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family pack - warranty?

S

sr5878

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2007
772
0
hey

i read a few topics that touched on this but none really fully covered the subject. i was wondering if my friends and i at college were to pitch in for a family pack (5 macs... yeah... moral implications, whatever. family pack is where i 'draw the moral line' so please just ignore this thread if you have a problem with that) if apple does background checks into who else is on the family license if you were to bring it into an apple store or send it in for repair and if they would void your warranty if they saw that you had a legal copy of osx, but a license that voids the tos.

get what i mean?
 
I don't think Apple records anything regarding who's installing what OS license. Especially when there are no serial numbers involved. Technically you could probably install the family pack on 100 computers and Apple would be none the wiser (although please don't do that. I have no problems with people sharing the family pack with friends (5 licenses are 5 licenses) but let's keep it fair :p)
 
ohhhh.... nooooo not at all. 5 people splitting the cost, and thats it.

ive read some threads about the moral quandary and i'm ok with it... i bought a macbook pro, and so did the rest of my friends. we are all apple customers. we paid for tiger, we paid for ilife. will apple void our warranties/applecare if we do this? say i bring in my laptop, will they check that i am running a legal copy of osx? i mean, the family pack will be legal... just not a 'family' as stated in the eula. we all do live at the same university, and we all will for the next 4 years. i paid for applecare too, and i dont want to lose that over leopard.
 
i am fully aware of that :)

i simply want to know if apple will pursue this as a problem if they notice it, or if they'd notice it at all.
 
sr5878 said:
i am fully aware of that :)

i simply want to know if apple will pursue this as a problem if they notice it, or if they'd notice it at all.
Click to expand...
holland_plant.jpg


Each of you should buy a copy. Sorry kids.​
 
flopticalcube said:
They know how many Macs are running Leopard (via Apple Update). They know how many copies of Leopard they have sold. They can do math.
Click to expand...

family pack = 5 licenses

distributed between 5 people

i dont see your logic?
 
DeaconGraves said:
I don't think Apple records anything regarding who's installing what OS license. Especially when there are no serial numbers involved. Technically you could probably install the family pack on 100 computers and Apple would be none the wiser (although please don't do that. I have no problems with people sharing the family pack with friends (5 licenses are 5 licenses) but let's keep it fair :p)
Click to expand...
But it's 5 licenses for the price of 1.5 licenses. And the 5 licenses are granted under the conditions of the EULA. If the conditions are not followed, none of the licenses are legally valid.

The Family Pack is intended for personal-use machines in the same private residence. It's a special discount. If it was just a generic 5-license pack, it would probably cost as much as 4 individual licenses.

Please don't abuse the Family Packs; I don't want Apple jacking up the prices just because too many people are using them to share the cost among their friends (although, relatively speaking, you could argue that this is better than sharing a single-user copy).

I know that Apple tracks these forums, because Apple Legal has asked for threads to be pulled in the past. What do you think will happen to Family Packs if Apple realizes how many people are planning/encouraging others to use them in ways not intended? Do you all really want to have license activation that badly? Or do you all want the $199 Family Pack to be replaced by a $499 five-user pack?

Obviously, respect for intellectual property isn't what it used to be. :rolleyes:
 
sr5878 said:
i am fully aware of that :)

i simply want to know if apple will pursue this as a problem if they notice it, or if they'd notice it at all.
Click to expand...

The question has been answered half a dozen ways. If you're that worried about it, then I'd suggest buying the appropriate license. End of problem.

If enough people abuse the licensing, eventually Apple and their investors will notice. They're only going to be trusting so far - after that, it's pretty simple math. Prices going up; more restrictive licensing; and, perish the thought: authentication.

This has been the way Apple has licensed OS-X for the last couple of releases. Let's keep it that way.

fyi - OS-X server has required a serial number since at least 10.2.
 
MacinDoc said:
But it's 5 licenses for the price of 1.5 licenses. And the 5 licenses are granted under the conditions of the EULA. If the conditions are not followed, none of the licenses are legally valid.

The Family Pack is intended for personal-use machines in the same private residence. It's a special discount. If it was just a generic 5-license pack, it would probably cost as much as 4 individual licenses.

Please don't abuse the Family Packs; I don't want Apple jacking up the prices just because too many people are using them to share the cost among their friends (although, relatively speaking, you could argue that this is better than sharing a single-user copy).

I know that Apple tracks these forums, because Apple Legal has asked for threads to be pulled in the past. What do you think will happen to Family Packs if Apple realizes how many people are planning/encouraging others to use them in ways not intended? Do you all really want to have license activation that badly? Or do you all want the $199 Family Pack to be replaced by a $499 five-user pack?

