Using Mac in a virtual machine legality?

There have been many different questions like this and all have seemed to come down to the same answer. It violates the EULA. The problem is they all bring up another question. How binding is the EULA. We all know Psystar was sued for making machines with OSX installed on them. The problem is they were selling them. Not using them.

Now what if you put it in a virtual machine and don't sell it. Is it still against the law? Apple has gotten sued before for taking their competitors apps off their market. Also Windows recently got in trouble for their secure boot which didn't allow people to install other OSs on hardware.

How legally binding is the EULA?

Is there a legal way to do it?

Solution 1:

A EULA is a contract, not a law. Trouble, if it comes, comes in the form of a lawsuit: "You agreed not to do X; you did X, harming me , for which I demand $$$ as compensation."

That means

• one party must have been harmed, and
• would need to know or believe that they have been harmed, and
• would need make a claim to that effect, and
• would need to back up that claim, with evidence sufficient to
• convince a judge (assuming the other disputes the claim).

The said party might not know that the EULA had been violated, might not be able to prove a valid contract existed, might not be able to convincingly show harm, or might not feel that it's worth the trouble to pursue, for example, one person experimenting on their own, vs. a training company running a dozen such VMs off a single user license.

How legally binding is a EULA that you haven't actually signed, but was assumed by the licensor based on your having made use of the software? Here I'm out of my depth. Shrink-wrap EULAs (the kind that claim to bind you once you open the package that contains and conceals them) have been known to have been invalidated. One might conceivably be able to convince a judge that ticking a box that says you agree to some referenced but not necessarily presented terms, doesn't constitute agreement. Or not. Do you feel lucky?

(IANAL, TINLA, etc.)

Solution 2:

Snow Leopard Server specifically allowed installation in a VM. Normal Lion and Mountain Lion also allow installation in the VM in the EULA. Parallels and VMWare both support installation of Mac OS X guest machines for those versions.

The EULA only allows it if the VMs are running on Apple hardware.