up against Microsoft and took in $60 million.

This doesn’t guarantee that Psystar is going to win, it just means that Apple is going to have a fight in its hands. Psystar’s deadline to respond to the lawsuit was moved to August 18th, so it looks like this battle royale may kick off in the fall and probably last into next year.

With Psystar getting the beatdown from Apple, iOpenTech thinks it’s going to sneak in around the corner and offer an open platform that runs any OS, including OS X.

Listen: installing OS X on a PC is trivial. There are plenty of videos and tutorials describing the process and what Psystar did, to its credit, was make it even more trivial for folks who didn’t want to do the job themselves.

I’m going to talk to iOpenTech today to figure out what they’re really offering here but it’s my recommendation that you buy a crappy desktop and follow OSx86’s instructions instead of depending on a company that will soon be subsumed by Apple’s lawyers.

UPDATE – iOpenTech writes:

Hello,We are preparing to sell open source computers that are capable of running a number of different operating systems. Open Tech Computers are capable of running OS X Leopard, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu 8.04, and many more. To avoid the mistake that Psystar made we will be custom configuring the settings of the Open tech computer to run the operating system each customer chooses. When you are purchasing an Open Tech Computer from our site you will be prompted on which OS you will be running on your Open Tech Computer, from there we can configure your new system’s settings to properly run your selected OS. You will not be able to purchase an Open Tech Computer with OS X Leopard pre-installed. Instead, when you purchase the computer and choose Leopard as your main OS we will provide you with the Do-it-yourself-kit that will easily guide the end user to properly and natively run OS X Leopard, of course the end user must acquire a licensed copy of OS X. Running OS X on Open Tech Computers has never been easier.

UPDATE – Buyer beware even more. They’re astroturfing this post:

That said, where the hell is .tk? .tk comes from Tokelau, a small island in the South Pacific. It is run by the dot.tk registrar and reveals no information about the domain name holders:
Read More

Last week Apple filed a copyright infringement suit against Psystar, alleging the company “misappropriated Apple’s proprietary software and intellectual property.” That’s no shocker, but that Apple is asking for, along with damages and an injunction, that every Psystar Mac OS-based OpenComputer be recalled, could turn into more than just the usual lawsuit.

Psystar began selling the Open Computer in April, which uses, according to Apple, a modified version of its OS X. Since Psystar launched the PC everyone has been waiting for Apple’s suit. But the terms of the suit could have serious consequences for other companies who might be thinking about selling PCs using Apple’s OS and for Apple, see CNET’s analysis of the case and its possible outcomes.

In short: if Apple wins the suit and all clones are returned and destroyed, then any other copycatters waiting out there will have learned a discouraging lesson, but if Apple wins the suit and instead of recalling the clones, the court decides Psystar owes Apple some sort of licensing deal and fees, then we could see an army of Mac OS clones hitting the market.

The full text of Apple’s claim is available, here.

Apple has filed suit against Psystar in the northern district of California.

Apple, Inc., manufacturer of the well known line of computers and software, filed suit on July 3 in the federal district court for the northern district of California against Florida company Psystar, Inc. The suit alleges counts for violation of its shrink wrap license, trademark and copyright infringement.

While we love an Apple clone as much as the next guy, I think you’re going to have to brew your own now that Pystar is dying.

Need an XServe without paying Apple for the privilege? Psystar has something for you. They’re releasing 1U and 2U servers running Windows, Ubuntu, and “even Mac OS X Leopard Server.”

Again, these boys are risking a lot selling these things, but more power to them. These are OEM rack servers with a little Psystar work and not much else, but it starts at about $2,000 and OS X costs a little extra ($500-$1,000 for OS X Server). Get them while you still can.

PsyStar, everyone’s favorite litigation landmine, has upgraded their cases for their standard PCs. Not much news except that we wish that we had received this model rather than the janky one we got.

Those of you with Psystars running Leopard might want to hot-foot it to Psystar’s website to download some important fixes. They activate Time Machine and patch many other specific errors. Since Leopard wasn’t ever meant for non-Mac computers, it makes sense that there is much patching needed.

John Biggs has a Psystar. It’s a generic PC that runs OSX Leopard, and runs it well at that. It was roughly $550 shipped, and there’s something that gives one a sneaky feeling when using it, as if you’re getting away with something.

The Psystar, though, may be just the tip of the iceberg. Apple Insider points out that there are now other PC clones running OSX, and you can get them on eBay.

Of course, you can get your own PC and install Leopard on it using the same patches and hacks Psystar does, but where’s the fun in that?