Blog of Much Holding

Well, if you are a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica and missed this past Friday’s episode, you missed a lot. Seriously, A LOT. Basically, the entire story-line/history of the Cylons was presented, narratively, throughout the episode – it was…

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I have a love/hate relationship with Star Wars. I am a fan, though the humanism of Star Trek will always make me prefer that series. Star Wars is all peaks and valleys to me – the first two films being…

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See it before the lawyers send those cease and desist letters!

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Software, Hacks, Odds and ends, Open Source, Apple, Jailbreak/pwnage

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted the news that Apple has filed comments with the US Copyright Office stating that the act of jailbreaking your iPhone is a copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, and therefore illegal. The EFF says that Apple is claiming that jailbreak apps still require modified versions of Apple’s software, and Apple apparently believes that those versions are infringing on their copyrights.

The EFF responds, in turn, that “reverse engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software,” saying that yes, even though jailbreakers are using Apple’s copyrighted code, they are doing so in a way that allows them functionality that Apple doesn’t provide access to on their own.

At this point, of course, this is just a complaint in the copyright office, and Apple hasn’t made any legal moves yet against anyone responsible for jailbreaking. As the EFF states, it would be extremely hard for them to go after individual jailbreakers — if you buy an iPhone, it should be your right to “get under the hood,” as they say, and do what you want.

But (and keep in mind that this is TUAW, not The Unofficial Legal Weblog, and we are not lawyers) it seems Apple may be able to try and make a case against anyone offering software that does modify or otherwise “misuse” their copyrighted code. We’ll have to see if they explore that position more in the future. You can read Apple’s full response here (27 pages). You can see the EFF’s initial filings here.

Stay tuned for more news and analysis on the issue.

Apple says jailbreaking is illegal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple says jailbreaking is illegal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shocking, indeed…

When you see me at SXSW in March, be sure to ask about my new MSI Wind Netbook. I plan on getting one in the next two weeks and installing OS X on it… Apple, please note: A LOT of…

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An actor’s actor, James Whitmore starred in many many films, including Kiss Me Kate, The Shawshank Redemption, Planet of the Apes, Battleground (with Ricardo Montalban)… Whitmore died yesterday at the age of 87. Frank Darabont, the director of Shawshank, eulogizes…

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Man, I want a job doing viral videos/marketing for cool movies…

Yo Joe!

Woo-wee, I’m a happy geek right now.

Courtesy of our friends in Germany… UPDATED: They pulled it off the German Youtube… but that’s OK, here’s the official version: UPDATE 2: TrekMovie has a detailed breakdown of the trailer. Click the Enterprise below to go read it:

Bill Shatner talks about his memories of Ricardo Montalban:

Trekmovie.com has news of a merchandising blitz planned around Star Trek in anticipation of the forthcoming reboot/prequel/sequel movie. We are getting board games, sleepware, posters, toys… And fragrances. “Tiberius”, “Red Shirt” and “Pon Farr” are the names. I don’t know.…

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$1900 for Colonel Tigh’s liquor bottle? $4000 for Admiral Cain’s razor? Wow, I wish I had more money than sense. Here’s the list of the final prices. And here’s a look at the auction with some cast commentaries…