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iPhone: Jailbreaking now legal Stateside
Every 3 years, over in the US, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office meet up to discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that was drawn up in 1998.
And this year’s meet up has produced an interesting little snippet – jailbreaking your iPhone (or any other phone for that matter) will no longer be illegal under US federal law.
MSNBC is reporting that “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”.
What this means is that although Apple has previously insisted that jailbreaking is illegal, you can now hack your phone up to your heart’s desire, and you won’t have the FBI bursting through your front door and arresting you for a felony – although that was hardly ever likely to happen anyway.
The new law won’t exactly be welcomed by Apple – but it won’t make any difference to what it offers customers out of the box either.
Just because jailbreaking is legally okay, Apple won’t be giving you a simple on/off button to do it – you’ll still have to follow the online tutorials in order to get Cydia and the gang on your phone.
The changes to the DMCA also extend to hacking your locked phone to allow you to use an alternative network.
Remember, these changes only refer to the States – you’re still on dodgy ground if you jailbreak in the UK. You’re not likely to be arrested but the Apple crew will give you a nasty look if you take a jailbroken iPhone into the App Store to get it repaired.
Are you rocking a jailbroken iPhone? If so, let us know why you decided to free your device and let us know what the best jailbroken apps are.
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