Spokane7
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July 26, 2010 in Business
New government rules allow unapproved iPhone apps
WASHINGTON — Owners of the iPhone will be able to legally break electronic locks on their devices in order to download software applications that haven’t been approved by Apple Inc., according to new government rules announced Monday.
The decision to allow the practice commonly known as “jailbreaking” is one of a handful of new exemptions from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized uses. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing use of copyright-protected material.
In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced Monday would:
• allow owners of used cell phones to break access controls on their phones in order to switch wireless carriers.
• allow people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws.
• allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos.
• allow computer owners to bypass the need for external security devices called dongles if the dongle no longer works and cannot be replaced.
© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Northwest wheat 
TOOBAD2 on July 26 at 10:07 a.m.
wow does this mean the govt. is on our side? i dont think i’m going to hold my breath on this revelation. i still dont trust the govt. too many people do and look what happens to them. and you think they are doing this for us? when has the govt. lately done anything for the people , except the black panthers , rev.white , and all the other bleep bleeps. white america is now in trouble with the govt.being run by the bleep bleeps. wake - up and vote them out now , or we will lose all we ever had. the fall and decline of america is on its way. wake up america. read your history of rome , you will see a parallel.
SpokaneLiberal on July 26 at 10:45 a.m.
You see allowing the jailbreaking of an iPhone as an example of the end of white America? First, America isn’t white. What it means to be white has shifted 100 times in this country, and the country isn’t coming to an end.
I have always wondered how apple could get away with the iphone restrictions, the ipad restrictions, and the app store but Microsoft lost monopoly lawsuits over internet explorer. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the solution to the problem.
mikewsu on July 26 at 12:21 p.m.
I don’t ever see Apple (or Palm or any other device maker) supporting jail-broken phones.
Ability to switch carriers will have very limited benefit too — as most carriers use different technology already. GSM vs LTE vs 3G vs EDGE vs UMTS vs you get the point..
So nothing will change for the regular old joe user.
SpokaneLiberal on July 26 at 12:25 p.m.
I think they need to be sued, ala Microsoft to force them to allow open use of their system. this rule would probably make it easier to prevail in court….