Library of Congress rules in favor of jailbreaking

Life Technology
1

Good news. More an affirmation than a roll back, but positive nonetheless.

[quote=“TUAW”]Today, the Library of Congress has ruled in favor of both jailbreaking and unlocking phones according to an Associated Press Statement published on the New York Times. The Library of Congress statement can be found here if you’d prefer to read the original. The Washington Post has also picked up this story.

This ruling maintains the current status quo, allowing iPhone owners to continue both practices, and pushes things even further. Jailbreaking allows iPhone owners to download third party applications outside of Apple channels and unlocking offers a way to use iPhones on third party GSM networks, typically T-Mobile.
[/quote]

2

I am a little confused as to why the Library of Congress is intervening in commerce…I was always under the impression that they just archived literature and looked over law resources or something.

At any rate, it is nice to know that jailbreaking might not land somebody into hot waters. Although if Apple does have a majority stake in the smartphone market this ruling might have further implications for your average smartphone Joe.

3

Good question. I found the answer here: [quote=“Statement of the Librarian of Congress Relating to Section 1201 Rulemaking”]Section 1201(a)(1) of the copyright law requires that every three years I am to determine whether there are any classes of works that will be subject to exemptions from the statute’s prohibition against circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. I make that determination at the conclusion of a rulemaking proceeding conducted by the Register of Copyrights, who makes a recommendation to me. Based on that proceeding and the Register’s recommendation, I am to determine whether the prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works is causing or is likely to cause adverse effects on the ability of users of any particular classes of copyrighted works to make noninfringing uses of those works. [/quote]

4

The interesting thing here is that jail breaking has been equated with piracy. Piracy is certainly not what motivates the jailbreak devs and a few of them have spoken out about being strictly against this practice.

That said, in absence of jailbreaking, one positive thing about the “closed” App Store model is that piracy is effectively eliminated.

5

That one positive is for companies not consumers. And the minuses to the consumers of not being able to open the platform quickly pile on top of the one plus.

6

DJ, it’s not about consumers vs companies. It’s about ecosystems.

Removing or reducing monetary incentives for “companies” (which in the case of apps is more than likely one or two people) to ship great products makes things worse for consumers.

Have you thought to consider why game developers have not jumped on Android at a rate commensurate to its gain in market share?

7

It is also noteworthy to point out that the trend from the phone manufacturers is to make their Android deployments more and more closed. As Android matures as a platform, this will likely continue.

Moto now locks all of their boot loaders, and roots are taking longer and longer.

The fact of the matter is to get this a lof of this so-called “openness”, Android users still have to “root” the devices. Which is jail breaking. A need to hack the device to get “openness”… hmm, sounds a lot like an iPhone.

jailbreak dev, comex put it best when he said something along the lines of "I would have less of a problem if Android were advertised as “slightly more open.” "

8

“Ecosystem” is like “The Cloud” in that it is just a marketing buzzword. If you want to see your point proved false by counterexample check out the PSP and Nintendo DS piracy drama.

Since you are (again) incorrect about Android: Root isn’t required to install a non-market APK. If I crack the apk of a app, I can install it on any device. Root is required to change the system partition. There are very limited uses for this and it is locked because these uses can brick the phone. This does not affect app installs. Unlocked bootloader is required to change the operating system completely. Companies lock this to prevent overclocking or other mods which can get the devices RMA. This also does not affect app installs. The platform with no root and a locked bootloader is still very open.

Game developers have not hopped on Android due to a combination of the fragmentation of handsets and the youth of the platform(1.5 vs 3). Fifa just came out and it is gorgeous and feature rich. As more tools become available for OpenGL ES in java you will see games become more and more sophisticated. Much like how appstore games started meh before becoming good.

The real point is you don’t seem to have a clue about anything on the other side of the fence despite (allegedly) owning a milestone. If you want to spout off about android at least do your homework.

9

Do you really believe that “ecosystem” is just a “marketing” buzzword? So, what drives people who make things to make things and why do consumers choose to buy things?

The apps many people want need root to run on Android. One is WiFi Tether. Another is apps on SD. As these two features have been added to 2.2, Android has mirrored iPhone OS in adding this functionality after the jailbreakers.

I never equated rooting with the ability to install apps, thus “slightly more open” - off market apps. The fact that a person can install a cracked APK from anywhere off the internet without the extra step of a jailbreak makes Android a platform more ripe for piracy. In practical sense, not many devs who actually want to get their app discovered would choose to sell off-market anyway unless they are already generating a lot of their own traffic already.

Here’s the fact of the matter. Google is much better at “marketing” than their chosen outward appearance might suggest. Positioning Android as the “anti-iPhone” is a pretty straight forward way to capture converts, but more importantly, to capture more of the growth of the PIE, the new smartphone users.

I realize I am probably coming off as someone who hates Android, but that’s not the case. Maybe I am a little soured by my poor experience with my Milestone, but I like Android a lot.

An example of why: My girlfriend has been using Android G1s and their own off-market app with much success in her telemedicine business. This was built as a collaboration of open-source works with peeps back at MIT. They have been helping underprivileged people in remote locations in Africa/Egypt/SouthAsia get access to western doctors through that app, their doctor network and their carrier relations. Google has been very helpful with giving them lots of G1s to deploy this. They are now considering expanding the product to a wider consumer focus, and one of the fundamental steps they have to take is to consider making an iPhone app, because quite bluntly, that is what rich consumers use.

I like the Android v iOS debate because it is a fundamental difference in business strategy and two different ways to be the one extracting the value out of the value chain. I feel that Google in positioning Android the way it does has created a place where they will extract a ton of value out of the value chain but hardware makers will not and developers may not get to iOS levels of value for awhile, if ever. Apple, makes the hardware, software and now ads, so they also draw a bulk of the value out of the value chain, but they share some with the developers that make their ecosystem complete.

BTW, here’s the Milestone that I used as phone for awhile, and now for other things.

10

Here is what the folks at Google are doing to help with piracy concerns on Android
android-developers.blogspot.com/ … droid.html

Up and down days however, as there has been some considerble braindrain from the Android ranks:
mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/07/2 … -tom-moss/

And this one from BlackHat that exposes the drawbacks that come with openness. On one end users get to see more, on the other end, they have to worry about stuff like this.
mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/07/2 … -millions/
A solution might be a policed “groomed-run” section of the App Market coupled with an un-groomed “out of bounds” area.