If you’re an iPhone developer EFF wants your help. No they don’t need help moving a couch or anything, they’re looking for developers to back their proposal to make jailbreaking the iPhone exempt from the DCMA (Digital Copyright Millennium Act). Specifically EFF is requesting that the copyright office grant a three year exemption on bypassing the software that prevents people from installing non Apple approved programs on the iPhone.

At this point you’re thinking that it doesn’t matter wither way and people jailbreak their iPhones all the time without repercussion. That much is true but Apple could, at some point, argue that the jailbreakers are in fact lawbreakers because they bypassed software installed on the iPhone. The reasoning behind the DCMA is all about piracy prevention but the iPhone is a pretty closed system, you’re not going to be running iPhone apps on anything but your iPhone and iPod touch.

Hence, the lock on third party applications looks to many more like a cash grab and control ploy by Apple than a legitimate method of preventing piracy. If you’re a developer and you feel similarly to EFF share your thoughts with the Copyright Office.

via: EFF.org