Hackintosh legality

[jscho]

I need to convince my dad somehow.

 

Even some really high-profile YouTubers have made Hackintoshes. LInus and Elrich from ToT just to name a few. If they haven't been taken to court, your Dad won't. Not to mention they make GPUs with Mac enabled BIOSes, which obviously have to go in something. It's not like Apple makes a PC that can house a GPU (anymore).

[bradscoolio]

OSX is free, but not truly free. It still has a license of sorts... kind of. There's at least no activation process, so you're not really cracking it.

[Norwegiantweaker]

So is it legal to have a personal hackintosh? Or is it only illegal to sell it? And has apple really cared to die anyone over a hackintosh. EDIT. MEANT SUE NOT DIE

NSA WILL PICK YOU UP AND EXECUTE YOU 

[jezza39]

Within the EULA you may not install it on anything other than Apple branded hardware.

However if you did decide to then you would be violating the EULA.

I'm no lawyer, but the most I would see apple to be able to do would be to make you uninstall their software from that product.

I mean in court what could they actually sue you for if they wanted to? 

 

What you must remember is that it is not against the law to do this. It is against the EULA. The EULA is not the law.

 

I actually have no idea though, but this would be my point of view on it. 

I have never made a hackintosh, and none of the information I have provided is of any certainty.

This post is completely of my own opinion, and I take no responsibility for any reason, of any action, any other

user, person, or member for their use of any version of OSX on any non-Apple branded hardware. 

I take no responsibility for the actions of others for any reason or circumstance. 

(Feel like covering myself on a legal basis whenever I talk about this kind of stuff lol)

You can't dictate exactly what a customer can do with your product. I believe it's antitrust (not sure though, haven't studied corporations law yet).

 

The EULA is a contract, however, it is ineffective unless you have to click through it to pay for something. Many boxed games try to throw EULA crap on you after you've paid for things in the store.

[Mouse-Potato]

What if you just build your rig OSX compatible and run Chameleon, default boot Windows 7 and have OSX installed incognito!?

 

Hackintosh's are basically loopholes, like any other loophole, it's not illegal and if Apple really cared they'd do something about it.

 

I think that Apple see's this on a large scale, their aren't that many people that are capable and willing to build a hackintosh and the amount of people that have built one are such a small percentage compared to all the apple computers that are sold in the world that it doesn't hurt them. 

[xox]

It's legal in the UK, but not in the US, I believe due to the charter linking companies' EULA to the legality of using something.

 

It's to do with the law on companies putting their customers first in the UK and then putting their sareholders first in the US.

 

Therefore, Apple can sue you, but it's incredibly unlikely that they will.

[Commander_Z]

I need to convince my dad somehow.

 

show him the video Linus just did recently on the hackintosh he built

[ShadowCaptain]

It is not "illegal" there is no law about it

 

but it is against apples ToS and EULA, they COULD take you to court and sue you, they probably wouldn't. If you did its is highly unlikely the jury would be on your side, and you would most likely 99% fail to convince them you are right.

 

Is it worth it the risk? up to you. Personally if I wanted to run OSX I would just buy a mac.

[Guest]

It's my personal build that I'm gonna build sometime in June so that's not the issue.

You won't go to court over a os install... Apple doesn't care enough

[Guest]

MKBHD had a whole 3 part, 45 minute long Hackintosh-Build series. Marques is a pretty smart guy and he wouldn't publicly post anything that's illegal on his channel. Off that alone, I'm assuming it's legal.

Calls it a xenon

[The Crazed Child]

Just do it. As said previously, Apple really wouldn't care enough. It would be an interesting project and I wish I could do the same...

[Scia]

The actual question is, what's going to happen even if it was illegal?

 

Nothing.

 

Who cares.

 

You need to be less paranoid ^^

[ItsComrade]

I really don't want Apple to die me. That's a little scary.

[Yummychickenblue]

As far as I know it's legal my brother did it and he isn't dead or in court his friend tried to tell home that it was illegal (his friend also said that it took years to make one and he turned a dell laptop into one in about a week)

[ducecake]

Also he said that if Apple wanted to make an example out of him, he would be the one in trouble

Well there are many great points here. The one thing that I have felt and see all the time is that the more time that passes with each OSX release it has become more and more easy to install OSX onto a non Apple computer hardware and its almost all vanilla now too with little tweeks. Lets  not forget that way back when Steve Jobs did go to Sonys CEO or VP (don't quote me on who he went to) that he did show them a working Sony Vaio with OSX on it but at the time nothing became of it. So that leads me to believe that yes prolly way deep in Apple Internal they have non Apple hardware running OSX onto it and I personally think that they are making OSX way more compatible with each launch maybe on purpose or to be secretly nice? lol. Remember not all Apple Engineers or Apple peeps inside are evil as everyone comes onto say.

