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An Emancipation Proclamation for the iPhone

July 26, 2010 at 9:44 am PT

With a single pen stroke, it looks like the federal government may have blown the closed Apple iPhone ecosystem wide open (at least for the tinkering crowd). In their periodic updating of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibitions again circumventing copyright protections, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office today ruled that it is lawful for mobile phone users to “jailbreak” their devices in order to use apps not approved by the manufacturer and to unlock their phones in order to change carriers (though there are barriers other than the DMCA to both practices). More on this to come as we await comment from Apple, which had maintained that jailbreaking was illegal, although it has never pressed the issue in court.

Tagged with Apple, carriers, copyright, digital, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, frontpage, hardware, innovation, iPhone, jailbreak, Librarian of Congress, newsbyte, telecom, unlock

comments so far. Add yours.

http://twitter.com/Litigator08 Will Todd

The poster misunderstands this ruling. . .this ruling affects only software, and doesn't require Apple to open the App Store. On the contrary, it merely legalizes each individual's efforts to “jailbreak” phones, without requiring Apple to do anything (such as honor warranties on jailbroken devices or open the App Store. Therefore, practically speaking, it's not as though tech nerds weren't already jailbreaking phones, and most mainstream users lack the technical know-how, the time and/or the patience to jailbreak the phone. They also do not wish to void their warranty. So like I said, no real practical effect.
mcg1969

Wow, exaggerate much? All this ruling does is prevent Apple from sic'ing the DMCA on jailbreak app developers. That doesn't mean that Apple is prevented from issuing software updates that close jailbreak holes, voiding warranties on phones that have bricked as a result of a jailbreak gone awry, etc. In other words, jailbreaks will remain on the fringe, employed primarily by nerds like me.
JohnDoey

Hardly anyone wants to jailbreak their iPhone, and everyone who did has already gone ahead and done so, in spite of the murky legality.

As far as application stores, the trend is no longer people complaining about Apple's curated store but rather people demanding the same from other phone makers. Microsoft's new store is curated, and people have been asking Google to curate Android Market because it's 50% garbage and because businesses have been spoiled by the Apple App Store and now see Android Market as too dangerous.
http://steph2176.pollsgalore.com Stephanie Summers

Jailbreaking can void your warranty but fortunately you can undone the jailbreaking and I think it is a good thing jailbreaking is now legal. I think it is cool to install third-party apps.

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