14 DAY TRIAL // A legal representative from the EFF, going by the name of Fred von Lohmann, says that Apple has filed new comments with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA, stating that jailbreaking your iPhone and iPod constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation.
9to5Mac quotes the EFF as saying that “Apple's iPhone, now the best-selling cellular phone in the U.S., has been designed with restrictions that prevent owners from running applications obtained from sources other than Apple's own iTunes App Store. 'Jailbreaking' is the term used for removing these restrictions, thereby liberating your phone from Apple's software 'jail.' Estimates put the number of iPhone owners who have jailbroken their phones in the hundreds of thousands.”
The PDF continues saying that “As part of the 2009 DMCA rulemaking, EFF has asked the Copyright Office to recognize an exemption to the DMCA to permit jailbreaking in order to allow iPhone owners to use their phones with applications that are not available from Apple's store (e.g., turn-by-turn directions, using the iPhone camera for video, laptop tethering).”
According to the EFF, Apple kicks off its copyright infringement claim with the observation that jailbroken iPhones depend on modified versions of Apple's bootloader and operating system software, adding that “opening the iPhone to independently created applications will compromise safety, security, reliability, and swing the doors wide for those who want to run pirated software.”
While the EFF accepts the first part, it does not accept that jailbreaking is everything Apple wants us to believe it is. Comparing Apple's arguments with the automotive industry to show their absurdity, Fred von Lohmann says “sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts ... But we'd never accept this corporate paternalism as a justification for welding every car hood shut and imposing legal liability on car buffs tinkering in their garages. After all, the culture of tinkering (or hacking, if you prefer) is an important part of our innovation economy.”
What do you think? Does hacking help us push technology further, or is it stopping big companies like Apple from achieving their full potential? Would you say jailbreaking should be considered illegal?