I am sure that, for Steve Jobs, July 2010 ever existed. Following the drama surrounding the iPhone, which was mitigated by a rather stunning Q2 earnings result, Apple now received news that jailbreaking the iPhone is now legal. The U.S. Code, a compilation of general a permanent U.S. federal law, has been updated with six different categories that now allow consumers to circumvent access controls to digital content in specific cases.

Conceivably, the new rules are most visible in the mobile phone space where they now allow users to run unauthorized applications against Apple’s will, but the rule may still be very limited not go as far as you may think initially.

Published by the Librarian of Congress, all changes relate “subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking.”  The new rules are the result of a proposal that was entertained as an exemption to existing law outlined in the DMCA.

The exemptions pertaining to the use of cellphones reads:

“Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.”

It is a fairly wide open definition of what is exempt, but we recognize that the permission of jailbreaking applies to a case where a user wants a certain blocked application to run on a handset and not to open it up to run on a different carrier network. It is doubtful that Apple will change its warranty policy as a result of this law and will still say that tempering with the pre-installed OS will void the warranty.

Also, it is important to note that this law does not require Apple to explicitly allow jailbreaking and remove jailbreaking hurdles. Apple simply has to tolerate the ongoing jailbreaking sport and consumers who actually jailbreak their devices to run unauthorized devices. The code change makes it lawful to circumvent any controls that are designed to block jailbreaking.

The five additional exemptions include:

- Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
(i)  Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos.

- Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

- Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i)  The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

- Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.  A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace; and

- Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

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