4 ms·
What ambiguity? It isn't illegal to hack your phone. It is illegal to modify and distribute someone else's copyrighted software to do so, though, and that is
by GHFigs 17y ago
What ambiguity? It isn't illegal to hack your phone. It is illegal to modify and distribute someone else's copyrighted software to do so, though, and that is the only thing that Apple has taken any legal action against.
- eli 17y agoDead wrong. No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent DRM with very few exceptions. It doesn't matter if it's for your own personal use. Doesn't even matter if you actually pirate any software. Simply breaking the locks is illegal. In fact, it makes it illegal to simply create or traffic tools that could be used to circumvent DRM (i.e. modchips, but that could describe a lot of tools)
- jhancock 17y agoyep, thanks. And when I refereed to ambiguity, I was being very kind to the laws and industry that support these aspects of the DMCA. I think if our courts upheld the DMCA to throw a person in jail for hacking their own iPhone to get around Apple's App Store we would see a revolt (against the products and the laws). So they don't go after it as they want the threat to remain.
- GHFigs 17y agoI didn't say anything about DRM. Why do you need to break DRM to hack a phone? To access and modify the copyrighted contents. i.e. "work protected under this title". This was covered to death in the last round of DMCA rulemaking. The fact is that you don't have the right to infringe on Apple's copyright, but all existing jailbreak software does exactly that. If you were to hack your phone without infringing on Apple's copyright, they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on, because as I said, hacking your phone is not illegal.