Jailbreaking the iPhone could land you in legal trouble?

[-Adam-]

Since so many of us rely on our mobile devices to surf and do many other things I thought this was interesting.

Well probably not jail – but if Apple has its way, in some sort of legal trouble. I saw this over at Wired’s Threat Level blog. Apparently Apple is asserting that hacking the phone to run non-approved applications violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Jailbreaking is a process that opens up the iPhone’s or iPod Touch’s OS to installing applications not purchased or downloaded from Apple’s official application store.

This means you can get apps that do things like allow you to use your iPhone as a 3G modem for your laptop – or a host of other things that Apple and AT&T don’t approve of. Jailbroken phones also can be moved from AT&T to other wireless carriers.

If you want to read Apple’s comments on the matter, check out this 31-page PDF.

Apple has always been very keen on protecting its property — some would say to the point of being a bully. In this case, it puts the company up against a community of software developers and users who would prefer everything to be open.

(For the record, I haven’t jailbroken my iPhone – but I do see the attraction. I mainly don’t want to deal with the issues that hacking my phone might have on its functionality.)

So here’s the question: Since Apple built the iPhone, should they be able to tell you what you can and can’t do once you’ve bought it? Or are we merely renting this device along with our AT&T service plan?

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/18/could-jailbreaking-your-iphone-land-you-in-jail/

 

[.Andy]

I think they have a right to lock there phone and make you buy a contract apple is getting I assume like 15$ a month *24 months of contract = 360$ in addition to your 200$ startup and a % of your activation fee + when you buy music and apps. The iphone is better then most low grade laptops that are 500$ (more powerful better graphics ect)

I think they should offer a 500$ iphone unlocked legaly and then people who want to have one so bad they can't use ATT will just buy one. It would end this problem completely

 

[-Adam-]

But what if your contract expires and you no longer wish to use the iphone with any service. Say perhaps you just decide to turn it into a PDA. I think after your contract expires you should be in your sole right to do what you want with "your purchased" property.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I personally don't think apple should have anything to say about what you do with the phone after you buy it. Hacking to steal services should be strongly prosecuted, since you are taking a service without paying. unlocking to use a third party service or develop your own should be allowed. Choosing to buy something they don't sell or a competitor to it is not theft, it's called competition and free market. They have a right to void the warranty and discontinue tech support if altered, but shouldn't be able to keep you from loading third party apps.

Can you imagine if you purchased a GM car and were told you couldn't replace the manufacturer radio with a Bose or aftermarket XM or HD radio, or put third party mag wheels on it? What if Dell tried to sue you for upgrading your PC video card because you didn't buy it from them? What's next...will Apple sue you if you install Google Chrome or Opera on a Mac instead of Safari?

</rant>

 

[-Adam-]

Well said, You and I have the same view points here. You pay for it then it's your property, period.

 

[RTM]

We get these type of inquiries and posts over at the unlocked iphones site all the time.

It boils down to the classic demand / supply rule. If the demand for unlocked iphones remains, it's because iPhone (lovers and possible) owners are unhappy with the Telco terms that lock them in. Fix that and you attenuate the unlocked iphone market.

Rob

 

[-Alex-]

I'm not completely sure about the iphone (because a contract is involved) but i thought I'd pitch in something about the ipod touch.. it's 100% not ilegal to jailbreak that device (although it is ilegal to download paid apps for free once you have jailbroken)

=D

 

[ecigs.net]

Can you imagine if you purchased a GM car and were told you couldn't replace the manufacturer radio with a Bose or aftermarket XM or HD radio, or put third party mag wheels on it? What if Dell tried to sue you for upgrading your PC video card because you didn't buy it from them? What's next...will Apple sue you if you install Google Chrome or Opera on a Mac instead of Safari?

I agree totally. Apple is a bully. I have a MAC and I still think that they are too heavy handed. If everybody jailbreaks, there isn't anything they can do.

 

[exsedo]

Maybe it is just a lot of hot wind from apple to keep them in the news, now that they have competition from others. I suspect they will take a big knock when their nearest competitor catches up with the iphone's technology. One would think they would also make a move against the hoard of TM domains if they were serious.
I agree with the opinion that once you have purchased a product, it is yours to do what you want to do with it. If they wish to dictate what you can and cannot do with the iphone, then they should stop selling them and do rentals only.

 

[Pommy - The DN Doc]

I am sure that this is just apple trying to be in the news. Shortly, iphone users will be wishing they had never bothered buying one, unlocked or not, given the cheaper competition that will inevitably produce some good phones. I think it shows frank contempt for their customers that they are even producing a pdf about it!

 

[labrocca]

This does break the law (DMCA) and why so many were opposed to it's enactment. However the laws haven't been fully tested in a court especially for something that you own at home and don't use for commercial use.

DMCA is pretty specific about reverse engineering.

 

[jdenwar]

I have a iphone but i havenot unlocked it..or done anything illegal.

But i think we should be allowed to do whatever we like....

i know there should be some law for this... but not allowing other applications and firmware is not good.. imo

-jd

 

[Pommy - The DN Doc]

This does break the law (DMCA) and why so many were opposed to it's enactment. However the laws haven't been fully tested in a court especially for something that you own at home and don't use for commercial use.

DMCA is pretty specific about reverse engineering.

You're right - it breaks the DMCA - which is the tightest implementation of WIPO's Copyright Treaty worldwide. ("No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title.") The Librarian to the US Congress has to approve such violations if I remember correctly.

Even so, this would be an interesting test of the DMCA and if even one iPhone user got hauled up, it might be enough to revise the whole damned legislation. I think there would be a bit of an outcry. Apple also realises that it would really be obviously showing contempt for customers - the right commercial measure would be to fix the problems that people percieve there to be with the expensive equipment that they have bought, NOT threaten law suites against customers.

 

[interestedenough]

Because Apple has increasingly restricted access to features with new releases of their iphone operating system, some developers can ONLY do certain things if the iphone is jail broken. I truly believe that apple's ever more closed standards will land them in COMPETITIVE trouble. If they go chasing after their own users that have jail broken their iphone, they will be shooting themselves on the foot.

Jail braking an iphone doesn't mean that you are stealing anything, it only means that now you can run applications that call iphone features that are "private" (the apple iphone SDK doesn't allow common developers and their applicaitons to access those features)... they are reserved for either apple developers, or apple approved developers.

Microsoft's Window CE has been around for a long while, but seems to be to clumsy and the cost might be prohibitive for some devices.

The Palm OS, I have no idea what happened to it, but maybe something similar to what will happen to the apple mobile operating system.

Google's competitor, the Android operating system is open source, free, flexible, and allows developers to do a myriad of things they will never be able to do with the iphone, windowsCE, palmOS, or any other operating system.

I think the mobile OS system to win will be that to run first on a shoe (figuratively and maybe literally speaking, and only an open source system will be able to do this.