U.S. Government To Try And Make 'Jailbreaking' Legal

[exdeath]

Far too often these DRM debates focus on the wrong thing. Lets not forget the root purpose of DRM. You can burry it under DeCSS, jail breaking, hacking, cracking, copying, modifying, circumventing, etc, all day long, and focus on criminalizing jail breaking and reverse engineering.

Lets not forget jail breaking and reverse engineering are not the crimes in and of themselves. Stealing is, and using those methods to facilitate stealing is. Just like a gun is perfectly legal, but using it to murder is not. If a person doesn't murder, you have no case at all, period. You can't go to prosecute them on stand alone charges anyway just because they have a gun.

If the user bought the software, all of the above becomes completely moot and meaningless. Over zealous DRM enforcement and judicial activisim to "enforce copyright law" is completely missing the point if there isn't a related theft. Criminalizing the potential to pirate is a joke, as would be criminalizing guns because of their potential.

TLDR: do whatever the hell you want to your property and laugh in court when they bring up DMCA or copyright infringement when you bring a box of all your original CDs, DVDs, App store purchase history, etc.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I agree, if you want to program your own ROM with ZERO Apple code and install that on your iPhone more power to you.

You don't understand my position.

Let me put it this way. If I buy a Adobe Photoshop CD off craigslist and then use a crack (after all, I am only modifying "a little code") to run the application is that ok?

What if I take a DVD and remove the FBI warning and then make copies of it? All I did was modify it "a little".

If I buy a copy of OS X and want to install it on my own hardware can I do that? Nope. The courts ruled that wasn't ok.
(note: courts > regulators)

You don't own software. You own a license to operate that software. It is a bad precedent to say that it is ok to take someones property (software) and modify it for your own use without their permission.

Please stop citing the court ruling over the installation of OSX as a precedent for PERSONAL use. The ruling was against selling non apple computers with OSX. You've brought that up quite a few times, it is clear you have no idea what you are talking about.


Why do you come up with completely flawed analogies? Buying from Craigslist? A better one would be buying Photoshop direct from Adobe then circumventing the copy protection. Every iPhone was sold by Apple at some point, nothing is shady about the sale of iPhones like your analogy was. Why do you care what the person does with the software when it's for their own personal use.

Do you have a hard time understanding the differences between personal use, and distribution/sales? You seem to not make any distinction when there definitely is one legally. It is not bad precedent to allow a person to modify software that was bought. They bought it!!!!!!!! They're not distributing it on their own without the person's permission, they are using the software as they see fit. The risk that someone will modify your code that you sold them, for personal use, is simply another cost of operating.

Think about inventions in the past that ended up being used in a manner not intended by the creator. Imagine if the inventors sued the people using their inventions "improperly." We'd have no music industry. No recorded music. Edison was extremely opposed to his phonographs being used for music rather than for dictation or business use (recording meetings). Software is no different. Software is just a less tangible thing than physical inventions.

Copyright protection is not some ideology, it was not created based on some morality that stealing someone's work is naughty. It was created to protect the financial interests of innovators just barely enough so that they will still be motivated to innovate.

You are a frightening individual, who clearly places no value on the items he buys. You are perfectly ok with "renting" something that you bought, and having zero rights when it comes to choosing what you want to do with it.