Jailbreaking Your iPhone Is Now Legal

John Brownlee ()

Jailbreaking Your iPhone Is Now Legal

Many of the most vocal critics of jailbreaking — a group which includes Apple itself — have been quick in the past to cite the fact that hacking your smartphone is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and thus illegal.

It wasn’t a bad argument, all things considered, but if you’re used to relying on it, you’re going to have to ditch it: the Copyright Office has just issued a new set of exemptions to the DMCA, making jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone officially legal.

The exemptions were pushed through mostly thanks to a campaign launched by the Electronics Frontier Foundation.

Here are the two exemptions as they specifically apply to jailbreakers, quoted from the official record:

The Librarian of Congress has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking…

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset….

DON'T MISS

Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

In other words, it is now okay to jailbreak your iPhone to run legally acquired software (for example, through Cydia) and to unlock your iPhone to run on another network. The Dev Team is no longer a group of outlaws, even technically.

This is a huge win for the EFF and jailbreakers. You can find the full ruling here.

22 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in iPhone, News, Software, Top stories |

  • Joe

    hell yes. about freaking time

  • Gazoobee

    Jailbreaking is legal if you want to install *legally* obtained apps only.

    That means the majority of jailbreaking is still illegal, but now no one will ever get caught or prosecuted because of this giant loophole. The stealing of apps will of course *rise* dramatically now as well, so this is bad news for developers.

  • Writestuffla

    Why is stealing and thumbing ones nose at legal contracts that others choose to follow because they play by the rules a cause for celebration?

  • David

    Can someone explain what was illegal about jail breaking a phone? Can you quote the law? The only thing I ever heard was that your jail break would possibly not work if you upgraded to the next version of the OS.

  • JC Pancake

    it’s not just about Apple. This affects many kinds of digital media (including CDs and DVDs).

    There are hundreds of interests like the RIAA and game companies who lobbied for DRM and copy-protection like SecuROM who will hire lawyers to fight this ruling in court, in the hopes of reversing it.

    I’m not against the ruling, but I don’t consider this a “win” yet, because it will 100% certainly be taken to a court battleground…. possibly the final ruling sent up to the Supreme Court. When might they make a final ruling? Like Year 2014? 2016? These things take forever.

    I’m just sayin…. don’t celebrate prematurely.

  • Name(Required)

    Is it legal to use Apple’s SDK to make app for jailbroken devices?

  • Nargg

    Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that jailbreaking is a good thing. There are still a LOT of malicious programs out there for the jailbroken iPhone community. Using these apps will put your private information at extreme risk.

  • James

    People do it to windows machines all the time. Why not your phone?

  • firesign3000

    James – Please enlighten me as to how one “jailbreaks” a Windows computer? What exactly is there to “jailbreak”?

  • Spinchange

    @Nargg could you cite an example of a malicious jailbroken app that has hurt users or put someone’s personal data at risk? I hear this said over and over but have never seen a single substantive example. Most jailbroken apps are written by hardcore *nix geeks and in many instances are more elegantly coded than ‘Apple approved’ ones. Additionally, it’s questionable how closely Apple even looks at the source code of many apps since devs are able to sneak functional ‘easter eggs’ into approved apps all the time.

  • ScareTactic

    And here comes the scare tactics…. “There are still a LOT of malicious programs out there for the jailbroken iPhone community. Using these apps will put your private information at extreme risk.”

  • John T

    Most jailbroken apps are written FOR hardcore *nix geeks too, and are not of any interest and/or usefulness to the vast majority of regular users.

  • http://radiochas.blogspot.com Charles Martin

    Most the anti-jailbreak arguments above are laughably bogus and probably planted by corporate interests.

    Most people who DO jailbreak their phones do so for one of two reasons:

    1. (by far the biggest reason) To allow them to unlock their phones and thus use them with other carriers. I moved to Canada, for example, and promptly unlocked my iPhone so I could use it in that country. How does that hurt ANYBODY? I still have AT&T for use in the US, and now I can also use the iPhone in other countries. Double win for everyone.

    2. Experimenters who want to jailbreak so they can run geeky/esoteric or otherwise not-App Store apps. YES there is a risk of malicious programs, but there has always been that risk in jailbroken phones, and so far no problems. This ruling shifts responsibility for ensuring safe software to the repositories and thus end result is that nothing much will change. Cydia, BigBoss (et al) have too much reputation to risk by not ensuring that the programs they offer aren’t malicious.

    3. I don’t think piracy will grow for the same reason app piracy is currently at a very low level: the price of the apps is reasonable and most ethical people prefer paying for a good-quality supported/upgradeable app if the price is fair.

    Honestly, IME the “unofficial” apps are 96% crapola. There are less than a dozen non-App Store apps I would seriously use beyond the curiosity/novelty factor. Hacker-types and wallpaper/ringtone junkies might disagree, but when it comes to really polished, professional, USEFUL apps, they are VERY thin on the ground in the “unofficial” app world. IMO.

  • http://www.ipodmactransfer.com Howard

    Grey side goes to the White. Good news for users, bad news for makers! It force Apple to more open.

  • bonelyfish

    Firstly I am neutral to this topic but is it really legal with the exemption from Digital Millenium Copyright Act ? It only means not being prosecuted on this aspect. Secondly I always think that Apple is not doing very little to jailbreaking at all on jailbreaking which they tolerate it as a form of marketing to geeks. Yes, jailbreaking will not work sometimes after firmware upgrade but I think that is only compatibility issue and often a new jailbreaking version can fix it promptly.

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    I guess this explains all of the crappy jailbreak articles on Cult of mac today then. an entire page of jailbreaking articles. Urgh.

  • luiz

    well,
    I’m out as a iphone game developer!
    over time you will NOT have more apps or games to steal!

  • Friendster

    This is very great news! I for myself can’t live without apps like SBSettings and Firewall iP. Especially Firewall iP from CydiaStore, which can stop Apps from sending out data and even block ads I feel safer with that tool.

    What are your favorite Cydia Apps?

  • ged

    I have not jailbroken my itouch but would love to use a bluetooth mouse on an ipad when I get it. Apparently I must jailbrake my ipad to do this!! Ggrrrr.

  • UnlockNotJailbreak

    Is it possible to unlock and not jailbreak the phone? iTunes has enough apps to keep me happy; I’m not so into all that. I just want a cheaper/better phone plan!!! Help? Anybody? Or, if I’m required to jailbreak to unlock, can I still use the App store and Apple firmware updates?

  • http://www.greatwallhiking.com cole

    It may useful
    greatwallhiking.com Great Wall Hiking Specialist.
    Trekking, walking and sleeping on Great Wall of China around Beijing

  • Cally

    Ho yah!!!