Back in February we brought to you the story about Apple saying that Jailbreaking your iPhone is illegal. Granted that was in response the (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and their filing an exemption request for Jailbreaking iPhones. (See the AIPLA Quarterly Journal’s article on this from last week). Well this past Friday Apple’s head of marketing, Greg Joswiak, faced off against Fred von Lohmann, the EFF’s copyright guru and a plethora of Copyright Office officials. The topic? Jailbreaking…

The following is a little taste of what Apple had to say:

Apple is opposed to the proposed Class #1 exemption 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. 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, at least without a clear showing of specific and significant harm, which has not been put forth here.

The way we see this is that Apple is against Jailbreaking for the simple fact that it can and will cost them money. Common sense will tell you that Apple does not get any money from iPhone users if they do not use the App Store for installing applications and they also run the risk of legit App Store apps being pirated, which we have already seen. So TiPb can see where Apple is coming from but at the end of the day, if you purchase an iPhone or any other device for that matter, it is yours to do with what ever you’d like.

For a complete rundown of all the shenanagins that took place this past Friday be sure to check out Wired.com’s Jailbreaking Showdown.

[Via Wired.com]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Faces Off Against the EFF in Jailbreak Showdown

It is a sad day for our Jailbreak Pirate, so sad that he is even sporting a frown today. Apple has finally, after a full year plus, publicly came out saying that Jailbreaking the iPhone that you paid for is illegal. Does this mean the FBI will be knocking on Rene’s door to lock him up for Jailbreaking publicly over the internet???

[No, I'm Canadian, so all I have to fear is the red surge of the Mounties - Rene]

Read more after the break!

Apple states that Jailbreaking is a copyright infringement and is in clear violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The US Copyright Office has a rule-making session that occurs every three years for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is also where exemption requests can be filed. Well it seems the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an exemption request for Jailbreaking iPhones. Apple has now responded to this request. You can see the complete filing here in this PDF file. If you don’t feel like reading all of that here is the important part:

Jailbreaking therefore involves infringing uses of the bootloader and OS, the copyrighted works that are protected by the TPMs being circumvented. Unauthorized derivative versions of the bootloader and OS have been created. Copies of those infringing works have been stored on web sites, and infringing reproductions of those works are created each time they are downloaded through Pwnage Tool and loaded onto the iPhone.33 In addition, as discussed in Section II.B.2 above, the jailbroken OS enables pirated copies of Apple copyrighted content and other third party content such as games and applications to play on the iPhone, resulting in further infringing uses of copyrighted works and diminished incentive to create those works in the first place. In sum, the jailbreaking of the iPhone that would be permitted by the proposed Class #1 exemption in 5A and 11A would result in infringing uses of copyrighted works. It would involve the creation, distribution, and copying of unauthorized modified versions of the bootloader and OS, and it would facilitate and encourage the making, distribution, and use of infringing copies of copyrighted material such as games and applications, owned by both Apple and third parties, that run only on jailbroken phones. The proposed exemption therefore does not satisfy the fundamental prerequisite of the statute that it aid “noninfringing uses” of copyrighted works and should be rejected.

It goes on and on but hopefully you get the idea. So what do you think? Will Apple now go after the Dev Team for their Jailbreaking software, QuickPWN and PWNage Tool? Lawyers will be the ones handling this one and it should be interesting to pay close attention to this.

[ViaGizmodo]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Sez iPhone Jailbreaking is Illegal