"I just build a fairly powerful desktop hackintosh and I'm running OSX 10.7.3 illegally"
Now you might not care about the licensing restrictions on Mac operating systems (I don't) but saying "Oh you can just do this" when it is technically* breaking the law is not an alternative for many people.
* Rather up in the air at the moment to be sure, but err on the side of caution
The worst that could happen is that Apple would try to sue you, but have there been any successful cases of this? End user being sued that is , not companies that were selling PCs with OSX on.
Having said that, I am not interested in arguing pedantic semantics about about what constitutes "the law" and what "breaking" it entails.
You wouldn't be breaking copyright , since you're not making a copy (assuming you bought a legit copy of the OS). You also aren't circumventing any of the copy protection afaik since OSX doesn't really have any.
Basically Apple says there is code in there to lock their OS to their hardware, it doesn't have to be particularly good, as long as it is there and has to be circumvented for a hackintosh (you cannot just pop a DVD in and install, unless things have changed since I last had a look).
The Apple statement is in that article if you want their legal definition.
I thought it was well known on HN that Apple used the DMCA ( Digital Millennium Copyright Act, aka, part of "the law" in the US) against the Hackintosh company Psystar, I guess I was wrong. A quick google will bring up the specifics if you want it. (e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/)
The reason I said it was a grey area was that the DMCA supposedly has provisions for compatibilty and personal use. So it could be argued that installing it yourself on your own hackingtosh (not commercially like Psystar did) does not violate the DMCA, but since this has not yet been tested in court (as far as I know) do this at your own risk.
Firstly this makes the assumption that the person fell under US jurisdiction at the time of their use of the system.
It would also assume that the DMCA would apply to this specific person in this case. I don't know of any instance of a successful crimimal conviction against somebody for using their own legit software on a system they own themselves and we will not unless this is tested in court.
"Unlawful" would probably be a better term in this context. You could argue that this is pedantry but I think that throwing terms like "illegal" around in this way could cause undue anxiety to people who do not understand the specifics.
For the second. A law is a law is a law, even if there is no successful conviction using it yet. It is a "Damocles Sword" hanging over every person in the country it was enacted until courts actually rule on it at which point we will know what the judiciary thinks of it.
As for "illegal" vs "unlawful". As far as I am concerned they are synonyms.