US Government Declares iPhone Jailbreaking Legal

z3rostr1fe

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Ummm.... There's something wrong about it... Hmm......... Did the source of the news checked it thoroughly? :O
 

Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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This means I can play games on my mac using cracks 'cause Wine dislikes a lot of DRM LEGALLY?! Whoo! I'm going to go get Assassin's Creed!
Or maybe not, actually. I didn't much care for it when I tried it on my 360... Still, I could. And it tastes sweet.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Every little bit helps, I am still hoping for changes/repeals on the current DRM laws and instead of laws making it illegal to bypass copy protection, to make it illegal to place DRM on software. :)

Hey, what can I say, I grew up with computers like the C-64 and such when making backup copies was actually encouraged and recommended. I see being able to back up software this way as being one of the rights you have from buying it to protect your investment if nothing else.
 

oktalist

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Thankyou, Electronic Frontier Foundation. [http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26]
 

Icehearted

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Chamale said:
You buy it, do what you want with it. I'm glad the government understands that today, though not all days.
That's how it used to be, but these days all companies want more control. You can't connect to XBL unless you install NXE, which causes older systems like mine to slow down substantially. I can't try taking online elsewhere either. In these respects MS owns my system as much as I do because they dictate how it's used pretty much as much as I can.

It also goes to software, movies, etc. If I wanted to lend a movie to a friend, used to be that was okay, now it's technically illegal (though not really enforced). Technically, it's against the law for a family to watch a movie they've purchased unless all viewing members have paid for the same movie.

Big business has a say in how laws are made, laws will be made to favor them over the consumer. The DMCA is a prime and perfect example of this. It's the same evil that lobbyists use to keep pharmaceuticals expensive, and led to attempts to patent genomes.

I'm out before I rage.....
 

pyrus7

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Unrulyhandbag said:
you Americans get to circumnavigate security mobile devices eh? Would that include PSP and DS?
As far as I am reading it correctly, the source document only refers to "wireless telephone handsets" and not all mobile devices. Also, the video game ruling only refers to "video games accessible on personal computers."
 

Steve the Pocket

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Mar 30, 2009
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Nevermind iPhones; what effect does this ruling have on making Hackintoshes?

Icehearted said:
I am still hoping for changes/repeals on the current DRM laws and instead of laws making it illegal to bypass copy protection, to make it illegal to place DRM on software. :)
Even if they could get support for that, there's no way it would work. How would you define "DRM"? Would things like Steam have to be shut down? Because having the games tied to your account has major benefits in the multiplayer scene that have nothing to do with copy protection. What about 30-day trial software? Wouldn't this outlaw whatever they do to prevent you from just reinstalling it every month?

Icehearted said:
Hey, what can I say, I grew up with computers like the C-64 and such when making backup copies was actually encouraged and recommended.
Ha ha ha ha. Apparently you aren't aware that not only did a lot of software companies employ hardware-level copy protection on their disks, the way they did it actually caused legitimate use of their software (the original disk, not a copy) to break your disk drive if you used it too much. This is why it's very hard to find functional Commodore disk drives secondhand now. (Well, that and the fact that worn-out and unreadable disks have the same effect, which most probably are by this point.)

Icehearted said:
Technically, it's against the law for a family to watch a movie they've purchased unless all viewing members have paid for the same movie.
[citation needed]
 

Starke

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Jamash said:
John Funk said:
The ruling also said that it was legal to crack DRM on computer and videogames, provided that it was for the purpose of "testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities." In other words, if your new DRM makes a user's computer vulnerable to attacks, it's fair game for people to breach it.
How tenuous is that definition of "vulnerabilities"?

Could one argue that having a Steam account makes you vulnerable to having that account hacked, therefore it would be perfectly legal to crack your games to run without Steam?

On an unrelated note, what bearing, if any, will this new ruling have on Sony's 'Other OS' court case? Could this new legal precedent be used by either side to support their case?
Strictly speaking this isn't actually a new interpretation... Well, the security vulnerabilities thing is. One of the elements of the DMCA allows for bypassing a DRM to improve system interoperability, which is exactly what people do when they jailbreak an iPhone or if they were to get an alternate OS installed on the PS3. This is something that's been protected on the user side since 1998.

