Apple Jailbreak Kill Switch / Switch to Android?

[thelatinist]

Read the decision. It specifically makes it lawful to circumvent controls designed to block jailbreaking. It would be unlawful for Apple to deactivate your iPhone for Jailbreaking.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the ruling and the law. Neither applies to Apple or any other company or constrains its actions at all. All this exception does is prevent your being criminally prosecuted for jailbreaking. Period. It does not guarantee that you will be able to jailbreak or prevent Apple from trying to make it difficult or impossible to do so.

Also, Apple cannot add verbiage to the contract to circumvent this ruling. Nor can they add provisions that allow them to deactivate your phone.

1) Apple would not be circumventing the ruling, since the ruling only prevents criminal prosecution for jailbreaking. You are right that they could not make it a criminal offense to jailbreak by changing the contract or license agreement...but I'm pretty sure I didn't suggest that it could.

2) Apple would not need to change your contract, only their license agreement. Apple can make and changes to its software and its license agreement that it damned well pleases, including terms that make it a violation of the license agreement to do perfectly legal things with it. You don't have to accept the new conditions or the changes -- you're free to keep using the old version under the old license.

 

[chargit]

its all about the money in the app store vs getting your apps through outside sources like cydia. it is cutting into their pocket books when you dont buy from them. they couldnt care less about an unlock but you have to JB to Unlock.

no worries!

 

[sidewinder]

This is a complete misunderstanding of the ruling and the law. Neither applies to Apple or any other company or constrains its actions at all. All this exception does is prevent your being criminally prosecuted for jailbreaking. Period. It does not guarantee that you will be able to jailbreak or prevent Apple from trying to make it difficult or impossible to do so.

Where did I say that the DMCA ruling said that Apple could not try to prevent people from Jailbreaking their phones? Apple has every right to do that. Nor did I say you could expect to be able to be able to Jailbreak your phone in the future. If Apple can find a way to stop Jailbreaking, we won't be able to do it any more.

1) Apple would not be circumventing the ruling, since the ruling only prevents criminal prosecution for jailbreaking. You are right that they could not make it a criminal offense to jailbreak by changing the contract or license agreement...but I'm pretty sure I didn't suggest that it could.

2)Apple would not need to change your contract, only their license agreement. Apple can make and changes to its software and its license agreement that it damned well pleases, including terms that make it a violation of the license agreement to do perfectly legal things with it. You don't have to accept the new conditions or the changes -- you're free to keep using the old version under the old license.

The DMCA ruling does not only prevent criminal prosecution for Jailbreaking. It makes Jailbreaking legal. Apple cannot make Jailbreaking a violation of the License Agreement via a contract. Look up contract law. You can't make something legal under the DMCA, like Jailbreaking is now, illegal via a contract. Apple could certainly try to put such restrictions in their EULA/Contracts. However, they would risk the whole EULA/Contract being voided.

They certainly could not deactivate your phone for Jailbreaking it.

S-

 

[Cinemagic]

In the USA anyway, it's not illegal to Jailbreak your iPhone. So Apple could NEVER legally detect and shutdown an iPhone that had been Jailbreaked.

S-

If the did it, there would most certainly be a ton of unhappy people followed by a class action law suit. I'd be one of them.

 

[dialed1]

No! Pick the phone that works best for you. Every company is going to threaten these types of things.

 

[thelatinist]

Apple cannot make Jailbreaking a violation of the License Agreement via a contract. Look up contract law. You can't make something legal under the DMCA, like Jailbreaking is now, illegal via a contract. Apple could certainly try to put such restrictions in their EULA/Contracts. However, they would risk the whole EULA/Contract being voided.

Sidewinder, you just don't know what you're talking about. The only thing this ruling did was create an exception to section 1201 (a) (1) (a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES which says "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." That is the section that made jailbreaking illegal. The new exception means that this section of the DMCA does not apply to people jailbreaking their iPhones. And that's all it means.

This exception does not create a right to jailbreak, and it does not prevent Apple from creating a contractual agreement with you by which you agree not to jailbreak (in fact, anyone who uses an iPhone has agreed to such a license). I don't know where you got the idea that it is not possible to create a contractual agreement which makes it a violation to do a legal act. That's just not true. People agree to such contracts all the time. For instance, it is legal for me to sublet my home, but it is a violation of my condo association rules and I am contractually bound not to do so.

