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Apple Claims That Jail-Breaking Is Illegal
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 13, 2009 01:39 PM
from the never-underestimate-the-power-of-greed dept.
from the never-underestimate-the-power-of-greed dept.
rmav writes "Apple has finally made a statement about jail-breaking. They try to sell the idea that it is a copyright infringement and DMCA violation. This, despite the fact (as the linked article states) that courts have ruled that copying software while reverse engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software. I cannot help but think that the recent flood of iPhone cracked applications is responsible for this. Before that, Apple was quietly ignoring the jailbreak scene. Now, I suppose that in the future we may only install extra applications on our iPhones as ad hoc installs using the SDK, and if we want turn-by-turn directions, tethering, and the like, we have to compile these apps by ourselves? Maybe we should go and download the cydia source code and see what we can do with it."
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Mobile: iPhone Jailbreaking Still Going Strong 166 comments
snydeq writes "Despite the productivity promises of Apple's forthcoming 3.0 firmware update, jailbreaking should continue to push the iPhone's productivity envelope, as users increasingly demand the Holy Grail of smartphone power use: applications that run in the background, InfoWorld reports. Copy and paste, video recording and streaming, Internet tethering, and content search are just a few of the features over which iPhone users have sought to jailbreak their devices — a practice Apple itself has done little to crack down on. Jailbreak apps circumvent hardware and software restrictions that Apple says ensure a consistent, responsive user interface and optimal battery endurance. In particular, jailbroken phones can run apps in the background, a capability Apple reserves for its own apps but prohibits in third-party programs. Jay Freeman, creator of the Cydia iPhone installer and Cydia Store, however, believes a free-market approach is the best way to satisfy power users' demands for features without compromising the performance of their iPhones. And given Apple's App Store overcrowding, it seems likely that jailbroken phones and app venues like Cydia Store will continue to be popular with iPhone customers and developers, even after the 3.0 firmware ships."
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Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do you buy your gasoline from?
I don't buy it. I bike, walk and use public transit.
.I bet you think you're clever though, with your pithy "Who do you buy your gasoline from" crap.
Like living with ideals is an impossible and ridiculous thing that nobody really does and no one is really expected to do. Personally, I disassociate myself permanently from people and organizations I don't like. Won't work for em, won't buy from em, won't be involved, won't help make them strong. Hell, I didn't like what my government has been doing last number of years, so I stopped paying my taxes. Almost went to jail for that, but my hands are clean. I did not help them.
It's called taking responsibility, maybe you ought to look into it.
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Just because you don't agree with elected government officials doesn't give you the right to stop paying taxes and push the cost onto other citizens under some retarded form of social protest. By living in the country, you are accepting the whole package, including agreeing paying taxes, regardless of who is elected.
If you don't like it, legally fight for change or GTFO. You can't bury your head in the sand and just ignore things you don't like.
Parent
Re:Someone call the wambulance (Score:5, Interesting)
What are you 12 years old? It sounds like you think you're the clever one. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of grey and sometimes you have to compromise and work with people and organizations you don't like to make progress.
Yep, that's the working model of our culture, all right. And it is full of fail. "Working within the system" doesn't do it. I have this argument with a particular friend of mine almost weekly, and he's a well-meaning guy as I'm sure you are, but he's wrong and so are you.
For God's sake open a newspaper, it's all over the front page. That bit about the "economic meltdown?" Or the "climate crisis," the "energy crisis," and on and on and on? It's because people decided it would be easier to just cut a deal. Our practicality, our comprimises, our working with people and organizations we don't like, has completely fucked us.
Parent
Means nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple can claim whatever they want, and can sue whoever they want for DMCA violations. C&D's are freely distributable.
Whether or not that claim has the weight of law is up to a judge, not a marketing director.
Re:Means nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
And if Apple Corp. was suing you with some strange interpretation of the DMCA today and the legal dream team it must be able to afford...
What you be confident that the judge would sort it all out?
Parent
No More Cowbell (Score:5, Funny)
Look, it's very simple.
Saying that jail-breaking an iPhone is a violation of the DMCA, is the same thing as claiming that if I own a Blue Oyster Cult mp3, and edit the file to add even MORE COWBELL, I would be committing a DMCA violation.
