Jailbreaking Your Phone
There are two issues that come into play, get a cell phone when it comes to jailbreaking. The first one is done with a phone locked to a particular carrier. Millions of other mobile phone owners would be happy to switch cellular carriers, but do not give up their physical phones. Many others have old cell phones can be sold, but they have a buyer that the same carrier that the phone is found locked in use. This combination of individual phones to specific carriers is called a “prison” and for a long time it was illegal to do mobile prison. But there is no more, at least in the United States.
Since mobile operators began to lock phones to their service, the pirates were resourceful unlock with the software “key” that allows a phone to be used with any cellular carrier. These software keys were taken surreptitiously on the Internet because they were illegal. For more related information, see my companion Unlocked Cell Phones.
The other common question that has to do with jailbreaking is specific to the Apple iPhone. Apple does not permit users to download apps to an iPhone unless they come from the official App Store. As you mentioned, there are lots of other nifty apps available for download, but this requires a modification of the iPhone software called jailbreaking. The JailbreakMe app will help you do that.
The U. S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) made it a crime circumvent (crack) any electronic security feature that the owner of a copyright has added to his work in order to protect it from copying, alteration, or otherwise being used in ways that he does not authorize. The software that locks a phone to a carrier is protected by copyright, so the DCMA applies to it as well as to other creative digital works. So jailbreaking an iPhone was illegal – until July of 2010.
That’s when the Library of Congress announced new rules governing “fair use” of copyright-protected materials, including software like that which locks the iPhone. The DCMA itself charges the Library of Congress with reviewing the ever-evolving state of intellectual property and issuing new rules every three years, if needed, to maintain a balance between the rights of copyright holders and the rights of the public to use intellectual property for which they pay.
The 2010 rules issued by the Library of Congress officially authorize consumers’ ability to:
- Bypass phone locks to enable use of a phone with another cellular carrier
- Bypass phone manufacturers’ software locks in order to download and use applications offered by third parties. Previous, for example, iPhone owners could only download tunes from Apple’s iTunes store.
- Crack technical protections on video game software in order to investigate or correct security problems with the games they have purchased.
- Computer users can now bypass dongles – external hardware keys that plug into computer ports to enable use of copy-protected software – if a dongle no longer works and cannot be replaced.
A professional exemption was for college professors, film students and filmmakers DVD copy protection granted for the purpose of embedding clips for education, to crack or critical commentary purposes. This exemption is made possible, in accordance with the fair-use policy, the reproduction of a limited portion of a copyrighted book, for example, in a critical review, or educational setting.
Blind people are allowed to break copy protection on electronic books so that they can be used with read-aloud software and similar aids.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation deserves a great deal of credit for the enactment of these new protections of consumers’ rights to modify and use the software and hardware that they buy. The EFF effectively lobbied the Library of Congress to respect the age-old principle, “you bought it, you own it.”
Do you have something to say about jailbreaking a mobile phone? Post your comment or question below…
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