Andrew (bunnie) Huang (to people who were around during the Xbox1 days, I don’t have to tell who he is …) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation posted an open letter you can sign to the (US) Copyright Office to renew the DMCA jailbreak-exemption for smartphones (which will expire soon) and extend it to all electronic ‘gadgets’ (like tablets, and … videogame consoles):
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You bought it. You own it. Tell the Copyright Office: let me install whatever software I want on my phone, tablet, or video game system.
Dear Ms. Pallante,
Whether it’s patching a security vulnerability or homebrewing video games and apps, people who own smart phones, tablets, and video game systems are finding inventive ways to use and improve their devices. Often users need to gain full administrative access, through a process known as “jailbreaking,” to innovate and take advantage of the device’s full potential.
But right now, jailbreaking a device can lead to legal threats. That’s a vulnerability in the law: we need you to create a “patch” so users who jailbreak devices won’t be at legal risk.
Three years ago, the Copyright Office agreed to create an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that folks could jailbreak their smartphones. But that exemption is about to expire. We need you to renew that exemption and expand it to cover jailbreaking gadgets with similar computation potential. These are all siblings to the PC, yet unlocking their potential as versatile and powerful computers is burdened with legal murkiness.
We need these exemptions to conduct security research on devices to help safeguard everyday users from security threats. Furthermore, users of these products benefit from the flexibility to choose their own operating systems and run independently developed software. We need the law to catch up with how people are using technology.
Jailbreaking is helping to make technology better, more secure, and more flexible. Please defend the rights of users.
Thanks for enabling us to keep technology innovative, secure, and focused on the users.
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If you agree, sign the letter over at: jailbreakingisnotacrime.org
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