Parent
Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a simple-minded person. So correct me if I am misunderstanding this situation:
Apple makes a little plastic box with an LCD screen, a battery, and a circuit board and sells it to people in retail stores. And they claim that there is some kind of law that prohibits anyone who buys this little plastic box from opening it, determining how it works, and telling other people how to make it work better. Unless, of course, they pay Apple more money beyond the money that was paid for the little plastic box at the retail store.
If this is a correct interpretation of the situation, then I have to agree that this company is delusional and that they will have a difficult time adjusting to 21st-century reality. These marketing major fantasies may have had some credibility in the 20th-century, but they are meaningless as the economy collapses.
Reality is reality. If you are exploring the circuitry and firmware of a little plastic box and someone comes up to you and tells you that you are engaged in illegal activity by doing so, politely simply to ask them to go away and something constructive with their short time on Earth. If they persist or attempt to physically prevent you from your examinations of your property (your little plastic box and circuit board), then just shoot them. Don't even give it a second thought. There are far too many people in the world, and the fewer delusional assholes running around making trouble for the rest of us, the better. They won't be missed. When even Republicans are talking about economic collapse, then you know that It's a new world out there. Anything that you can do to make the world a better place for reality-based people to live in (such as sharing iPhone knowledge and applications), to more welcome you are in the new world of the post-20th century fantasies.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Funny)
then just shoot them. Don't even give it a second thought.
Then continue your study of the internal workings of the iPhone from pound-me-in-the-ass prison ;)
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
No kidding eh! The occasional /. psychopaths sometime worry me. I know most of them in reality wouldn't even stand up and complain at a McDonalds about getting the wrong drink, but I wonder if maybe some of them really are THAT batshit crazy and would actually go shoot up the Apple HQ because they can't jailbreak their iPhone.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
And they claim that there is some kind of law that prohibits anyone who buys this little plastic box from opening it, determining how it works, and telling other people how to make it work better.
Depending on the circumstances, the DMCA can do exactly that. However, there are some allowances for reverse engineering and if memory serves correct there is some case law regarding cell phones specifically which says that it's OK to open them.
I could be wrong on the second part but my point is that it's not black and white.
This is a lot like Nintendo saying it's illegal to dump a ROM. The situation as described by written and case law is more complicated, but it serves the company's interest to *basically* lie to people, in order to fight what they see as *basically* piracy.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Informative)
Apple makes a little plastic box, sells the boxes and licenses the software. People modify the software to allow you to write to the 'secured' portions of the device storage, thus allowing third-party software to be installed and device functionality to be modified. Apple turns a blind eye.
Jailbreaking folks come up with a way to unlock the radio baseband, making it possible to use a SIM card from any provider in the phone. Cellular companies who want exclusivity complain when phones are unlocked to work on any network. Apple complies with the cell companies' demands and makes changes to prevent unlocking. Apple continues to turn a blind eye to the jailbreaking itself, though does warn folks that if you modify the software they can't be responsible for supporting the modified OS.
Apple releases a new version of the OS containing a locked-down sandbox for third-party apps, allowing people to install apps without jailbreaking. People continue to jailbreak the phones to use private APIs (allowing tethering) or do things like have apps that run in the background and so on. Apple continues to turn a blind eye, and apps exist in both realms.
Someone in the jailbreaking community comes out with a way to basically point-and-click 'crack' software bought from the App Store, and allow people to send it around freely for jailbroken devices. Some app authors find up to 2/3rds (especially for games) of their users are using pirated copies that weren't paid for. Much fuss and to-do on blogs, news sites, etc. App authors complain to Apple that there needs to be Something Done! Oh noes!
Apple, after a year and a half of turning a blind eye to the jailbreaking scene, suddenly makes an abrupt about-face and says 'Jailbreaking is verboten.'
Now, none of us are in the heads of the Apple folks behind this decision, so we can't say for certain whether the sudden shift is due to the EFF's claims, or Crackulous, or maybe just random whim or signs read in tea leaves in the Apple cafeteria. But the timing and sudden nature of Apple's shift here does make a connection to the Crackulous brouhaha at the least a strong possibility.
