The status of the iPhone 4 Jailbreak changed subtly yesterday. This was due not to the efforts of the various hackers working on the jailbreak code, but to a change in the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Put simply – jailbreaking is now legal.
A little over a year and a half ago, digital rights campaigners the Electronic Frontier Foundation petitioned the copyright office of the Library Of Congress to ask them to make an exception to the DMCA that would allow users to modify the software of devices they owned without contravening the Act.
In particular, this affects Apple’s ability to control the apps you can install on your iPhone or iPad, although similar controls exist on other devices and can sometimes be added to mobile phones by phone networks. Apple has always maintained that an iPhone 4 Jailbreak (or one for any other iOOS product) to install non-App Store apps or remove carrier locks was forbidden by the DMCA (although admittedly it never explicitly went after the people making jailbreaking tools).
The new ruling now clearly states that trying to invoke the DMCA to prevent jailbreaking or similar fiddling is not acceptable. “While a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions,” the ruling states.
It is important to note that this does not require Apple to just start letting you install any random app you like – they are still going to be able to modify future iOS versions to prevent iPhone 4 jailbreaking and rooting, but it does mean that they can’t stop everyone from playing just by invoking their lawyers.
Out TBC | £free | iPhone Dev Team (via Wired)
