OFFICIAL: Jailbreak and Root is now 100% legal

[baddress]

New Copyright Office ruling sanctions iPhone jailbreaking - Jul. 26, 2010

The United States Library of Congress has put smartphones on its exception list for copyright infringement. Copyright law states that the intellectual property owner can request the government to hit you with a $2500 fine for "circumvention of technological measures" if you root or jailbreak. This new ruling means that it is 100% legal to root your phone, and additionally it means that neither AT&T nor Apple nor Samsung can try to fine you or press any charges etc for rooting or jailbreaking.

You might void your warranty but beyond that, you can perfectly legally tell AT&T to take their censorship and shove it!

PS- It's also 100% legal to hack your phone to unlock it from your current carrier!

 

[sremick]

Yeah heard this on NPR while I was typing my post about the official GPS fix.

While good news, I don't think the "legal" issue was really the main thing. It's more how difficult the carriers make it, warranty implications, features you lose, etc.

There was something also mentioned about unlocking in the news report, but I didn't catch it. That actually might interest more people.

 

[A.VOID]

This was more of an Apple/ Steve Jobs thing ... not really AT&T.
More egg on Jobs face after the antenna debacle. BWAHAHA

 

[baddress]

It may have been targeted towards Apple but it applies to all phones on all carriers.

 

[baji]

Glad to see this was shot down. I really don't like Jobs' stance that it is the company's (HIS) job to tell you how you can or cannot use a product you own.

 

[tcv]

Does this mean that the warranties will no longer be void if a phone is rooted/jailbroken?

 

[rob989_69]

Technically they can't void a warranty for either of those actions. They have to be able to prove that the root/jailbreak caused the issue. So if you have a hardware issue, they can't terminate the warranty. Now if its software related, yes, possibly. I think it's really up to whomever is working on it.

 

[ardyer]

Does this mean that the warranties will no longer be void if a phone is rooted/jailbroken?

No, a warranty is a contract issue, so it would depend on what the terms of the warranty were as to whether or not it would have been voided.

 

[baddress]

If the warranty stipulates that you do not root/jailbreak the phone, then yes by doing so you have broken the warranty contract and they can deny you warranty coverage. This is a separate issue having to do with copyright of intellectual property.

 

[tekonus]

THIS JUST IN: If they can tell you've jailbroken/rooted your phone when you bring it in for repair, you're warranty is void. In other-words, if you are gonna commit to jailbreaking/rooting... don't be a n00b about it!

 

[mi04se1]

I thought it was funny there was an article on the MSN homepage on how to jailbreak an iphone.