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Selling the Hackintosh


alvin777
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Hi. I'm happy with the performance of a hackintosh but if ever, is there a way of selling the hackintosh without breaking the law? For example, if you sell it with the hardisk formatted and without any installation of any OS but you just give the DVD of the OSX86 for him or her to decide to install it or not?

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I sold my Hack on ebay.

I only made a quick reference to it running OS X. Users that asked I explained it better, but didn't go into details in the auction listing.

(Maybe I could have got more interest by explaining it more, but I didn't want to draw attention from ebay or Apple, and it sold for the Buy it Now price anyways.)

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It's good to know that it can be sold legally. Bear with me with more questions:

 

1) Do you still have the wordings you used when you posted it? Maybe I can learn what to say from what was said your the post when you were selling it.

 

2) Did you sell it with the hardisk formatted (no installation of any OS) or was it pre-installed with the OSX86? If it didn't have any OS installed, did you give your OSX86 DVD for him to install it or did you just point them to the hackintosh pages and the sites where the .iso could be found?

 

3)Any complaints from any of your buyers and did you give them a trial period to test your hackintosh (especially if it's overclocked), how long was the trial period?

 

4) Lastly, where did you base your pricing from, is it priced based on the closest equivalent Mac or you did some price computations of your own?

 

Thanks again.

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It's good to know that it can be sold legally. Bear with me with more questions:

I never said it was legal, but wasn't overly worried.

(I think the Windows License Agreement even states you can't re-sell your legit Windows CD!)

 

1) Do you still have the wordings you used when you posted it? Maybe I can learn what to say from what was said your the post when you were selling it.

All I wrote was: "No OS media included. (OS X 10.4 currently installed)"

Usually this was enough for people to ask and then I informed them OS DVDs did come with it.

 

2) Did you sell it with the hardisk formatted (no installation of any OS) or was it pre-installed with the OSX86? If it didn't have any OS installed, did you give your OSX86 DVD for him to install it or did you just point them to the hackintosh pages and the sites where the .iso could be found?

I did a clean install of OS X for them. OS X installed with all updates to 10.4.10 and pre-installed many apps also.

Since my machine was pretty much straight install from DVD with everything working, I just wrote a little text file with some OS X on PC points for the new user and also created an installer package for the one network kext needed for my machine.

 

3)Any complaints from any of your buyers and did you give them a trial period to test your hackintosh (especially if it's overclocked), how long was the trial period?

I guaranteed the hardware, not the software. Essentially they were buying the hardware not the OS, that was just a bonus.

I gave them the link to insanely and the machine also included all the original Windows drivers for all the parts so they were free to do what they wanted.

(Although post-auction discussion they are still running OS X and he even re-installed just to learn more.)

 

4) Lastly, where did you base your pricing from, is it priced based on the closest equivalent Mac or you did some price computations of your own?

The pricing had to be based on PC custom box pricing as that is what someone else could buy and easily download the OSx86 DVD themselves.

By far, the price I sold it for was much lower than the sum of all the parts. That is how it always is. Even though the parts were extremely high end and many custom parts, consumers usually would compare it with a cheaper parts that SEEMED to be equivalent in performance, and think it was overpriced.

I needed to move it fast, so I didn't have longer to wait and no one on insanely marketplace showed any interest, so some lucky noobie got an incredible deal. :(

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Strangely enough, I was thinking last night whether or not it would ever be possible to set up a business selling Hackintoshes.

 

The main issue would be the concept that you were selling pirate software. If you bundled (for example) an Uphuck DVD with a pre-installed Hackintosh laptop, Apple would, I'm sure, send around the men with baseball bets shortly prior to confiscating all of your worldly goods.

 

However, if you sold a SERVICE, essentially billing for your time, I don't think they could hit you legally.

 

So if you set up a little business that Hackintoshed peoples' computers, on the proviso that THEY supply the laptop (although you would obviously recommend a particular model), then they download and then supply you with the installation media, you do the rest (eg. get the drivers running, sort out the kexts, etc), and simply charge for your time, I don't think that would be something that could be touched.

 

In terms of just flogging a Hackintosh on ebay, I don't think anyone would ever have a problem. Sure, strictly speaking it's legally vague, but as others have pointed out so is reselling a copy of Vista. You might need just to be careful with your wording. A search for "Hackintosh" and "OSX86" on ebay produces exactly 0 matches so almost certainly those are trigger words that'll result in ebay killing the auction.

