Jailbreaking/Unlocking exempt from DMCA, aka officially legal

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Source : New gov't rules allow unapproved iPhone apps - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – Owners of the iPhone will be able to break electronic locks on their devices in order to download applications that have not been approved by Apple. The government is making that legal under new rules announced Monday.

The decision to allow the practice commonly known as "jailbreaking" is one of a handful of new exemptions from a federal law that prohibits the circumvention of technical measures that control access to copyrighted works. Every three years, the Library of Congress authorizes such exemptions to ensure that existing law does not prevent non-infringing use of copyrighted material.

Another exemption will allow owners of used cell phones to break access controls on their phones in order to switch wireless carriers.

And there was much rejoicing!

[mr.sparky]

Its about time.......

[skolpo]

Oh man, the last part is especially awesome. Way to stick it to exclusivity.

[timmyinpajamas]

Awesome

[joehowes]

sweet news!

[Zingala]

Sweet! I see the JB world expanding exponentially!

[gthugballin]

/love

now i can use my phone to "sell drugs" and "ddos cell phone towers" LOL.

[exNavy]

Poor Steve. He must be pissed. His precious device can be modified at will be end users legally.

[brandoncarr]

So that means that Apple can no longer patch the holes that are found?

[0blivious]

Was just reading that article on the Seattle Times. I see someone posted it here already.

Good stuff. I'll bet Steve Jobs is just squirming in his birkenstocks over this.

[Poseidon79]

Sweet! I see the JB world expanding exponentially!

Why would you think that? Jailbreaking and unlocking were already considered legal before now anyways.

[xerray]

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

[gthugballin]

So that means that Apple can no longer patch the holes that are found?

why wouldn't they be able to. Apple would claim they are improving their software

[whereswaldo]

Hasn't it always been legal?
I wonder what the Canadian government has to say about it. I hope they find a similar verdict

So that means that Apple can no longer patch the holes that are found?

No, not even close

[bluefloyd]

It seems like Apple can still make it difficult to JB if they want to.

[ncarlav]

Finally!!!

[Happy Noodle Boy]

So that means that Apple can no longer patch the holes that are found?

No. Those holes while awesome for allowing us to jailbreak our phones are security liabilities and they need to patch them whenever the exploit is made public. But there's always more holes hidden away so no need to worry much about Apple closing jailbreaking forever.

And the legal standing of jailbreaking was never clear, which is why you had Apple in courty arguing it should be. This ruling officially makes it legal.

[bigorangekitty]

So that means that Apple can no longer patch the holes that are found?

No it doesn't mean that. Apple has every right to patch holes, and fix and improve their OS (iOS)for improvement or security. Apple can still void the warranty of your phone if you jailbreak also. That's an entirely seperate issue. This just "ok's" jailbreaking and unlocking.

[PWNsyst3m]

[realisticmind1]

While this is great and welcomes news, I don't believe this will change the jailbreak world dramatically.