In comes the cavalry
Psystar has always been more a Cowboy than a Hippie. Now we've changed lawyers to better reflect who we are. Camara & Sibley LLP of Houston, Texas, has officially become our primary legal counsel in our ongoing litigation with Apple. — Everyone here values openness.
Context & Ripple Effects
Psystar's counsel swap lands mid-fight in a lawsuit the company opened with its April 2008 claim that Apple's license terms violate U.S. monopoly laws — an argument that turned the tiny Mac clone maker into the test case for whether Apple can lock OS X to its own hardware. The move to Camara & Sibley LLP, announced in characteristically brash 'Cowboy' language on Psystar's own blog, replaces whatever defense posture preceded it with a fresh team carrying the case forward.
The backdrop matters: Apple had already demonstrated willingness to litigate critics out of existence, having settled its suit against the Think Secret rumor site in December 2007 (that settlement set the tone for how Apple handles challenges). A small vendor changing lawyers against that opponent reads less like routine housekeeping and more like retooling for a longer war.
First-order effects
- Camara & Sibley LLP now owns the defense strategy against Apple, meaning Psystar's legal arguments in the clone dispute get rebuilt from scratch by a new team rather than inherited.
Second-order effects
- Any other vendor contemplating selling non-Apple Mac-compatible machines is watching whether a better-resourced defense changes Psystar's odds; if it does not, the practical cost of entering that market stays prohibitively high.
Third-order effects
- If Apple prevails on the strength of its license terms rather than any technical barrier, the precedent extends beyond one lawsuit: closed-platform vendors gain a template for enforcing hardware lock-in through contracts and litigation instead of product design.
The trend: Platform owners are increasingly policing their hardware ecosystems through license terms and legal enforcement, turning contract disputes with small challengers into de facto ecosystem governance.