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I've heard that its legal if you buy a copy of the OSX software and then install OSX86, because although you didn't use the disc you purchased, you still purchased a license to use OSX on 1 machine. (Making sure that the license of OSX you purchased legally isn't used on any other mac's)

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I've heard that its legal if you buy a copy of the OSX software and then install OSX86, because although you didn't use the disc you purchased, you still purchased a license to use OSX on 1 machine. (Making sure that the license of OSX you purchased legally isn't used on any other mac's)

Although that may appear to sound fair, I doubt that would make it legal. (for many reasons)

 

Let's not forget that OS X sells for a lot less than Windows. Some would say that the cost of OS X is essentially "subsidized" by the Mac hardware purchase, so even though you may have purchased OS X, you are still in essence "stealing" profit since a hardware sale is lost.

 

:2cents:

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The main issue would be the concept that you were selling pirate software. If you bundled (for example) an Uphuck DVD with a pre-installed Hackintosh laptop, Apple would, I'm sure, send around the men with baseball bets shortly prior to confiscating all of your worldly goods.

I think this whole hackintosh selling business will be much easier to get away with once Apple releases Leopard, because then you can easily buy an actual legal version of the OS for the cost of an OEM copy of windows. You can then say that your selling an x86 machine with leopard. As long as you don't mention that you actually installed the software (and then they can't accuse you of violating the EULA), then I'm pretty sure you could get away with selling it on places like ebay.

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I'm pretty sure you could get away with selling it on places like ebay.

Getting away with it and being legal are completely different.

 

Same way Vista Home says you can't install it in a virtual machine. Ya, people are really listening to that or worried about it's enforcement. :hammer:

 

Would swapping it without any money involved be legal then? Like for example if I swapped a hackintosh with a real Mac?

Although I'm far from being a legal scholar, I would think the safest option would be to sell the hardware, provide the installation, but insist on the user acquiring the media for you. (You could still list you would install OS X)

 

It's so easy for supported hardware anyways, why not just sell the hardware, mention OS X as an option and point them in the direction to handle it themselves?

 

Any lawyers?

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Getting away with it and being legal are completely different.

 

Sure, of course its completely different. It's pretty much impossible to sell a legal hackintosh with the OS already preinstalled. If you really want to be completely legal you can just not install the OS (only include the retail Leopard install cd), and strongly indicate on the auction that it is theoritically possible to install the included OS on the machine. You can provide all the instructions on how to theoritically install it and theoritically you wouldn't be breaking the law. But, of course, a hackintosh auction would be more appealing if everything was already preinstalled and preconfigured but that comes with a legality risk.

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I've heard that its legal if you buy a copy of the OSX software and then install OSX86, because although you didn't use the disc you purchased, you still purchased a license to use OSX on 1 machine. (Making sure that the license of OSX you purchased legally isn't used on any other mac's)

 

No. Mac OS X installation discs only entitle licensing on an Apple branded (and sold) system. They are upgrade discs, which are only legally sold to systems that came with a legal installation of Mac OS to begin with.

 

There is no legal way to sell a Hackintosh with Mac OS X installed. You can wipe the drive, and sell it without any discs, you can say it is OS X capable with modified installation discs, but that is the only legal way to sell it.

 

The only legal way to use, install, or sell a Hackintosh is to include a Mac with Tiger in the system... literally placing a Mac mini inside the case could suffice, but you would still meet DMCA implications since you violated Apple SLA by installing modified files to begin with. It's difficult to say if 10.4.8 or lower violate Apple SLA (since they use modified Darwin components), but Apple changed the SLA (specifically, APSL) to prohibit that in 10.4.9 and 10.4.10.

 

So, in short, don't do it... you could wind up with a whole lot more mess than the system's worth.

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eBay VERO can go after you for copyright issues even after an auction has ended... and that nice public record of your blatant DMCA violation will go even worse in the United States.

 

My advice still stands: Don't do it. It's not worth it. If you think the RIAA has it in for college kids, just wait until Apple starts agressively pursuing these folks. Installing Mac OS X on unsupported hardware is of little consquence to Apple. Selling that hardware poisons the marketplace, confusing potential buyers. That's where the threat to Apple lies... so don't walk in front of the lion and start acting like a mouse.

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