Free Your iPhone?

I'm just going to come right out and say this - my iPhone has not been "Jailbroken." I know, I just lost all credibility. Most readers have already left. It's not that I don't know how to jailbreak it, or don't know about the potential benefits of said jailbreak -- I just haven't had a good enough reason to. I've already taken advantage of my white 3G's Apple warranty once, and I like the idea of being able to do it again. It's not out of the question, just doesn't seem very important to me right now. But I do support the Electronic Frontier Foundation's latest call to arms. From FreeYourPhone.org:

Cellphone manufacturers use locked software to stifle competition and restrict consumers: * Apple uses software locks on the iPhone to censor ebooks and block mobile applications that would compete with Apple's own software. Hundreds of thousands of cellphone owners have modified their phones to connect to the network or run the software of their choosing, and many more would like to. But the Digital Millennium Copyright Act poses a legal threat to phone users, even though the law was supposed to protect copyright owners and distributors of digital music and movies. This threat of litigation has driven consumers underground, stifling innovation and competition. Now, you can support EFF's request that the Copyright Office grant an exemption to the DMCA that will protect phone users.

The EFF is vehemently opposed to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), a piece of legislation more than ten years old that could potentially threaten the iPhone jailbreaking community. From the EFF:

Since they were enacted in 1998, the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating DRM restrictions (aka content or copy protections) added to copyrighted works and to ban the "black box" devices intended for that purpose. In practice, the DMCA and DRM have done nothing to stop "Internet piracy." Yet the DMCA has become a serious threat that jeopardizes fair use, impedes competition and innovation, chills free expression and scientific research, and interferes with computer intrusion laws. If you circumvent DRM locks for noninfringing fair uses or create the tools to do so, you might be on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

Jailbreaking my first generation Touch is probably as far as I will go, but I still support this petition. You can too, here. [via Free Your Phone]

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