14 DAY TRIAL // The internationally-known group of hackers behind PwnageTool have touted the news from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as “fantastic,” after learning that “jailbreaking your iPhone is now explicitly a permitted fair use under the DMCA!”, the Team’s latest blog post reads. The iPhone Dev Team develops tools that enable iOS devices to run software that hasn’t been approved by Apple, or unlock them for use with different wireless carriers.
“The first of EFF’s three successful requests clarifies the legality of cell phone ‘jailbreaking’ — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker,” the Team writes. “More than a million iPhone owners are said to have ‘jailbroken’ their handsets in order to change wireless providers or use applications obtained from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes “App Store,” and many more have expressed a desire to do so. But the threat of DMCA liability had previously endangered these customers and alternate applications stores.”
The iPhone Dev Team adds that, “In its reasoning in favor of EFF’s jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright Office rejected Apple’s claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones: ‘When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses’.”
The iOS tinkerers acknowledge that the EFF also renewed the existing DMCA exception for carrier unlocking, which effectively allows the unlocking of mobile phones to change carriers. The Dev Team also notes that the cat-and-mouse game between it and Apple will not stop here. Cupertino maintained its stance that jailbreaking is not to be condoned, and that the company will not cover hacked devices under warranty.