Jailbreaking Might be Illegal This Year, Sign The Petition!

Summary : Thanks to the jailbreak hackers, we’ve been enjoying this freedom over the last two years, most recently hacking our iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices. But according to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), we could lose that freedom this year if we don’t act…

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Thanks to the jailbreak hackers, we’ve been enjoying this freedom over the last two years, most recently hacking our iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices. But according to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), we could lose that freedom this year if we don’t act…
Back on July 26th of 2010, the US government made the act of jailbreaking electronic devices legal by federal law. This cleared up a lot of the confusion surrounding jailbreaking, and opened the door for folks worried about its legality. However the ruling handed down by the Copyright Office in 2010 is due to expire this year and the EFF is looking to convince the Office to renew the exemption. Otherwise jailbreaking falls back into a murky semi-illegal state giving device manufacturers the power to pursue legal action against jailbreakers at will.

Now the Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking for your help to keep jailbreaking legal.
The EFF writes:

“Smartphones, tablets, and video game consoles are powerful computers with lots of untapped potential. Yet many of these devices are set up to run only software that’s been approved by the manufacturer. Modifying a device to run independent software – known as jailbreaking – is important to programmers, enthusiasts, and users. But jailbreaking creates legal uncertainty. Some device manufacturers claim that jailbreaking violates Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which carries stiff penalties.”

How You Can Help
The Copyright Office needs to hear from people who depend on the ability to jailbreak to write, use, and/or tinker with independent software (from useful apps to essential security fixes) for smartphones, tablets, and game consoles.
Comments should include:
● Which jailbreaking exemption are you supporting-smartphones/tablets, video game consoles, or both?
● What's your background (i.e., are you a developer, hobbyist, academic, independent researcher, user, etc.)?
● What device do you want to ensure you have the legal authority to jailbreak?
● Please explain why you want to jailbreak this device. What limitations do you face if you aren't able to jailbreak it? Is there software you couldn't run, computing capabilities you wouldn't have, cool things you couldn't do, etc.?
● If you're a developer, did an online application store or console manufacturer reject your app or game? If so, what reasons did they give?
● Is there anything else you want to tell the Copyright Office?
You can use this to submit your comments to the Copyright Office. Where the form says "Comment number(s) of proposed classes of works to which you are responding," enter a "3" if you're writing about game consoles or a "5" if you're writing about smartphones or tablets.
The cutoff for submitting comments is February 10 at 5 PM Eastern Time. Make sure to email a copy of your comment to the EFF at dmca-comments@eff.org so that they know what you're saying.
There is a new way to help
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has started a petition at jailbreakingisnotacrime.org to ensure jailbreaking is kept legal.
The petition at jailbreakingisnotacrime.org will let you add your support to a letter written by Bunnie Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox. The EFF would also like those who can write their own letter to submit their defense of jailbreaking to the Copyright Office. You can find more information about that here.
At the very least we would urge you to add your signature to the petition. There's only 14 days left to sign!

via iclarified