July of 2010 was a proud day for the Jailbreaking Community, as the United States government ruled in favour of making Jailbreaking and Unlocking Mobile devices legal (adding an exemption to the DMCA). The only restriction to this new law, put in place to make Jailbreaking legal, was that it could not be carried out for an intention of breaking copyright laws (IE: for the sole purpose of cracked applications). From this day forward Jailbreakers everywhere have had the peace of mind that Jailbreaking their iOS or even Android device was a legal act.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has now pointed out, however, that the Jailbreaking exemption to the DMCA put in place during 2012 is set to expire this year! Thus, it is time for all supporters of Jailbreaking to take action so we can renew this exemption and add support to make Jailbreaking tablets and even video games consoles legal in the United States.
So how can you take action? Well, as the EFF points out, Copyright Offices needs to hear from people who depend on the ability to jailbreak to write, use, and/or tinker with independent software (from useful apps to essential security fixes) for smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. If you would like to help make Jailbreaking legal once again in the United States and add support for tablets and consoles, you need to submit your comments by filling out an online form by clicking here.
The EFF has included some quick questions you may want to address:
- Which jailbreaking exemption are you supporting—smartphones/tablets, video game consoles, or both?
- What’s your background (i.e., are you a developer, hobbyist, academic, independent researcher, user, etc.)?
- What device do you want to ensure you have the legal authority to jailbreak?
- Please explain why you want to jailbreak this device. What limitations do you face if you aren’t able to jailbreak it? Is there software you couldn’t run, computing capabilities you wouldn’t have, cool things you couldn’t do, etc.?
- If you’re a developer, did an online application store or console manufacturer reject your app or game? If so, what reasons did they give?
- Is there anything else you want to tell the Copyright Office?
Note: Where the form says “Comment number(s) of proposed classes of works to which you are responding,” enter a “3” if you’re writing about game consoles or a “5” if you’re writing about smartphones or tablets.
We hope that anyone who Jailbreaks their iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android device will take 5-10 minutes out of your day to help preserve something that millions of people enjoy.
Did you help the EFF preserve Jailbreaking? Leave your responses in the comments section below…
I want it legal again.
Its already legal , the article is about KEEPING it legal lollll
We all want it to be legal again
Jailbreaking was never illegal. It was just not specifically exempted from the DMCA. Please fix the headline :(
That said, I completely agree with the cause. This used to be my web site :)
It says legal in United States, so all othe countries most likely are alright with jailbreaking?
No it didn’t lololo
apparently ya
Not Only me all 95% of apple user wants it to be legal…
they better think a lot before they do something like that cause people are not going to stay like that jailbreaking is awesome and when you have nothing to do you can just do this stuffs they better stop writing bullshits the world is already fucked up dont make it worst
it should be legal, jailbreaking is not only about installing cracked apps. it’s about maximizing the potential of your hardware
Who really cares honestly the user isnt taking much risk in jailbreaking an apple device its much the same as downloading off a torrent site people say that there is no risk in it but people do it anyway.
And to be honest I think 90% of people with jailbroken ipods/ipads are downloading cracked apps etc and you may reply and say that jailbreaking is legal ok fair enough it is but 100% of items available on cydia are infringing copyright.
So I dont care if its legal or not the only people this is going to fuk over is the hackers they are the ones taking all the risk.
P.S you guys are scared of breaking the law if jailbreaking becomes illegal but by jailbreaking dont you void youre warranty + if you fuk up the initial jailbreak your device is screwed.You are willing to do these things and risk ruining your device why not go all the way seems stupid to me thats all.
Yeh thats true mate
has all my support… jaibrake is legal
My understanding is that the hardware you own you can do anything you want, but hacking the OEM software like IOS was illegal because you are messing with copyright software. How we are able to do anything we want to our hardware if the software is in the way of installing new software? It’s a loophole, Apple was able to keep people out of their hardware by locking the copyright software. This is why jailbreaking needs o remain legal.
Yeh but if it’s made illegal then the jailbreak devolpers will then be breaking the law and could end up in the s**t for it make it legal
I want jailbreaking to be illegal forever. JAILBREAKING SUCKS!!!
Jail breaking made my iPod not work for 3 months!!!!!!! I was lucky it even turned back on. Illegalize it!
Some of you sound like idiots. Jailbreaking is legal right now. And people dont jailbreak only to get cracked apps, i have been jailbreaking since Blackra1n and that hasnt been the purpose of this at all. Jailbreaking simply alows your device to use its whole potential. I even think Apple has learned from Open Dev. Backrounder was out before Multitasking. And if you are able to mess up your device (somehow) through jailbreaking you are pretty dumb to say the least. And for all you saying it should be illegal, why are you even on here?
With that i will end. Long live jailbreaiking and Open Developement.
Why does it suck??? And you could get free apps,music etc… I think they should keep it legal…
Jailbreak should still be legal. Because the developers of jail breaking worked so hard and they try to make certain stuff legal when there developing…. It took so long when they develop jail breaking for iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. We should all give credit to them… And if they make it illegal all of there hard work would just vanish! So jailbreaking should STAY legal
absolutely, what if a furniture company said you couldn’t repaint or reupholster the couch you bought from them, or worse charge to have the hide-a-bed, that you already own, unlocked so you could sleep on it. Stand for freedom. We can win this!
All people who are posting are just jealous because u dont have knowledge to jailbreak it really is good you can get apps free music free hack games and a lot more
does anyone know if apple won and its illegal… or if anyone knows when the people are going to say that it is legal or illegal
jailbreaking is not bad a lot of other smartphones allow 3rd party apps and i think that apple should even make and update to get cydia a lot of people just jailbreak it instead
right
It’s very easy to jailbreak i devices. There are videos and tutorials out there that explain the methods perfectly. Most times if the installation fails it does not break the device. You simply need to reinstall the iOS software to make it as if it were brand new. I think the people bricking their phones were initially the hackers trying to develop the jailbreaks. Everyone else that bricked their phones probably downloaded some type of virus jb or did something stupid that they shouldn’t have.
As for downloading paid apps for free I agree THAT is illegal and if they were able to enforce it more power to em. As for in app purchase hacks I’m all for it since IAP’s are mostly money sinks to make users pay crazy amounts just to play a game as it should have been played initially.
is jailbreaking still legal?
Because we want to jailbreak our new iphone, but we don’t want to break the law at the same time.
Jailbreaking allows you to do anything- apple sux!
Well you don’t know how and you messed it up so leave.
most people are not aware of jailbreaking!