Nor does this decision do anything to make it illegal for Apple to create a method for remotely disabling its software to enforce the terms of its license with you. It is possible that you might have a civil claim for breach of contract under the current license agreement if they implemented such a system without a specific provision in the license agreement allowing it. That would be easily remedied by changing the license agreement, however, which is all that I was saying in my previous post. I don't know where you got the idea that I was saying such a change would make jailbreaking illegal, but there's nothing in what I actually wrote that suggest it.

 

[Rajani Isa]

However, they would risk the whole EULA/Contract being voided.

From my understanding, all they would risk (aside from court costs) is that the illegal section of the contract, and all penalties thereof, would be void.

 

[Bdubb]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but I'm gonna step up and say or ASK THE QUESTION rather

...Do you guys think Apple is taking more drastic measures becasue of the fact that jailbreaking is just getting easier and easier by the iOS? and in result Jailbroken iDevices are increasing by the numbers and it's actually now becoming "mainstream" and also a threat to app sales on the App store?

Let's face it if you go back just three years ago, it wasn't exactly a walk in a park to jailbreak your iPhone 2G or even 3G, on top of that there was (and there still is) always the nuisance of updating your firmware and locking yourself back "in" etc.

Back in the day, I remember paying 100 bucks to some Chinese Guy in a little mobile shop to "spoon" my iphone 2g's Sim card with another (paper thin) Sim with a chip on it so my phone could be unlocked and jailbroken! Before that, "Experts" had to crack open your phone and tinker with the insides of the hardware even!!

But when I finally got my hands on the iphone 4 recently, all I had to do is load Safari type "jailbreakme.com" and BAM! jailbreaking has sure gotten cheaper, easier and faster!

I am not saying we should go back to the days of making the local Chinese cell phone store guy rich again...but I am just saying if a service that "hurts" the business of a company becomes so easily available and accessible that almost everyone with a very low IQ can do it. That company is gonna notice this and in turn take drastic measures to prevent it.

There's a reason why it's called "underground" if something is "underground" chances are people "above ground" wont really be bothered by it, but Jailbreaking has come a long way and it's definitely "above the surface" these days, and as long as Apple decides to launch their next "magical" phone..Jailbreaking will be there to ...jail....break it.

I just wish it was a bit more "contained" and "quiet" and only for the geeks and patient people, like me.

 

[labman]

Apple is never gonna restrict jailbroken phones in this manner. This whole thing is about a patent application filed a year and a half ago.

100+ people with nothing better to do then stir this crap up!

 

[NT1440]

100+ people with nothing better to do then stir this crap up!

Including engadget.

 

[SpaceKitty]

Including engadget.

Especially Engadget. They should know better than to bring up a 1.5 year old patent. For all we know, it was abandoned by Apple shortly after it was filed.

 

[TMar]

Where did I say that the DMCA ruling said that Apple could not try to prevent people from Jailbreaking their phones? Apple has every right to do that. Nor did I say you could expect to be able to be able to Jailbreak your phone in the future. If Apple can find a way to stop Jailbreaking, we won't be able to do it any more.



The DMCA ruling does not only prevent criminal prosecution for Jailbreaking. It makes Jailbreaking legal. Apple cannot make Jailbreaking a violation of the License Agreement via a contract. Look up contract law. You can't make something legal under the DMCA, like Jailbreaking is now, illegal via a contract. Apple could certainly try to put such restrictions in their EULA/Contracts. However, they would risk the whole EULA/Contract being voided.

They certainly could not deactivate your phone for Jailbreaking it.

S-

I was really hoping the thelatinist explanation would have been enough but yet I cam back to find that I was wrong. For some reason you believe this ruling goes both ways but it doesn't. It protects JBer's from any prosecution it does nothing to tie the hands of Apple. You have the right to run unsigned code, Apple doesn't have to allow the ability to do so. I think you need to learn a little something about copyright and the ruling, because this was a copyright ruling and copyright only goes one way. It's Apple's copyright and it's clear now, because of the ruling, that jailbreaking is legal aka we are not breaking any copyright law by doing so.

From the Copyright Office on the ruling:

"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.”

Apple wouldn't be breaking any copyright laws by forcibly un-jailbreaking a device either (not the mention that the CO has no provisions or the ability to enforce this). So why couldn't Apple break a jailbreak? What or who's law would that be breaching? It's not a copyright violation that's for sure because the user has no copyright to the device or OS. So many people read into this (because of the all the "JB is legal!" blogs that you obviously read) and think now that it's 'legal' to JB that it would be illegal for Apple to break them? Jailbreaking was never illegal. The only thing this ruling said was that in no way was Apple's copyright preventing it.

 

[Closure]

^This. Copyright law is a one way street that protects the holder not the user.