ATVFlash - playing fair?
By now, you probably have seen quite a bit of coverage of ATVFlash, a patchstick sold by Apple Core LLC to help ease the installation of plugins like Couch Surfer, Media Cloud, nitoTV and many others. The patchstick is sold for $59.95.
I am all for entrepreneurship. People are entitled to charge whatever they want for their work. However, I learned that the developers whose software were included on the patchstick did not grant Apple Core LLC permission to include their software on the patchstick; let alone, charge for it. I don’t think it was ever the developers’ intention to charge money for their work.
Also, I do not agree with including Apple’s copyrighted files on the patchstick to be sold. It is true that, in creating a patchstick for personal use, these copyrighted files have to be copied to the patchstick in order for it to be useful; one does not break any law by copying these files from one place to another for personal use. However, redistributing these files to others, whether it is for profit or not, is a definite violation of the copyright law.
What’s your take?
Wednesday 28 May 2008 | | Del.icio.us | News
July 10th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
They can charge whatever they want to, guys…is just business at the end of the day
June 13th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I am using ATVPATCH and for $20 (especially with the UK exchange rates) is quite a good deal. It enables everything I need. I do not see how ATVFLASH can charge $50 for exactly the same thing.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:15 am
I just got a subscription on atvpatch.com (was atv4windows.com) (I think thats the same business, other people) and got my patchstickimage as download for $20 and for THAT Price is ok compared to the work I do not have with building the Stick. but $60 is toomuch for me.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Um… Has no one been to the site lately?
The reason they stopped shipping flash drive with 2.2 is that they are now doing “bring your own flash drive” and instant download version 3.0!!!
=)
June 6th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Well, after spending some time, with a Tiger disk, that I borrowed from a friend I now know it is not all that easy to just go and make a patchstick. First off you need the install disk from and OS you never owned. Then you borrow it, only to find that the files you need aren’t in the packages you think they are supposed to be in.
Many of us are new Apple owners and we don’t have Tiger disks, so we can’t just go out and make a patchstick. We aren’t lazy, we just need to be able to get all of the files we need, and this is impossible for us to do.
Frankly, I would rather give some guy the money for doing this, rather than have to search the net for a bunch of files that aren’t in the package that Awkward says there in.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I must say this is apple at its top. We “fan’s” have to pay to get the best from apple. I love the fruity computer brand, but can’t the do something for the apple community once.