Jailbreaking Could Soon Become Illegal Again

Diggester writes "Back in July 2010, the United States government approved a few exemptions in a federal law which made jailbreaking/rooting of electronic devices (iPhones and Android devices) legal. The court ruling stated that every three years, the exemptions have to be renewed considering they don't infringe any copyrighted material. The three-year period is due to expire and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is looking to get the exemptions renewed. In order to do so, they have filed a petition which aims at government to declare jailbreaking legal once again. In addition to that, EFF is also asking for a change in the original ruling to include tablet devices." Here's the EFF's own page on the issue.

Too bad ALL laws don't expire

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice if all laws had a sunset scheme... something like:

Law originally passed unanimously: no sunset review needed

Law originally passed 75% to 25%: ok to "bundle" with other laws in a simple majority re-confirmation every 10 years.

Law originally passed with simple majority less than 75%? requires single-issue re-confirmation every 3 years.

Re:Who cares

[Tr3vin]

I do care, but I speak with my money. I buy phones that the manufacturer allows me to hack / modify. 'fastboot oem unlock' is a glorious thing. I'd rather give money to a company that allows me to do what I want than fight the more controlling companies.

Re:Who cares

[PopeRatzo]

The crazier the intellectual property laws get the less respect people will have for intellectual property laws.

I'm not sure how much less respect people can have for "intellectual property laws".

Any possibility for respect was wasted when "95 years from publication or 120 years from creation whichever is shorter" became the length of a copyright. Or when advocates for "intellectual property" sought penalties in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for downloading songs via bittorrent.

There just isn't a compelling reason why anyone should respect copyright laws. Especially considering how little of the financial benefit of those laws actually goes to the creator.

Re:Sheer stupitdity

[mlts]

Believe it or not, on some makes of cars, the ECM/TCM will check if it is tampered with, and when taken to a service depot, the entire warranty will be voided.

It took about a year for people to "jailbreak" the latest EcoBoost engines so one can run a custom tune on them.

Re:Who cares

[tepples]

If I buy a carrier independent Android compatible phone

With the mess of protocols (CDMA2000 vs. GSM/UMTS), bands (AWS vs. standard), and plans (no discount for not taking a subsidized phone) that is the U.S. cell phone market, do you have a plan for making this practical in the United States?

Re:Who cares

[CRC'99]

As someone who recently jailbroke his iPad2, its one of the best things to ever happen to my iPad!

I bought a WiFi only model - as for my purposes, the onboard GPS is *very* substandard. When then trying to use a normal bluetooth GPS, I find out that you need a GPS that speaks "Apple" at $99USD + shipping to your country. After the jailbreak, a $5 donation to the guy who wrote a part of a bluetooth driver and bingo, now it works with ANY bluetooth GPS.

Theres also this awesome extension called "Mail Extender" that adds all the features that mail clients have developed over the last 10 years when Apple decided that you shall not send anything but plain text emails.

Thankfully, I live in a country where console modchips and other methods for device compatibility are 100% legal - and tested in court.