Government Gives the OK To Jailbreak Mobile Phones, More Fair Use Rights
The government has ruled in favor of consumers and educators in a series of rulings. Among the rulings, users who jailbreak mobile phones are not committing a crime. Consumers may also now break copyright protection on DVD’s for non-commercial and educational purposes.
This is a surprising ruling to say the least. On the jailbreaking issue, the government had this to say:
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.
On the DVD front, consumers may now make non-commercial and educational copies of copyrighted works. These exceptions are very limited, and it would be wise to read up on them. This has to be considered a win for the average consumer. Big business has long tried to limit how you can use your own devices. Let’s hope there’s no backtracking on the part of the government.