Thank you, glad somebody gets it. By passing the DMCA, the government massively interfered in the free market by essentially allowing companies to declare that any unapproved use of products they sell is a federal crime. Today's statement is a small step toward undoing that. Of course the ideal solution would be to repeal the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA entirely, but I'm not holding my breath.
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U.S. Government to Explicitly Allow iPhone Jailbreaking
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Thank you, glad somebody gets it. By passing the DMCA, the government massively interfered in the free market by essentially allowing companies to declare that any unapproved use of products they sell is a federal crime. Today's statement is a small step toward undoing that. Of course the ideal solution would be to repeal the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA entirely, but I'm not holding my breath.
Holy frickin' Cthulhu, this is less government! This is de-regulation! This is government getting out of the business of saying what is legal to do with one's own phone!
Put simply, this is the government saying that the DMCA, one of the most intrusive pieces of government legislation of the past few decades, does not apply to jailbreaking. It doesn't say that Apple must allow jailbreaking, just that it is not illegal to do so. It leaves the matter to the contract between Apple and its customers, just as small government proponents should want.
Honestly, can't libertarians and anti-Obamaites actually read?
They don't have to. If you install random third party software on your Mac and it causes problems, Apple won't support you either. I have no idea what your problem is, when users have been able to do whatever they want with Macs for decades without the sky falling.
I would tell people that business (Studios, Music groups, et al) got exactly what they paid for (in lobbying) with the DCMA, and now the consumer is getting a bit of a roll back from the Federal Government. This is how the system works and is a counter example of corporatism in the first world.
This is a good thing, but I certainly won't be taking advantage of this and neither will most iPhone/smartphone owners either.
Unlocking, on the other hand, is the freedom to take your device and your business to the best provider.
My 0.02 cents. Why can't the government protect its citizens rights. America was built upon Freedom, and now we have this company creating an entire ecosystem of proprietary add ons? And if the Devteam decides to become an enterprise they can be sued under DMCA? Now the government just told everybody that if you want to create an enterprise that wants to develop, sell or give Iphone users the possibility of having their phones with another OS, applications, etc...you can. If there are customers that are willing to pay for it, use it, it is their choice. For the ones that wants to continue on the Apple ecosystem, they are also free to continue there as well.
The implications that I see, is that we will see more apps that although does not break the law, will impose a large toll on the Network side, like tethering and that probably is not being controlled by the DMCA.
Using an analogy, if you buy a Honda Civic, and decided to install a dual turbo on it, get new dials, and so on, you are entitled to. Honda will make its warranty to the parts of the car that you haven't touched right? That's what I think Apple should do, also, if you have installed a dual turbo on your car, it is understandable that you will be racing. Now if you race on the track is all good, if you race on the street, it has nothing to do with your relationship with Honda, you are breaking another contract, with the law that your government has stipulated.
It is all good, it will only allow other companies to tackle on the Iphone, it is up to you to buy from those companies or not.
The implications that I see, is that we will see more apps that although does not break the law, will impose a large toll on the Network side, like tethering and that probably is not being controlled by the DMCA.
Using an analogy, if you buy a Honda Civic, and decided to install a dual turbo on it, get new dials, and so on, you are entitled to. Honda will make its warranty to the parts of the car that you haven't touched right? That's what I think Apple should do, also, if you have installed a dual turbo on your car, it is understandable that you will be racing. Now if you race on the track is all good, if you race on the street, it has nothing to do with your relationship with Honda, you are breaking another contract, with the law that your government has stipulated.
It is all good, it will only allow other companies to tackle on the Iphone, it is up to you to buy from those companies or not.
Good newsTo bad the U.S government can't force Jobs to admit that the iP4 has a flawed antenna design.
You had to go there!
It doesn't make jailbreakers any more brazen at all. There is zero additional risks to developers and no consumer detriment. Jailbreaking had effectively zero legal risk before and it has a certain zero legal risk now.
Yes. The DMCA outlaws circumvention of effective technical measures protecting copyrighted works, with some exceptions. Jailbreaking is now an exception.
Of course, the underlying work is still copyrighted, so you are still subject to copyright law and to any applicable license agreements.
We can read very well, thank you. We can also count: 909 more days.
I wonder if Apple will respond publicly about this or if it is even an issue. I feel like this ruling still gives big companies a lot of wiggle room, which is fine with me.
I agree with you and having the walled garden doesn't protect against malware to begin with. Just last week someone managed to sneak a tethering app under the guise of a flashlight app. So much for 'reviewing' the apps prior to allowing them in app store.
Can't you PrObomites NOT use ROllERcoASter fonts?!!1!?
Your otherwise intelligent argument is hereby null and void.
Right and wrong. Apple Store employees have always helped work out kinks regarding third party software, but if it royally bonks the system to death, THEN it's my fault, which I can accept, because I did it.
I can also accept responsibility for my iPhone. You know the difference though? The computer market it not controlled the same as the cellular market. While Smartphones may be like little computers, multiple companies work together to make these things what they are, both put them under longstanding contract (which your standard computer is not), and you are set to agree by terms of acceptable and unacceptable use.
Sure this is nothing new, but my problem isn't in regard to anything you said. In fact, I moreso agree with you.
In the words of Cal Naughton Jr., "I'm confused by your tactics."
I just mentally noted to make a countdown clock in the near future.
Agreed. We had a thread here awhile back talking about the legality of jailbreak to install apps not authorized by Apple. Prior to today, there was nothing in the books that made it legal to jailbreak for this purpose. Now there is, which is actually great news for the jailbreak community as well as many developers. In fact, it may entice even more developers to develop apps for the iPhone outside of the developers agreement constraints, which can only mean even more reason to jailbreak the iPhone.
The big deal here is that this decision takes something that was in a grey area (jailbreaking/unlocking) and makes it completely legal. This means that companies can now offer up a jailbreak solution. For example, Google could offer up a combo jailbreak/GV installer and Apple would have no recourse except to tell users that they may not service the iPhone if they use the Google app.
Thanks for clearing that up. I knew that circumventing the protection for the aim of a carrier unlock was legal but I was always under the impression that jailbreaks were fine because they were a necessary step, if you claimed you needed it for an unlock.
my thoughts are that apple should embrace the community. There are a lot of smart folks out there for both android and apple and they should be trying to get the best ones to program for their platform not keep them in the dark and not support. The big issue will be the handset manufactures and service providers, since they have the potential to lose revenue. The US cell phone industry really is the one that needs a kick in the pants when you have to some times pay 3 times for the same data (voice, "data", "data tethering") Besides, apple is the only one that really makes a big deal about this in my eyes.