.play.open.minded.

As engadget writes in their article, the Library of Congress appended the rule to the DMCA that says Apple and their peers cannot sue you for “jailbreaking” or “rooting” your phone. In terms of the “plain English”, this means that big companies cannot prohibit you from unlocking your phone no more. Well, in fact, they can still TRY to prohibit you (by implementing that rigorous software checks and tricks) but they cannot SUE your ass if you download a program from the web and unlock your phone.

This ain’t THAT much important in terms of the end-user, because such prohibitions and threats do not come through often, however it was a real threat, Apple could have put you behind the bars for five years if you gained financial profit from jailbreaking their software (1, 2).  Besides jailbreaking, Library of Congress has permitted extended use of clips from authorized material and extended that right beyond educational, to allow clips from copyrighted material to be shown for criticism, commentary, or in documentary purposes.

What is really important is that this is a step towards user and away from the big companies. It is known that large companies have taken over the mechanism of copyright and twisted it out, so today, instead of the creator and author, the biggest protection by such intellectual property laws is given to the huge corporations. This is a step towards the user, one that might and would improve our lives and ease up clutch that “The Man” has on our throats. I am sure rms of FSF will be pleased.