Wired’s Threat Level blog has some coverage of the latest hearing in the current round of U.S. Copyright Office DMCA exemption hearings. Topics argued today included the iPhone jailbreaking exception, cracking CSS on DVDs, cracking the protections on video game consoles,
Prospects look poor for cracking video game consoles (sadly for PlayStation hacker George Hotz), but good for the jailbreaking exemption. Apple, which argued last time around that jailbreaking would destroy its business model and open cell phone towers to sabotage, was nowhere to be found at this meeting after its business model turned out to remain notably intact over the last three years and cell phone towers went mysteriously unsabotaged. It seems the company has already conceded this fight.
There was also some talk of broadening the jailbreaking exemption to cover tablets and e-readers. However, David Carson, the Copyright Office’s General Counsel, expressed concern that allowing jailbreaking of e-readers could jeopardize copyrighted e-book content. “There are some very important copyright concerns that might be militating against it,” he said.
“expressed concern that allowing jailbreaking of e-readers could jeopardize copyrighted e-book content”
Good grief. How can he possibly genuinely hold that view? He must be lying or so badly misinformed that he shouldn’t be giving any evidence.