Now, cracking Steam content? That's a maybe, you'd need someone with more familiarity with he DMCA than I have to tell you for certain.
Steve the Pocket said:
Nevermind iPhones; what effect does this ruling have on making Hackintoshes?
I've never seen that term before, but if it's hacking the Mac OS to run on a non-apple system, that's always been an exemption from the DMCA.
Steve the Pocket said:
Icehearted said:
I am still hoping for changes/repeals on the current DRM laws and instead of laws making it illegal to bypass copy protection, to make it illegal to place DRM on software. :)
Even if they could get support for that, there's no way it would work. How would you define "DRM"? Would things like Steam have to be shut down? Because having the games tied to your account has major benefits in the multiplayer scene that have nothing to do with copy protection. What about 30-day trial software? Wouldn't this outlaw whatever they do to prevent you from just reinstalling it every month?
It's a little more apocalyptic than that. The Region coding on DVDs has been protected under the DMCA as a DRM. Which means, if you were to outlaw DRMs wholesale, that would (theoretically) be the end of DVD sales. Every DVD on the market would have to be reissued again from scratch. New hardware would be needed across the board, not because they couldn't read the unencrypted disks, but because they would still be set up in association with the now illegal DRM scheme. And this isn't even getting into issues like how Microsoft would have to reissue their entire library for the 360. Yeah... that's not happening.

So, yeah, I'm with Steve om this one Ice. You may not like DRMs for whatever reason, but they do serve a number of necessary roles. And, so far as it goes, there've always been legal options in bypassing them.
Steve the Pocket said:
Icehearted said:
Hey, what can I say, I grew up with computers like the C-64 and such when making backup copies was actually encouraged and recommended.
Ha ha ha ha. Apparently you aren't aware that not only did a lot of software companies employ hardware-level copy protection on their disks, the way they did it actually caused legitimate use of their software (the original disk, not a copy) to break your disk drive if you used it too much. This is why it's very hard to find functional Commodore disk drives secondhand now. (Well, that and the fact that worn-out and unreadable disks have the same effect, which most probably are by this point.)
My recollection was, with the C64 there was a range at the outer edge of the disk that could be read, but not written to, and attempting to write to it would damage the drive. Of course, even just reading it would put an additional strain on the drive, and Commodore gleefully used this to ensure people weren't copying disks at home.

Now, what Ice is remembering correctly (at least as far as I recall from growing up at about the same time) was the perception back then, that copying disks was legal, and should be encouraged, to ensure there were backups, and if your friend happened to borrow a backup, so what? But it was never legal, nor legally encouraged.
Steve the Pocket said:
Icehearted said:
Technically, it's against the law for a family to watch a movie they've purchased unless all viewing members have paid for the same movie.
[citation needed]
Yeah... no. Okay, so, there's the prohibition on public exhibition (I think it's "exhibition," anyway) which you'll see on a warning screen for almost any DVD you purchase. What this means is, you can't slap the DVD up in front of attendees at a convention, you can't sell tickets to a viewing using the DVD, you can't run it at a neighborhood BBQ for everyone to see. When you're in your living room with your family and friends, that's not a public exhibition. So, yeah, you're fine.

One exception: teachers get an "educational" exemption. There are still limitations, but, basically it's legal to show a film to your class.
 

FinalDream

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Apr 6, 2010
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SODAssault said:
Well, that's good news for anyone that bought an iPhone
Nope. This changes nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Apple are still going to void warranties and refuse repairs to those who bring custom firmware iphones into the apple store and they are still going to close unlocking loopholes. All this means is apple cannot take legal action against you for the unlocking. Which they do not even bother with now.
 

Hashime

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And of course Canada is taking the opposite side of this decision, restricting it's citizens to no end.
 

Unrulyhandbag

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pyrus7 said:
Unrulyhandbag said:
you Americans get to circumnavigate security mobile devices eh? Would that include PSP and DS?
As far as I am reading it correctly, the source document only refers to "wireless telephone handsets" and not all mobile devices. Also, the video game ruling only refers to "video games accessible on personal computers."
really? seems a bit odd as distinctions go. "feel free to strip the protection off your locked in proprietary computer, but only if it's portable and got a cellular antenna" it may as well say "don't bother thinking about suing jail-breakers Apple"
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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I wonder what this will do for the always on drm in some games these days, more than a few people are concerned about their computer's security with such connections given how easily some companies and their servers can be hacked.

If only this ruling was in effect before Sony had their rootkit fiasco a few years back.
 

Woodsey

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Furburt said:
That crack DRM thing is very interesting. Would there be a way to argue that, I wonder, to use that in such a way that you'd be able to crack things like Ubisofts DRM as long as you've bought it legally? I'm not sure.
As long as you're not pirating the entire game (something I'm firmly against) then I see no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to download a cracked .exe. It's there to "stop" piracy, and you've proven you're not a pirate by buying it.
 

Roboto

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Remember guys saying cracking DRM for security is legal: while it may be legal, EULA. EULA. Remember that thing you didn't read that said don't reverse engineer this? EULA.