The US Government looks set to make the process of jailbreaking and performing a carrier unlock on your iPhone legal after new rules were announced in Washington earlier today.
These new exemptions will allow owners to break access controls on all mobile phones purchased in the US, one of only a few exemptions from a federal law that prevents the tampering or the circumvention of technical measures that prevent access to copyrighted works.
Every three years, the Library of Congress authorizes exemptions such as these to ensure that existing law does not prevent the non-infringing use of copyrighted material.
It’s an incredible ruling for a number of reasons. Primarily, Apple had previously argued that jailbreaking was illegal under the DMCA, justifying this by claiming that opening the iPhone to third-party and unapproved applications would compromise safety and reliability, as well as allowing software to be pirated.
What do you think, has Apple got its just deserts? Is the ruling fair? We certainly think so.
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