Judge William Alsup, a federal judge has given Apple a sweeping legal victory by ruling Macintosh cloner Psystar Corp. had violated Apple's copyright, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Sounding the death knell for Psystar, the judge has also granted Apple motion for summary judgment, even while denying the counter-claims of Psystar.

Basically, Judge Alsup swiftly and thoroughly ruled that Apple's OS X End User License Agreement (EULA) prohibiting the software installation on non-Apple hardware, is perfectly legal and means exactly what it says.

Psystar's claim of being protected by the first sale doctrine was side-stepped by Judge Alsup. According to the doctrine, generally the buyer of a protected work is given the right to resell it without asking for permission, or having to pay the copyright holder. Explaining first sale only applied to legal copies and Psystar by modifying the software so that it ran on clones meant, the copies failed to meet this standard. As well, the judge also rejected Psystar's claims that Apple's trademarks had been legally used and it was Apple that had misued its copyrights.

According to Alsup, three primary unlawful modifications were executed by Psystar:
" Replacing the Mac OS X boot-loader with an alternative to run unauthorized copies of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers.
" Disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files.
" Adding non-Apple kernel extensions.

A hearing on remedies is scheduled for 14th December, though the order does not cover Apple's other claims of breach of contract and trademark infringement.

There are six models of Psystar Mac clones with costing beginning at $600.