Jailbreaking the iPhone has always been a thing people speak about in hushed whispers, with furtive glances to check if anyone else is listening. But interestingly, Apple have never actually alleged that it's illegal. Until now that is.
Every three years the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US is open to applications for review and exemptions. This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has applied to have the jailbreaking of iPhones exempted from the Act, and in their response Apple has, for the first time, actually come out and said it believes jailbreaking to be illegal. You can read about it at the EFF's website here.
Personally, I find Apple's arguments ridiculous and support the EFF all the way. But I'm no lawyer (hurrah!) and I expect that one of Apple's arguments, that jailbroken iPhones depend on modified versions of Apple's bootloader and operating system software, may be persuasive. That'll be a pity, because not only will a righteous cause be sent back underground, but the real issues will not actually be debated. They'll instead be drowned in the legal technicalities.
Dear Apple, here's what I don't get. I think Jailbreaking is a fantastic thing for Apple itself! It allows them to support two very different user bases--the majority of casual users who don't want to look under the hood AND the hackers who want to tweak and tune. And Apple can tacitly support that latter group without taking any responsibilty for things going wrong. At the same time, by playing smoke and mirrors implying that jailbreaking is risky (which it really isn't) and might be illegal (which is arguable and untested) they can dissuade too many people from going down that path, but also build up expectation about future iPhone functionality. Meanwhile, even jailbreakers use the AppStore. Wow, what a coup on Apple's part.
And what would happen if Jailbreaking 'broke' tomorrow? Hundreds of thousands of the iPhone's most sophisticated and most demanding users would suddenly be very annoyed. And many of them would walk. Windows Mobile, Blackberry and most likely Google Android would get an influx of hundreds of thousands of power users. These are the movers and shakers of the smartphone world, the people who push forward features and functionality.
The bottom line, Steve, is that you need the jailbreaking community, probably more than it needs you or the iPhone. And we can read between the lines and see that all this pontificating to the DMCA about illegality is not in fact an attempt to get rid of jailbreaking, but just to maintain the status quo which is serving Apple so well.
Every three years the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US is open to applications for review and exemptions. This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has applied to have the jailbreaking of iPhones exempted from the Act, and in their response Apple has, for the first time, actually come out and said it believes jailbreaking to be illegal. You can read about it at the EFF's website here.
Personally, I find Apple's arguments ridiculous and support the EFF all the way. But I'm no lawyer (hurrah!) and I expect that one of Apple's arguments, that jailbroken iPhones depend on modified versions of Apple's bootloader and operating system software, may be persuasive. That'll be a pity, because not only will a righteous cause be sent back underground, but the real issues will not actually be debated. They'll instead be drowned in the legal technicalities.
Dear Apple, here's what I don't get. I think Jailbreaking is a fantastic thing for Apple itself! It allows them to support two very different user bases--the majority of casual users who don't want to look under the hood AND the hackers who want to tweak and tune. And Apple can tacitly support that latter group without taking any responsibilty for things going wrong. At the same time, by playing smoke and mirrors implying that jailbreaking is risky (which it really isn't) and might be illegal (which is arguable and untested) they can dissuade too many people from going down that path, but also build up expectation about future iPhone functionality. Meanwhile, even jailbreakers use the AppStore. Wow, what a coup on Apple's part.
And what would happen if Jailbreaking 'broke' tomorrow? Hundreds of thousands of the iPhone's most sophisticated and most demanding users would suddenly be very annoyed. And many of them would walk. Windows Mobile, Blackberry and most likely Google Android would get an influx of hundreds of thousands of power users. These are the movers and shakers of the smartphone world, the people who push forward features and functionality.
The bottom line, Steve, is that you need the jailbreaking community, probably more than it needs you or the iPhone. And we can read between the lines and see that all this pontificating to the DMCA about illegality is not in fact an attempt to get rid of jailbreaking, but just to maintain the status quo which is serving Apple so well.
1 comment:
Great article. Thanks for clearing some of this up. Hopefully, Apple will ease up a little and see how jailbreaking the iPhone benefits them.
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