Apple: iPhone jailbreaks are illegal

Posted by james on February 13th, 2009 at 11:10pm Comments

Until now we did not exactly know what Apple’s position is on “jailbreaking” = modifying your iPhone’s code so that it would be able to run unauthorized third party iPhone apps.

Well, now we do. According to Apple’s stance (newly unveiled at copyright.gov), this procedure amounts to copyright infringement and is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Previously, a request was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the USA Copyright Office to legally allow jailbreaking. But Apple is opposed “because it will destroy the technological protection of Apple’s key copyrighted computer programs in the iPhone device itself and of copyrighted content owned by Apple that plays on the iPhone, resulting in copyright infringement, potential damage to the device and other potential harmful physical effects, adverse effects on the functioning of the device, and breach of contract.”

According to Apple, “the proponents of the exemption have also not satisfied their burden of proof of showing harm to non-infringing uses of the copyrighted works protected by the technological protection measures on the iPhone. In addition, because Congress has already explicitly addressed circumvention for interoperability in Section 1201(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),4 the Copyright Office should not create interoperability exemptions outside that statutory structure.”

Furthermore, this document contains some interesting information on Apple’s anti-jailbreaking protection, for those that are interested in this stuff.

As for the Electronic Frontier Foundation that started this brouhaha, here is what they had to say: “If this sounds like FUD, that’s because it is. One need only transpose Apple’s arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.”

It’s noteworthy to say that the USA Copyright Office is notorious for taking its time to process claims, so it might take a while to see how this story will play out.

Related posts:

1. iPhone Developers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Frown at Apple Contract
2. Mozilla: iPhone jailbreaking should be legal
3. Copyright lawyer taunts Apple in open letter, releases Pocket PC iPhone interface
4. Skype also thinks iPhone jailbreaking should be legal
5. QuickPwn jailbreaks iPod Touch firmware v2.1, iPhone support coming soon

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Filed Under: Apple News+ News+ iPhone 3G+ iPhone Hacks+ iPhone News

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