U.S. Copyright Office Considers New Jailbreaking Rules for Smartphones

  • The U.S. Copyright Office is deliberating whether to allow Americans to jailbreak their mobile phones as an exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
  • An exception was granted in 2010 for mobile phones and must be reauthorized every three years by both the Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress. The exception must be balanced against the potential harm that increased piracy might occur.
  • “Jailbreaking and rooting are techniques used to get past manufacturer-installed roadblocks that prevent users from having full control over their devices,” explains Wired. “Every three years, the U.S. Copyright Office entertains requests to create temporary loopholes in the law that makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy.”
  • For the moment, regulators appear to agree that jailbreaking phones may be necessary to allow users to run the apps they desire. Still, Apple has argued in the past that this may ruin its business model.
  • Advocates are also looking at expanding the ability to jailbreak tablets and game consoles. Regulators are more skeptical about the need to do so on consoles. Moreover, they appear to be concerned that doing so on tablets “might jeopardize” copyrighted content, especially on e-readers.

2 Comments

  1. Regulators are also looking at a proposal to allow breaking of the CSS encryption that protects DVDs. This would allow filmmakers to copy short clips for reuse. The movie studios are opposed to this since movies are now being streaming and sold online. Plus the public technically does not own but only licenses the movies they buy on DVDs.
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/feds-considering-allowing-dvd-encryption-cracking/

  2. Regulators are also looking at a proposal to allow breaking of the CSS encryption that protects DVDs. This would allow filmmakers to copy short clips for reuse. The movie studios are opposed to this since movies are now being streaming and sold online. Plus the public technically does not own but only licenses the movies they buy on DVDs.
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/feds-considering-allowing-dvd-encryption-cracking/

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