14 DAY TRIAL // The Electronic Frontier Foundation needs your help to keep jailbreaking legal, as a DMCA exemption is about to expire. If the exemption doesn’t get renewed by the hand of the US Copyright Office, jailbreaking may be deemed illegal once again, in 2012.
The latest jailbreak tools are out from the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team. They can offer an untethered jailbreak for all iOS devices, including the ones built around the dual-core A5 chip.
Th EFF is asking the U.S. Copyright Office to declare that jailbreaking does not violate the DMCA, but the Office isn’t obligated to say yes.
In fact, there’s a good chance the EFF’s request won’t be approved, as more and more manufacturers claim that jailbreaking violates Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The penalties will be stiff for people caught with jailbroken devices, if the Office refuses to renew the exception granted in 2010.
“In 2010, the Copyright Office said jailbreaking smartphones doesn’t violate the DMCA,” the EFF states. “This year, we’re asking them to renew that exemption (otherwise it will expire) and expand it to cover tablets. We’re also asking for a new exemption to allow jailbreaking of video game consoles.”
To help convince the Copyright Office to consider renewing the exemption in question, the EFF is asking “people who depend on the ability to jailbreak to write, use, and/or tinker with independent software (from useful apps to essential security fixes) for smartphones, tablets, and game consoles [to] submit comments online at this link.”
The Foundation offers a few tips for working up a proper argument, such as:
· Which jailbreaking exemption are you supporting—smartphones/tablets, video game consoles, or both? · What's your background (i.e., are you a developer, hobbyist, academic, independent researcher, user, etc.)? · What device do you want to ensure you have the legal authority to jailbreak? · Please explain why you want to jailbreak this device. What limitations do you face if you aren't able to jailbreak it? Is there software you couldn't run, computing capabilities you wouldn't have, cool things you couldn’t do, etc.? · If you’re a developer, did an online application store or console manufacturer reject your app or game? If so, what reasons did they give? Is there anything else you want to tell the Copyright Office?
The EFF believes that “concrete examples” will help the Copyright Office understand the importance of jailbreaking for a great number of individuals, hence “renew and expand the exemptions for jailbreaking.” The last comments will be accepted February 10 at 5 PM Eastern Time.