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Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright (it least in it's original form) governed the reproduction and distribution only. If you purchase a legally produced copy of the work, then it is then yours to do with as you see fit. Saying that you can't modify software that you've legally purchased is akin to saying you can't doodle in the margins of a book you bought. And no, just because the publisher decided to print "THOU SHALT NOT DOODLE IN THYN BOOK." on the first page doesn't change anything.
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Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
And see that's where it gets a bit hazy, and questionable legally.
I purchased a device that had software on it - or I could have purchased a CD, or even a file. That is, and always has, been purchasing a copy of the object. And THAT is what copyright law allows. It doesn't allow producers to sell "rights to use" something - it allows them the legal right to copy it, and then distribute it as they want (which usually means selling it). Beyond that though they lose control of how you use it. YOU certainly can't copy it again except where copyright law allows via fair use, but you already own that copy and can do with it as you please, without any regard to the original copyright holder because again, that copy has been sold.
Again, copyright law was created primarily when books were what was talked about, and hence they make a perfect analogy. IT DOESN'T MATTER that after the publisher sees that people are ignoring their first page directive not now doodle the book. If they now decide to claim that "You're not really purchasing the book anymore. You're purchasing a license to use it and the pages are just a delivery method.", then they still have just as little (ie, none) capability of saying that you can't doodle in your book. Because when applied sensibly, the "only a license, not a copy" argument is complete and utter bullshit.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I am. Looks like a sale, quacks like a sale, it's a sale. If it were a license, it would have to be established under ordinary contract law, with all those nasty legal formalities and meetings of the mind and such -- given that neither Apple (based on the Safari for Windows EULA snafu) nor most of the users ("just click Agree and the box goes away") actually reads the thing, it'd be pretty hard to establish that.
Unfortunately, you may be onto something there. According to the 2600 case, it doesn't matter whether the work was sold or not. No one argues that DVDs are licensed rather than sold. Yet the Circuit Court in the 2600 case decided that for a purchaser to circumvent the copy protection to gain access to a copy of a work _which he owned_ was a violation of the DMCA.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
Business classes or Law classes would help you understand that sales neither walk nor quack and will go a long way to clarifying how businesses interact. Like it or not, they are selling licenses and it is perfectly legal. The only times it really has gotten beaten up is when they try to add illegal crap to the license (such as removing First Sale) and trying to prevent me from selling my license to someone else when I don't need it. (See AutoCad)
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
Phones run software. Software is copyrighted. Modifying the software - that is, creating a derivative work - is unauthorized and may well represent a breach of copyright law.
No. Let me help:
Distributing an unauthorized derivative work may well represent a breach of copyright law.
First sale law dictates that I am free to make whatever modifications I like to any software I've bought. The EULA attempts to form a contract with the user, so the actual legal question (IANAL but come on, we've been discussing this with the assistance of the occasional lawyer for many years now) is whether a EULA is binding. My understanding is that this is still very much up in the air. Right now it is, I believe, the fulcrum upon which the Apple vs. Psystar case rests. I think most of us understand that you're not permitted to redistribute someone else's copyrighted material absent the express permission to do so (which is why the GPL only grants freedoms and does not restrict them - at least as compared to unlicensed copyrighted media, if not material released into the public domain. But there I go on a tangent again.)
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, Fine,
Um, Guys, It's time to start the iPhone linux distro.
I suggest we call it "Screw you apple" but I'm willing to be voted down on the name.
The logo on the other hand WILL be an apple with a giant screw completely through it on a jaunty angle.
Meet you at sourceforge.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Informative)
Modifying the software - that is, creating a derivative work - is unauthorized and may well represent a breach of copyright law.
Um, no.
distributing a derivative work that is unauthorized is a breach of copyright law. Making one for yourself is not.
Parent
Re:Apple's reality-distortion field (Score:5, Funny)
Yes it is...
Microsoft uses both of them to make people feel pain
Parent
Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
..... Because they could potentially make no money off the apps that are installed via jailbreaking. The rest of their reasons are just a smokescreen. Plain and simple.
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can no longer innovate, then it's time to litigate.
