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Jailbreaking phones now legal among other things

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_wguy/ytech_wguy_tc3236

not only can you jail break phones but you can also do a whole list of other fun activities as well, like go around protective measures on video games to supposedly "fix the security flaws"

Now im not positive how the protective measures of video games work exactly but I dunno if this sounds to good to a game artist or not. Not to mention the developers of all the other stuff. Any thoughts or concerns with this? Any positive outcomes of this?

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  • jrs100000
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    jrs100000 polycounter lvl 8
    Since its legal now, well probably see a lot of commercial options especially for unlocking cellphones. We might even see things like one companies cell phone stores offering to unlock competitors phones.

    However, those lockin deals were worth a ton of money to cell companies and manufacturers, so they will probably resort to even more draconian measures to lock them back down...
  • xvampire
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    xvampire polycounter lvl 14
    want some freedom, baby?
    use Android or nokia ....
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Honestly I'm far more interested in what this means for the games industry (read the article earlier here and here.)

    With the line "allow people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws" sounding like its now legal to crack games (so long as you own them). Frankly this needs to happen for PC games, cause unless your using steam every other game has protection that makes the experience worse for the paying customers then the pirates.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    I dont get it. Wasn't it legal the whole time ?
    I mean surely there is/was no law anywhere saying "You shall not jailbreak your phone"... (by that I mean real law, not EULA bullshit from greedy Apple).

    Sure there was restrictions making the process inconvenient (since the manufacturer designed the device so that its not open right from the start) but I dont see how it could have been illegal before. Or maybe the article is mixing up "voiding warranty" with "illegal"?

    What about a customer-oriented law making the manufacture of carrier-locked hardware illegal. Now THAT would be cool news!

    P
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    pior wrote: »
    I dont get it. Wasn't it legal the whole time ?
    I mean surely there is/was no law anywhere saying "You shall not jailbreak your phone"... (by that I mean real law, not EULA bullshit from greedy Apple)

    Sure there was restrictions (since the manufacturer designed the device so that its not open right from the start) but I dont see how it could have been illegal before.

    What about a customer-oriented law making the manufacture of carrier-locked hardware illegal. Now THAT would be cool news!

    P


    Actually according to the DMCA, it was illegal. Even in your own home for personal use. Nobody was ever charged with a crime for doing so, but it was still on the books as illegal.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Never heard of that, that's interesting! (and quite ridiculous too hehe)
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