The Digital Millenium Copyright Act prevents people from circumventing digital rights management and other technological measures used to protect copyrighted material. However, DMCA, just like the much talked about SOPA, has its fair share of loopholes and possible abuses companies and governments can levee against consumers.
Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office holds a “rulemaking” meeting to consider granting exemptions to the DMCA in an effort help prevent harm from being caused to “legitimate non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials.” During the 2009 meeting the EFF won an exemption for jailbreakers and remix artists. During the 2012 meeting the EFF is asking the Copyright Office to continue to protect jailbreaking smartphones, and video game consoles as well as expand the exemption to tablets. If they don’t renew the exemption and expand it, the very basis of the MMi community becomes an illegal activity.
According to the EFF this is how you can help:
The Copyright Office needs to hear from 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. You can submit comments online at this link.
Here are some questions you might want to address in your comments:
Concrete examples will help show the Copyright Office why they should renew and expand the exemptions for jailbreaking. Send your comments to the Copyright Office athttp://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment-forms/. Where the form says “Comment number(s) of proposed classes of works to which you are responding,” enter a “3” if you’re writing about game consoles or a “5” if you’re writing about smartphones or tablets.
Comments are due by February 10 at 5 PM Eastern Time. Please send a copy of your comments to [email protected] so that we can see what people are saying. We’ll keep your comments confidential.
Here are some questions you might want to address in your comments:
- 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?
Concrete examples will help show the Copyright Office why they should renew and expand the exemptions for jailbreaking. Send your comments to the Copyright Office athttp://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment-forms/. Where the form says “Comment number(s) of proposed classes of works to which you are responding,” enter a “3” if you’re writing about game consoles or a “5” if you’re writing about smartphones or tablets.
Comments are due by February 10 at 5 PM Eastern Time. Please send a copy of your comments to [email protected] so that we can see what people are saying. We’ll keep your comments confidential.
We can't stress enough how important you the members of the MMi are in the process of preserving Jailbreaking. Help the EFF, and help jailbreakers everywhere. Without the necessary exemptions every aspect of the Jailbreak community can be prosecuted and shut down. Don’t let Apple and other manufacturers decide the fate of the jailbreak community.
Source: EFF
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