 

Anyways to get back onto point I think it wouldn't be legal to install OSX into non Apple hardware because of the EULA BUT of course how can you enforce that these days? And NO Apple will not go busting down doors telling peeps not to hackintosh. lol. BUT they will go after a company that will sell hackintosh's for their advantage such as the Pystar Corp (Link to wiki page). 

 

But if your dad will say no either way then I guess there is not to much that anyone can say if he abides by the letter of the law, but trust me no one in Apple is going to do anything, even if you call into Apple asking support the worse they will say is no and that you need to get a real Mac.lol. Sorry this was so long but hopes it gives you a little more insight. 

[Flight1sim]

Within the EULA you may not install it on anything other than Apple branded hardware.

However if you did decide to then you would be violating the EULA.

I'm no lawyer, but the most I would see apple to be able to do would be to make you uninstall their software from that product.

I mean in court what could they actually sue you for if they wanted to?

What you must remember is that it is not against the law to do this. It is against the EULA. The EULA is not the law.

I actually have no idea though, but this would be my point of view on it.

I have never made a hackintosh, and none of the information I have provided is of any certainty.

This post is completely of my own opinion, and I take no responsibility for any reason, of any action, any other

user, person, or member for their use of any version of OSX on any non-Apple branded hardware.

I take no responsibility for the actions of others for any reason or circumstance.

(Feel like covering myself on a legal basis whenever I talk about this kind of stuff lol)

Even though this probably has some incorrect points I'll tell by dad and see

[Atomika]

If you purchase an install disk from apple, Then install it using a boot drive (Like the old ones I remember from OS X 10.5.5)

 

That's definitely not illegal as long as you're purchasing it.

 

For starters they're not going to know about it anyway if you install it on compatible hardware.

 

I remember running a Snow Leopard one on VMware, I asked a friend to borrow his update disk and it worked a treat.

 

 

Remember: Purchase it and it should be fine.

[Flight1sim]

If you purchase an install disk from apple, Then install it using a boot drive (Like the old ones I remember from OS X 10.5.5)

That's definitely not illegal as long as you're purchasing it.

For starters they're not going to know about it anyway if you install it on compatible hardware.

I remember running a Snow Leopard one on VMware, I asked a friend to borrow his update disk and it worked a treat.

Remember: Purchase it and it should be fine.

Still goes against the Eula

[DroPouT1999]

You can buy Hitmen on the internet, i don't think anyone will bat an eye if you build a Hackintosh 

[-iSynthesis]

It's probably illegal, but that's why it's got all those pirate lookin' logos. What fun is it if you care about legality?

Rules are there to be broken :-)

[Mooshi]

Apply a cheap Apple sticker and you're good to go. Apple gets pissy when OS X isn't on something "Apple Branded".

 

Loopholes!

[IdeaStormer]

I need to know if it's legal for personal use. My dad won't let me do a hackintosh because he saw that you cannot install Mac osx on a non apple computer (EULA)

 

There's your answer right there in the EULA, but coming to a forum to ask the general public what they feel is not a way to circumvent the EULA. Yea, others are doing it so its OK? :huh: 

 

By that adage people are doing a lot of bad things so by your justification of violating the EULA do those other bad things as well, others are doing it after all.

 

Then, I can add the forum's feel bad comment: If you use it will the content creators be hurt or not get their money to produce more of this content.

 

Yea, Apple will lose revenue the same way LTT loses revenue if you use ad-block so tit for tat.

[Barnacules]

I think the only illegal issue is that the EULA you agree too when you install Mac OS states that you will only install it on approved hardware which the Hack-in-tosh is not. So technically you're violating the EULA which means you're technically not legally using the software. But I don't think anyone would take action against you unless you were intentionally selling the systems pre-loaded with the software.

[Poohy14]

OMG Barnacules is on the forum so excited. Sorry OP that this has nothing to do with whatever you wanted to know

[Fetzie]

I think the only illegal issue is that the EULA you agree too when you install Mac OS states that you will only install it on approved hardware which the Hack-in-tosh is not. So technically you're violating the EULA which means you're technically not legally using the software. But I don't think anyone would take action against you unless you were intentionally selling the systems pre-loaded with the software.

 

Plus, if you are in Europe, EULAs are worth about the same as single-ply toilet paper in a court of law. The worst they can do is revoke the licence, but I very much doubt they'd sue you for it (if they can).