The U.S. Copyright Office has just put through a major change to what constitutes legal and illegal copying. They’ve put through six significant exemptions, which include that it’s now legal to jailbreak an iPhone, bypass DVD encryption for educational use, hacking your phone to get access to programs that run on other phones. CrunchGear put together a very clear summary of the six points:
- Defeating a lawfully obtained DVD’s encryption for the sole purpose of short, fair use in an educational setting or for criticism
- Computer programs that allow you to run lawfully obtained software on your phone that you otherwise would not be able to run aka Jailbreaking to use Google Voice on your iPhone
- Computer programs that allow you to use your phone on a different network aka Jailbreaking to use your iPhone on T-Mobile
- Circumventing video game encryption (DRM) for the purposes of legitimate security testing or investigation
- Cracking computer programs protected by dongles when the dongles become obsolete or are no longer being manufactured
- Having an ebook be read aloud (is for the blind) even if that book has controls built into it to prevent that sort of thing.
This copyright information is reviewed every three years, and these new decisions are momentous. This means you are now legally allowed to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone, however, we’re sure Apple isn’t going to take this sitting down. Doing these things will still void your warranty.
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Here’s the part I wonder about: Now that it’s legal to unlock the phones, we should be able to call Apple or AT&T and ask for the phone to be unlocked, right? Because if they refuse, that would be illegal. (I’m guessing here, as I am sure that somewhere in the EULA and AT&T contract there is some stipulation on this.)
So when does the new law go into effect?
Voiding the warranty should be up to the owner of the phone, not Apple. If a person wants to jailbreak their phone and lose their warranty that’s for them to decide not for Apple to sit there and try to control.
This is awesome news.
Who cares that it’s ‘legal’ now? It’s not like if before you jailbroke your iDevice that the cops would come and bust you out. Even if it’s ‘legal’ now, your warranty still gets voided and Apple could still brick your iDevice.
I bet Stevie boy is having a real hissy fit today.
I also wonder if Apple will still try and defeat the jailbreak with every update now. Would that be illegal for them to do since it’s now legal to Jailbreak. You know someone will sue the first time they do and claim exactly that.
Jailbreaking wasn’t illegal before, it just void your warranty according to Apple. All you would have to do is just erase the jailbreak if you have an issue before. If someone jailbreak their phone and it gets a virus, it is the person responsibility and Apple still have the right to refuse the phone if they know. This is no big news at all becasue copying DVDs isn’t illegal it’s when you try to sell the copy that makes it illegal.
Here is to confirm the news:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38413597/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/