More importantly, I missed a TON of legal stuff during finals.  While pouring through my google reader I have found a few things I have to comment on.  First update was this post over at EFF re:Apple’s iPhone policy

For those too lazy to read the link, Apple refused to approve a public domain book reader because one of the public domain books is the Kama Sutra.  (What happened to the First Amendment?)  While some people may be okay with Apple censoring their phones I am not and neither is the DMCA.

In 2006 the Copyright Office granted a 3 year exemption under the DMCA which allows users to circumvent software that lock phones to one provider.  In other words “jailbreaking” iPhones is currently legal.  However it may not stay that way for long; the Copyright Office is currently re-evaluating the exemptions (which it does every 3 years) and Apple has petitioned for “jailbreaking” iPhones to be illegal.  Thankfully organizations like the EFF have petitioned the copyright office to keep the exemption.

As a side note none of these exemptions would be necessary if users where considered owners for the purposes of the First Sale Doctrine (but that is a whole nother post.)  If corporation as “hip” as Apple are going to censor what you can do with your cell phone then this exemption is more necessary than ever.