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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Jailbreaking Your iPhone May Become Illegal If DMCA Exemption Expires

iPhone with a 4-inch screen?

If you love jailbreaking your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch then you should read this post and take action.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports that it has asked the U.S. Copyright Office to declare that jailbreaking does not violate the DMCA. 

You may remember that back in 2010, EFF had won critical exemption to the DMCA, which made it legal for users  in the US to jailbreak their iPhone.

At that time, Apple had told the U.S. Copyright Office that it believed jailbreaking an iPhone is a violation of the DMCA and infringes on its copyright. Apple also informed the Copyright Office that the exemption request by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was not acceptable as the very act of jailbreaking the iPhone results in copyright infringement.

However, the exemption needs to be renewed otherwise it would expire, which could make jailbreaking your iOS device illegal. Interestingly, it looks like the exemption was only for smartphones, so it did not cover tablets like Apple's iPad. EFF wants to fix that by expanding the exemption to also cover tablets.

Here's 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.

EFF is requesting users to submit comments online at this link. EFF has also provided a list of questions on their website that you should address in the comments.

Please note that comments are due by February 5th at 5PM Eastern time, so don't waste anytime and head over to the link provided above and submit your comments.

[EFF via Techmeme]

Categories : Jailbreak Apple TV, Jailbreak iOS 5.0.1, Jailbreak iOS 5, Jailbreak iPad, Jailbreak iPad 2, Jailbreak iPhone 4, Jailbreak iPhone 3GS, Jailbreak iPhone 3G, Jailbreak iPhone, Jailbreak iPhone 4S, Jailbreak iPhone 5, Jailbreak iPod Touch


View the original article here