You are right in that I don't "own Mac OS X" but it is in exactly the same way as I don't own "Lord of the Rings" but only own a copy of the book. What rights does the Tolkien estate have over what I can do with the book? A few. they can prohibit me from making copies and selling the copies or they could grant me permission as thay have with several book printers. But can they tell me not to read it after 10pm? No. There are limits to what the Tolkien estate can do.
They may not be able to tell you not to read it after 10PM, but they can tell you not to stand on a corner in downtown and read the story aloud. They can also tell you that you cannot include a copy of their book in a bundled package with other products. (The odds are that they wouldn't tell you either of these things unless certain other conditions were met. For example, if you advertised a public reading of LOTR, they might have a problem with that. Or, if you represented the inclusion of LOTR with your package of other products as implying that there is some official association between these products.) Both of these examples are much closer to what Psystar is doing, and why I suspect that Apple does have good ground to stand on to stop them from doing it.
Same with Apple. Apple has only limited ability to say what you can do with the copy of mac OS X that you bought. It is easy to think of things Apple can request of you (not to sell copies) and it is easy to think of things they can't ask (that user must eat a chicken for each re-boot)
If we can agree that there is even one unreasonable request that Apple might make then there must also be a "grey area" filled with things Apple may or may not be able request. The only way to eliminate the grey area is to assert that any request Apple makes is by definition within their rights (even chicken eating)
As soon as you admit to the possibility of a grey area then you can question every part of the EULA and ask "is this part white, grey or black?"
Many people Apple's right to tell you what hardware you can use. My un-educated guess is that courts will go both ways
While I certainly agree that there are grey areas, companies like Apple would be foolish to put things into their EULAs that were not defendable, as people who know contract law would quickly challenge the EULAs and Apple would face either backing down or dealing with the legal fees. So, I expect that Apple Legal has kept things in the EULAs toward the "white" end of the grey scale. That's not to say that they aren't grey, it's just to say that they will be harder to challenge, and it really will depend on having a legal team with some real prowess.
You can't compare the rights you have with printed media and software. They are two entirely different products and as such, should have different rights. Software is leased to customers. Regardless of what Apple or M$ wants to call it, its a lease. The OS is still and will always be the intellectual property of those companies. You are NOT free to do whatever you want with them. Don't like it, buy Linux or something else. But wait, they have EULA's too which dictate the ways their products can be used also. This is nothing new people. And yes there are grey areas in there, but the part on what system OSX can be installed on is black and white.
Actually, the rights are similar, and in both cases the fundamental legal foundation is the principle of intellectual property. If I write a book, then it is my intellectual property. If I publish it and you buy it, you're buying the right to do certain things with it. The exact same thing applies to software. If I write a piece of software, then it is my intellectual property. If I publish it and you buy it, you're buying the right to do certain things with it. In the case of the book, what you're allowed to do is governed by copyright law and whatever copyright disclaimer is stated in the front cover of the book ("All rights reserved"). In the case of the software, what your allowed to do is governed by copyright law and the EULA.
This is not the same as leasing it. Leasing implies that at some point you lose your rights to use the software. Under most EULAs that doesn't happen. Now, there are some pieces of software out there that are licensed under a lease not a sale model. Personally, I'm not a fan of these. But, at this point, neither Windows nor OS X are licensed this way.