Parent
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. From the page about the Cycorder app [iphonehacks.com] linked to in TFA:
"The free native iPhone app appears to be much better video recording app than iPhone Video Recorder which costs $19.95. "
Parent
Jailbreaking != Unlocking (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the developer "license" something like $100? Plus, even with a $.99 app at 70%, Apple is still making ~$.30 for providing very little disk space and bandwidth to download it. It all adds up.
Parent
Re:Apple has a problem with this...... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just silly. When a giant corporation like Apple makes a decision, the underlying motive is profit. Always. Hell, even when they do stuff like donate money to charity, they do it because they expect the good will they'll get from doing it to be worth more than they're donating. That's just how big companies operate.
I don't know why they're doing this, but I'm 100% certain they're doing it because they think it'll help them make more money.
Parent
That's an oversimplification.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just how big companies operate.
That's actually not true at all. Corporations are collections of people, and within them are coalitions and constituencies just like any other institution. Quite often, you'll have someone that wants a corporation to do something simply because they think it is cool and they really don't care about the profitability or business climate of it. They must justify some action in that regard, to cover their rears, but their mental game has already made the leap that they want to do something with the corporation just because they think it is cool.
So, when a company builds a school somewhere, sponsors a race, hires a speaker who climbed mt everest, invests in some wild technology, or any of the other things that corporations do, they do it because they think it is cool, and then they cover their rears to the shareholders and directors by inventing some elliptical story about profitability.
In fact, to many of the world's top business leaders, the whole point of the corporation is to exist to provide some social order and some revenue so that it can fund the private ambitions of its leaders. I mean, come on, do you really think if IBM funds something like a big art exhibit, they really sincerely think that doing so will yield a return? No, they do it because the board of IBM likes art, and that's that.
It's good to be a CEO.
Parent
Apple Lock-in... (Score:4, Insightful)
When marketing and Reality Distortion (tm) fails, call in the jackbooted thugs and sue the dissidents into submission.
This, more than anything, is why Apple will never get one coin from my wallet.
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
He refuses to reward the company by purchasing their products because of their business tactics.
Why does that preclude him from using code that Apple has given away?
Parent
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it looks hypocritical to accept free stuff from the company while boycotting products.
Only if you frame it that way. You can accept their freedom-friendly offerings while rejecting the anti-freedom products without a logical disconnect.
Parent
Re:Apple Lock-in... (Score:5, Insightful)
It may look hypocritical to you, but it isn't. It is also not our fault apple contributed a couple of FLOSS projects, every major company has done that, and I don't really think it should make them immune to criticism or boycott that's just ridiculous.
Parent
Hehehe (Score:5, Funny)
One need only transpose Apple's arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.
Remember kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something right doesn't mean it is legal.
Re:Remember kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong.
Also, don't get caught.
Parent
Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
First off, this is coming now not because of some perceived "recent flood of iPhone cracked applications," but because the Copyright Office asked for exemption proposals to the DCMA on December 28, 2008, and the EFF filed one for jailbreaking. RTFA and RTFlegalbrief.
Second, while not effectively the same, what Apple is doing is trying to prevent jailbreaking from being ruled legal, not trying to have it ruled illegal. Being a non-lawyer, I'd at first say this is the same thing, but it is different. Just because something isn't ruled explicitly legal doesn't make it illegal, but would definitely help if some day someone wanted to sue over a jailbreak.
Engadget has a nice write-up on this from someone who has legal training if the three or four of you out there who don't just read the summary and post would like another perspective - http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/13/apple-and-eff-spar-over-iphone-jailbreaking-and-the-dmca// [engadget.com]
Playing devil's advocate here... (Score:5, Insightful)
So Apple is doing this to protect its income for apps on the iPhone store. That also means it is protecting the income of application *developers* who sell through the iPhone store. Sure, they could try to sell apps only for jailbroken phones, but with all the gray areas around it legally (at least in the public's eye) and with the immense ease of use of the iPhone store (click and download right now!), they would much rather go Apple's route. Right? So Apple could be covering its ass, making sure they don't get attacked from iPhone developers who have trekked through the process to make "legit" apps but could be someday losing out to jailbroken competitors.
Or else it's just about the money.
Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another company taking the high road of suing their customers for profit!
