While Apple thought they would lobby to ensure that ‘jailbreaking’ (or placing your phone under your own control instead of that of Steve Jobs) violates copyright, since the process purportedly requires they use parts of the Apple bootloader in order to ensure it’s circumvention of Apples “lockdown” on apps and other features.

“When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses,” Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, wrote in the ruling approved by the Librarian of Congress.

This ruling is great — first of all, it solidifies that the CONSUMER is the owner of the cellphone, and once purchased, should be under your control.  If you wish, you can ‘unlock’ it to run applications you desire, or as far as I can see, you can unlock a phone to use it on your carrier of choice.

Steve will have to figure out a new approach to aggravate people’s lives aside from locking their phones, utilizing undefined rules for app store qualification, or testing the latest phone with a previous model’s case, not allowing them to fully test the reception issues experienced with a traditional death grip (or simply said, holding your phone securely).

It’s a good day!

Source:  Computerworld