EFF Provides Brilliant Support of Jailbreaking iPhones

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of the most vocal proponents of digital rights and has fought hard against RIAA and the effects of the DMCA.

Recently, they responded to Apple’s attempt to make it somehow illegal to “jailbreak” your iPhone.  Jailbreaking allows an iPhone to use non-Apple-approved applications as well as allowing users to switch to carriers other than AT&T.

Aside from the numerous sound legal arguments to be made against Apple’s attempts, EFF posits the following:

One need only transpose Apple’s arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.

But we’d never accept this corporate paternalism as a justification for welding every car hood shut and imposing legal liability on car buffs tinkering in their garages. After all, the culture of tinkering (or hacking, if you prefer) is an important part of our innovation economy.

The question becomes, what are the rights of the buyer?  Once you have purchased an item, whether it is a car, a chair or an iPhone, that item should be yours completely.  Otherwise, it isn’t a purchase, it’s acquiring a limited license of usership…

Related articles by Zemanta

• EFF berates Apple over open source iTunes project (infoworld.com)
• Watchdog eyes copyright safety for iPhones, YouTube (theregister.co.uk)
• FreeYourPhone.org launches, pushes for new DMCA exemption (arstechnica.com)

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment