Legal News

JailbreakMe released for Apple devices
Mon 2nd Aug 10 - 14:41

Less than a week after the US Library of Congress established the "jailbreaking" of Apple iPhones as "fair use", a plucky hacker yesterday launched a browser-based service to do just that.

JailbreakMe 2.0 will "jailbreak" – unlock from restrictions imposed by the manufacturer – the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad when visited from the device. Last week the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress ruled in favour of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in deeming that the jailbreaking of mobile devices is not illegal, an argument that Apple contested.

During the hearing, a spokesperson for the EFF estimated that "more than a million" iPhone owners have already unlocked their devices "in order to change wireless providers". Now customers climbing the walls of Apple's well-documented "walled garden" approach to devices could easily become unburdened, with the number of jailbroken devices likely to significantly increase. Before browser-based unlocking – JailbreakMe is thought to be the first website to offer such a service – users had to download an application to their computer desktop and go from there.

Early problems are being reported by those using the service. At the time of writing, both MMS and Facetime (the latter iPhone 4 only) are said to be disabled.

Apple has always insisted restrictions placed on its devices – such as those that disallow certain applications entry to the App Store – are necessary to protect the consumer, warning that jailbreaking voids a device's warranty.

A statement released by the company after last week's case read: "Apple's goal has always been to ensure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."

Unlocked Apple devices can be returned to out-of-the-box state by clicking "Restore" when connected to iTunes.

The legality of jailbreaking in the UK is less clear than that in the US because of the lack of legal precedent set inside the EU. Andres Guadamuz, an IT law lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, told Wired UK: "Although you might be breaking Apple's terms and conditions and voiding your warranty, I just can't see how a judge would rule against it."

Keith Arrowsmith, Head of Intellectual Property & Media at Ralli comments:

"Most people would think that when they buy an iPhone, they can use it how they like, but the rights of the owner are limited – especially by Apple and others who promote a closed system as a way to protect the copyrights of third party software and content providers.

If an iPhone owner wants to circumvent the digital rights management (or DRM) system (often called "jailbreaking"), they need to be aware of the effect on the terms of any handset warranty (often declared null and void) and also that their action might be contrary to DRM protection legislation. A recent case in the US helps clarify the position, but here in the UK there is still doubt as to whether breaking DRM protection is legal or not.

The pre-election promises by the coalition government included a review of the UK intellectual property laws in this area, but no action has been taken to date."