Selling MBP with Mavericks - legal issues?

If the Mac came with an earlier system than Mavericks you should restore it to that, using the original install disks if applicable (and you must include the disks with the sale).

If it came with Mavericks this is a new situation and none too clear; however anything you download with your ID will be tied to that ID. As Mavericks is free I don't know whether this will cause the issue the way it would with a paid-for application (which you cannot sell on).

This Apple Tech Note suggests that you should indeed restore the system:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5189

Any and all software sold and distributed solely through the Mac App Store cannot be sold or transferred at all, unless it original came pre-installed on the machine.

The license is quite explicit about that - https://www.apple.com/legal/

section 3 covers transfers (this is from the link for OS X - Mavericks)

3. Transfer.

A. If you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, you may make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: ℹ the Apple Software is transferred together with your Apple-branded hardware; (ii) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, printed materials and this License; (iii) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (iv) the party receiving the Apple Software accepts the terms and conditions of this License. For purposes of this License, if Apple provides an update (e.g., version 10.9 to 10.9.1) to the Apple Software, the update is considered part of the Apple Software and may not be transferred separately from the pre-update version of the Apple

Software.

B. If you obtained your license to the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, it is not transferable. If you sell your Apple-branded hardware to a third party, you must remove the Apple Software from the Apple-branded hardware before doing so, and you may restore your system to the version of the Apple operating system software that originally came with your Apple hardware (the “Original Apple OS”) and permanently transfer the Original Apple OS together with your Apple hardware, provided that: ℹ the transfer must include all of the Original Apple OS, including all its component parts, printed materials and its license; (ii) you do not retain any copies of the Original Apple OS, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (iii) the party receiving the Original Apple OS reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of the Original Apple OS license.

I'm glad Michael has unearthed the full legal position on this.

...so what am I supposed to do? Sell it with a blank hard drive and tell the buyer he will have to download/install Mavericks himself?

Apparently so.

eggplant72 wrote:

I bought it from a second hand Mac dealer without any disks. It came with Mountain Lion installed and the dealer made me log in and buy an online license for that in the shop before taking it away.

Obviously I can't restore it to Mountain Lion, so what am I supposed to do? Sell it with a blank hard drive and tell the buyer he will have to download/install Mavericks himself?

Honestly, yes, that is exactly what you are supposed to do - sell the hardware with a blank formatted HD. It is then up to the seller to get their own copy of the Mavericks installer, with their own AppleID and set things up themselves. Same thing applies to other Mac App Store software like the current iWorks programs and such.

Your license to use any of the Apple Mac App store software is tied to you and your AppleID only.

In reality, that second hand shop is ultimately at fault here, as they should have sold the machine with only the OS it shipped with installed, and then let you update or upgrade however you wished (and after you had time to make a backup of the existing, default system the machine can licensed with). That way, you would have had a copy of the original installed OS X to put back on it to re-sell it yourself.

Even if you sold it with a copy of OS X Mavericks tied to your AppleID, that would only create headaches for the next owner. If they ever needed to restore, they'd need your AppleID and password. So ultimately, they need to get their own license anyway.

If ML was the original version of OSX on the machine you can use Internet Recovery to restore it, same with Lion. If an earlier version of OSX was installed you can purchase a Snow Leopard disc and install that. Either method will allow you to update to Mavericks.

I wouldn't think the recovery partition matters. All that would let them do is re-install Mavericks, not run it. So they'd still need to purchase a license through the Mac App Store with their AppleID. And when they install Mavericks, it would create the recovery partition if not there, or overwrite it with new data if there.

With that machine, the buyer will need to get their own copy of the Mavericks installer, which they can do from another Mac with access to the Mac App Store. They can save the installer to a USB drive and then install it from that - see the "Option 1: CreateInstallMedia" in http://www.macworld.com/article/2056561/how-to-make-a-bootable-mavericks-install -drive.html