Obviously, respect for intellectual property isn't what it used to be. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'm buying a single copy for myself and myself only. No need to snap at me or hang a "traitor" sign around my neck. I just stated my opinion and thought I made it clear that it didn't necessarily reflect Apple's stance.

Seeing that I'm being punished for having to pay $116 for an educational license, I'm personally not doing anything to drive that price any higher.
 
i just got off the phone with apple customer relations and sales

i explained my situation frankly and clearly. i left nothing out, and had nothing to hide.

the rep told me that as long as we share the same physical address, the family licensing will be fully legal and compliant with the apple TOS and software EULA. as long as the people i include in my 'family' live in the same building as i do, it is fully supported by apple. an online apple store rep told me the same thing.
 
sr5878 said:
i just got off the phone with apple customer relations and sales

i explained my situation frankly and clearly. i left nothing out, and had nothing to hide.

the rep told me that as long as we share the same physical address, the family licensing will be fully legal and compliant with the apple TOS and software EULA. as long as the people i include in my 'family' live in the same building as i do, it is fully supported by apple. an online apple store rep told me the same thing.
Click to expand...

So in a year or two when you're not living in the same building, you'll run into problems.
 
Daiden said:
So in a year or two when you're not living in the same building, you'll run into problems.
Click to expand...

i asked about that too. she said that the family pack need only be INSTALLED while living in the same residence... once you move out, you're still the legal owner of that license.
 
So let me pose this "hypothetical question". Friday I'm going to the Apple Store to buy the family pack of Leopard and help my son purchase a Macbook Pro (he's paying half). I'll be installing Leopard on my PowerMac, my daughters Mac Mini, and my 12" Ibook G4 1.33. 1gig Ram. I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a Macbook and selling my Ibook on ebay. I figure it would bring $500 it would probably sell a little better with Leopard. Since I'll be installing it at home, and technically still own the ibook this would be legal and ethical correct?
 
jeffgtr said:
So let me pose this "hypothetical question". Friday I'm going to the Apple Store to buy the family pack of Leopard and help my son purchase a Macbook Pro (he's paying half). I'll be installing Leopard on my PowerMac, my daughters Mac Mini, and my 12" Ibook G4 1.33. 1gig Ram. I have been toying with the idea of upgrading to a Macbook and selling my Ibook on ebay. I figure it would bring $500 it would probably sell a little better with Leopard. Since I'll be installing it at home, and technically still own the ibook this would be legal and ethical correct?
Click to expand...

I think this is where the family pack causes a bit of a problem. The person you sell it to will probably want the copy of leopard (in case he needs to reinstall later). And the family pack only comes with one disc.
 
ugghh I hadn't thought about that. I suppose burning a copy of the disk would be a bad bad thing. Oh well I could just sell it with Tiger OR resist the temptation to sell it and hang on to it for another year. It would be nice though to have a laptop that would run dreamweaver, photoshop, mysql, apache, and coldfusion 8 all at the same time. I'm afraid running all of that on my ibook with Leopard would be a bit of a stretch. Plus I could install xp on a partition of a mac book, then when my windows machine goes belly up I won't have to replace it. I'm rationalizing to get beyond the want to the need of a laptop upgrade.
 
i think under the TOS (not exactly sure with family pack) you can only resell with the original software unless you're also selling them the license to the newer 'retail' OS as well. it would need to be uninstalled on all other machines i think.

seriously though, just call apple. as long as you're calling them in an attempt to stay legal (like i did) they will be more than willing to listen to your situation and tell whether or not it's ok. no one knows apple legal policy better than apple themselves.
 
jeffgtr said:
ugghh I hadn't thought about that. I suppose burning a copy of the disk would be a bad bad thing. Oh well I could just sell it with Tiger OR resist the temptation to sell it and hang on to it for another year. It would be nice though to have a laptop that would run dreamweaver, photoshop, mysql, apache, and coldfusion 8 all at the same time. I'm afraid running all of that on my ibook with Leopard would be a bit of a stretch. Plus I could install xp on a partition of a mac book, then when my windows machine goes belly up I won't have to replace it. I'm rationalizing to get beyond the want to the need of a laptop upgrade.
Click to expand...

why not buy a refurb macbook (or one from amazon or something without leopard... save a few bucks im sure) then use one of the family licenses on that?
 
Because I work at a community college and can get the educational discount. It works out to be about the same as a refurb. Refurbs are great though, my ibook and powermac were both refurbs, never had a problem. It's just with the macbooks it doesn't make a great deal of sense to buy a refurb when education discount is about the same.
 
I don't think Apple has a way of telling, the media is all the same, the only difference is the piece of paper that comes in the box is different.
 
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