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
An Honest Question (Score:5, Insightful)
How is jailbreaking an iPhone different from removing DRM from a game?
Am I wrong that Jailbreaking an iPhone simply allows you to use more applications on it?
Is this not "Fair Use?"
Is it true that there are free, non-stolen programs that wouldn't normally run on an iPhone without it being Jailbroken?
Or is Jailbreaking simply a means to running pirated iPhone apps?
Re:An Honest Question (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all nuances. Provided that modifying the software on your own device is considered fair use (and I would presume that unless you are violating something else like FCC regs it is), then you - personally - are not guilty of violating the DMCA. However, anyone who helps you is violating the DMCA. The DMCA is an odd law in that it specifically preserves the right to fair use, while making it illegal to assist anyone in exercising fair use.
In this way it is the same as DVD decryption software: legal to decrypt your disc for fair use (including standard playback in licensed players and copying for backup or format shifting), not legal to sell or traffic in the software or any instructions on how to do so.
I don't own an iPhone, primarily because the applications - especially the free (beer and speech) ones - are far more limited than for the wmobile market, and because I have an investment in wmobile software I would have to abandon if I switch. That and the iPhone can't do GPS if you're out of cell service (or couldn't as of 4 months ago when I upgraded my phone)...and that's where I need it the most.
Parent
Is this a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is about one thing: control.
New Apple ad... (Score:5, Funny)
"Want to get sued? There's an app for that."
--
Toro }B^>
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Informative)
Begins!? Apple is the only major vendor to have been actively boycotted by the FSF for their efforts to obstruct freedom, force lock-in and undermine competition. Even Microsoft[*] hasn't managed to reach that high water mark. Of course, Apple has come a long way since then, and many of our younger readers may not even remember what they were like at their worst. ("Look-and-Feel" anyone?) Still, those of us who remember the bad old Apple keep a wary eye on the new-and-(mostly-)improved Apple.
[*] FSF members may not run MS OSes, but they do actively support building software to run under MS OSes, and will even accept patches to help their software run better on MS OSes.
Parent
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember well the 'special' tools required to open a Mac's case.
Parent
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of Apple's webkit enhancements are now proprietary and not submitted back. ⦠Further, the little they do submit back has given them leverage to control the package against public interest: I.e. Webkit rejected support for Ogg/Theora+Vorbis citing Apple. (Apple is a holder of MPEG LA licensed patents).
Go check the gcc mailing list archives. No apple employee is permitted to come in contact with any GPLv3 licensed source code, they had to unsubscribe from GCC-patches mailing lists and have requests people not send patches to the main gcc mailing list.
Apple is an exploiter of free software. Sometimes giving back is in their interest, but don't let that mislead you into thinking that they are a supporter.
Parent
Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has never been as litigious as Apple. Apple may make vastly overwhelmingly superior products to MS, but they have also always been more evil.
The only way Apple can become the new Microsoft, is if they stop suing people so much, and also make their stuff crash a lot more often. As things are right now, there's just no comparison. The two companies' suckiness are totally different.
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Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has long been far WORSE than MS. The difference, of course, is that your life is extremely unlikely to be impacted by avoiding Apple's products.
Parent
Re:This is like bitching and moaning that... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's like Toyota suing you if you tried to make your own NOx kit for your own use.
If monkeying around voids the warranty, fine. If monkeying around is outlawed...then only outlaws will have monkeys...er. um. wait.
Parent
Re:This is like bitching and moaning that... (Score:4, Insightful)
The normal demographic buys the iPhone, signs the AT&T contract, and shops at iTunes and the App Store, all as Steve Jobs intended when he created the world.* Only true geeks buy iPhones to crack them, and we know that Apple doesn't care that much about the true geek community. In other words, wrong answer on the motive, although the advice to not buy an iPhone if it isn't what you want is spot on (yeah, it's only common sense, but that's getting darn rare nowadays).
Disclaimer: I have an iPhone, an iPod, and a Macintosh (it sits near one of the Ubuntu computers and gets used now and then). I do, however, generate my own reality distortion field, and don't use Jobs'.
*Yeah, I know Steve didn't really do it, and God only thinks he's Steve Jobs.
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