[Fed-Talk] US rules jailbreaking tablets is illegal
[Fed-Talk] US rules jailbreaking tablets is illegal
- Subject: [Fed-Talk] US rules jailbreaking tablets is illegal
- From: Jeffrey Walton <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2012 15:03:27 -0400
I find it interesting we don't have exemptions for Security Testing
and Evaluation (ST&E)....
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2220251/us-rules-jailbreaking-tablets-is-illegal
THE UNITED STATES Librarian of Congress has ruled that jailbreaking
tablets remains off limits, although jailbreaking smartphones remains
legal.
Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and a number of other high profile
electronics makers rely on walled garden policies to generate cash
from their respective app stores, all of which are protected by the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Now the Libraran of Congress,
which has the authority to grant exceptions to the DMCA has reiterated
that jailbreaking smartphones is not illegal.
Back in 2010, the Librarian of Congress ruled that jailbreaking
smartphones was legal only when users owned multiple devices and
wanted to be able to read ebooks on all of them. This was based on the
fact that devices implement different user accessibility features,
however the practicalities of owning multiple tablets made this
largely academic for most people who didn't have several hundred
dollars burning a hole in their pockets.
Apple's IOS has long been the focus for clever researchers to foil the
firm's attempts to keep its users within the confines of the App
Store, with the company and researchers playing a multi-year game of
cat and mouse. The Librarian of Congress described the exception to
the DMCA as, "It permits the circumvention of computer programs on
mobile phones to enable interoperability of non-vendor approved
software applications (often referred to as "jailbreaking"), but does
not apply to tablets - as had been requested by proponents - because
the record did not support it."
The Librarian of Congress investigated this matter due to the closed
nature of ebook retailing and in particular the use of ebooks, and the
exceptions to the DMCA were proposed by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Mozilla, New
America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative and New Media Rights.
However the Librarian said that the definition of a tablet device
wasn't specific enough to allow for the exception to be extended to
devices such as the Ipad.
Thanks to the EFF and its supporters, the ruling is certainly common
sense with regard to smartphones, even though it falls short of
covering tablets. It is interesting that the Librarian of Congress
wasn't happy with the legal definition of a tablet, and it's uncertain
whether that will have any affect on the growing avalanche of patent
lawsuits that address smartphones and tablets.
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