“Jailbreaking” to Turn “ILLEGAL” Again: DMCA Rulings Just to Expire: Help for Keeping It Legal

The USA government previously has announced, back in July 2010, the jailbreaking/unlocking of Apple iPhones, and the rooting of Android smartphones as well should be taken as a legal act, if someone does it without intentions of violating copyrights. At that time, tech sites filled their pages with the posts confirming that jailbreaking is no more illegal in the USA then and eliminating the concerns and fears of jailbreakers and even the common users of Apple/Android devices on legal issues related to jailbreaking of a device by providing updated DMCA rulings on the matter.

Apple was highly shocked on this “Jailbreaking is Absolutly Legal” like situation. Apple still believes that jailbreaking actually ruins its all efforts and investments of huge bucks for making their devices free from security issues and bugs. Moreover, Apple argues that no one should be legally allowed to unlock Apple devices for using SIMS of Apple’s unapproved carriers and jailbreak its smartphones and tablets to run third party apps (like Cydia apps) instead of their own apps available on its own App Stores, since it damages company’s revenue and profits.

On these bases, Apple is among the hard critics of jailbreaking/unlocking but remains quiet on seeing courts intentions in favor of jailbreaking community; the company only added a short caution for jailbreakers that the jailbreaking, though officially legal, potentially could void the Warranties of the devices offered by it.

Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.

Now the initial DMCA ruling is near to be expired that alarms jailbreak community that court might again turn jailbreaking illegal, as noted by EFF today.

To avoid from the time when jailbreaking turns illegal, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also lobbying for users to add their voice to compel the United States government to declare once again that jailbreaking an iPhone does not violate the DMCA rulings. The EFF is also in efforts to extend this initial exemption, to be extended to cover tablet devices too as the Apple’s iPad is still uncovered in the original ruling.

A world’s famous jailbreaker and iOS developer, Charlie Miller, is dedicatedly acting as a big advocate for this change and asking his twitter followers to visit the official website of the EFF for adding their voice in the favor of jailbreaking activities.

Want to keep jailbreaking your phone legal? Want to make jailbreaking your iPad legal? Help add exceptions to DMCA:

When one looks inside deeply into this matter, it becomes obvious that a number of his followers believe that the previous ruling is permanent. They also believe that no further action is required in this concern. So, most of them look quite unaware of the legal position of jailbreaking activities and have no knowledge of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

But the remarkable success of Absinthe & Corona  jailbreak tools for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 just released by a group of jailbreakers named “The Dream Team” shows that the jailbreaking is still not only popular but expanding too with the rise of demands for Apple iOs devices. Jailbreaking gives users a comfort of mind since they think that they are not bound to any one and feel free for doing anything they like without any legal obligations. Moreover, thousands of folks are making their livings from unlocking/jailbreaking of Apple or Android devices.

If the DMCA rulings are expired and jailbreaking again becomes illegal in the USA and the rest of the world, it would be a great disaster for jailbreaking community and would result in killing of prosper talent found in the folks related to software industry.

If you are also desirous for continuing jailbreaking as a legal charm and want to see the success of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in this regard, just visit to their official site and send your comments to the Copyright Office through the links provided by the site.