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Apple Claims That Jail-Breaking Is Illegal
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."
People never get up in arms about something till it effects them personally. What a load of crap apple.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
..... 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.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
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.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Apple is the new Microsoft.
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
Just because something right doesn't mean it is legal.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
OP's editorializing is just stupid. Apple didn't make this statement because of "...the recent flood of iPhone cracked applications..." They're responding to the claims filed with the Copyright Office.
I really don't understand why anyone would expect Apple to behave differently in response to the EFF's proposal for DMCA exemption.
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.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Yet another company taking the high road of suing their customers for profit!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
No, it's like bitching that Toyota will sue you if you put one in. Sure, they can rule there warranty null and void, but that's all they can do.
How many things do you sue that don't have transparency? I would bet a lot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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?
Don't take this as flamebait... I am looking for honest answers:
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?
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.
THL phish sticks
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.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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.
Apple is about one thing: control.
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.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Apple has always been more proprietary than Mickeysoft! Before OSS gained a real showing outside of academia Mickeysoft was the open, free choice over Apple because at least you could choose the hardware.
And yet... so many Mickeysoft hating OSS fans (me) also love Apple (not me). Not even PocketPC locks it's users into the one Mickeysoft marketplace. Leave it to Apple to come up with that.
Honestly, if you bought an iPhone, turn in your geek card immediately and seek rehabilitation! Myself, I'll hold onto my PocketPC until a REAL Linux phone is released. Something with X, GTK and Qt where I can actually port my Desktop apps over with no more than a UI shuffle to handle the small screen. Not a new (read no existing software base)Java API with a Linux kernel hiding under 10 layers of cruft as though someone was embarrassed of it(that means you GPhone)
Why not just skip the Ipod altogether and instead use your bucks to vote for a company that isn't such a dick.
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.
This is my sig.
So why can't we imagine a world where every computer can run software written by anyone? Is that not also clearly the best alternative for consumers? If not, why not?
Because, as an iPhone developer, I am acutely aware that 99% of the people jailbreaking phones do so in order to steal software. And no, letting consumers freely steal whatever they want is not the best alternative for anyone in the long run... because eventually nobody will be developing software anymore, and the very consumers doing the stealing will lose out in the long run.
Part of the reason the iPhone market is so thriving and healthy compared to the PC / Mac market is that it's so much harder to steal software there. I have little interest in porting my app to the desktop, because everybody would just pirate the thing.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Some people program for a living. Controversial I know.
Or maybe just bring back one of their old ads, with DMCA stopping the girl just before she throws the hammer.
I buy an iphone. I own it. How can Apple tell me what to do with it after I hand over my cash and have receipt in hand?
Corporatism != Free Market
This is an example of the new world order under the DMCA. First, they take away your ability to own the content you paid for. Now they're going to take away your ability to own hardware. I fail to understand why the Iphone is so popular, when other devices existed long ago. For example, look at the Palm Treo. I don't understand why so many people are obsessed with apple, and why they let Apple get away with such shenanigans.
Not so simple.
Imagine Apple powered by RIAA lawyers. (Is it really that hard?) They would pay your phone carrier to monitor activity to and from your phone , building up their evidence of a jailbroken phone . When ready, their super expensive (better than you can afford) lawyers would write it all up and submit it to the court along with 100 or so other cases. As I understand it this is illegal but it's not like our government (US) has been keeping to it's own laws much lately.
Up till now you are clueless, happily enjoying your open device. Then you receive a registered letter informing you of the problem. The case is made against you before you even knew you needed to mount a defense.
Now, you are given a choice. Fork over a good amount of hard earned cash immediately, or face trial.
If you chose trial there will be a panel of highly paid lawyers of a different class than you can afford explaining their case to a probably technically incompetent appointed for life, answering to no one judge. Who will explain said "technobable" to him? Said lawyers of course. This trial will not be for the large lump of cash which was asked for previously in the settlement offer, it will be for a much larger amount that will probably keep you broken for life.
Yes, you are in the right. You were only using your device which you own as you see fit.
Good luck with that.
Judges hear the term jail breaking as some unlawful act whereby a PRISONER escapes from a place they were put, by order of another judge. This is the ultimate offense to a judge barring of course contempt of court, although it could be argued that jail breaking is a form of contempt of court, outside the court room.
They use a term like this regardless of if it means anything to programmers or sysadmins, and it hypes their case. I guarantee no judge has heard of this chroot jail business, and even upon hearing it, if both sides agree to the terminology, the judge will weigh heavily on Apple's side if this is permitted.
Being a good defense lawyer, it would be imperative to strike that term from the record as slang.
Also, IANAL but I play one on TV.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.