Cell blocks for cell hacks: iPhone I.P.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

IF YOU MISPLACE your keys, no law prohibits you from picking the lock on your car. But if you try to get past the lock on your cell phone, you could be fined or even jailed.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), overcoming technical measures aimed at restricting access to copyrighted material triggers statutory damages of up to $2,500 "per act of circumvention" and, if the circumvention is deemed to have a commercial purpose, a prison sentence of up to five years. Yet such evasive maneuvers may be required to "unlock" a mobile phone so it can be used on more than one network or "jailbreak" it so it can run software that's not approved by the manufacturer. In January the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the Copyright Office, which is in charge of granting DMCA exemptions, to declare both unlocking and jailbreaking legal.

Although consumers who fiddle with their phones may copy software in the process, the EFF argues, they are not trying to infringe on anyone's copyright. Rather, they are trying to make their phones more useful by neutralizing anti-competitive restrictions. In response, Apple argues that allowing iPhone owners to circumvent...