There's a difference between 'legal' - a law says you can do it e.g. drive a car, and 'not illegal' - there is no legislation either way. Since one cannot, by definition, jump off an object without being there first and if being there involves an illegal act we can then say that the jumping is illegal.

The U.S. parks department has specific regulations about jumping off anything in it's domain for the purpose of making a parachute descent. Being on top of Half Dome is ok, taking flight from it is not. They also have a one-day exemption for the New River Gorge bridge.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/legal.html
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1125
Things not condemned as illegal are by definition legal. For example, eating popcorn is legal, since there is no law against eating popcorn. It would be very silly for there to have to be a law defining everything that you could do.

There is no law against BASE jumping, so it is legal.

Trevor

Fine, lets put it to a practical test then. Go to any high spot nearby (should be lots in Colorado). Tell the local constabulary what, when and where a couple of hours before. Let us know how it goes with the judge.

(Eating popcorn would fall into the 'not illegal' category as it is not prohibited, at least not anywhere we can find (proving a negative being logically impossible). The difference being that if it is specifically allowed you have a nearly inviolate case, i.e. Bridge Day. It's a similar concept of defendants being 'not guilty' rather than 'innocent'. )

I didn't, but friends did. Image here. The "local constabulary" were told weeks if not months in advance, no problems. No judge ever was involved in any way, so that point is moot.

Trevor

acme, you seem to be missing something really important here. Both trevor and I know people who have gone base jumping, with full knowledge by local authorities.

In order for my argument to be valid, there only has to be one place where what I describe is legal, and there is. Drop it already.

Because once I buy it, it's mine. I'm not leasing the phone, I'm not borrowing the OS on the phone. I own the phone, and I can alter it as I wish. I'm not contractually obligated to do, or not do, any particular thing with the device when I bought it, unless I specifically agreed to this contract.
Even if Apple forced all new purchases to come with a contract stating the user agrees they will not modify the device, this contract would not apply to previous purchases, and it would not apply to buyers in the second-hand market.

So either way, Apple is insane to think we'll buy their "jailbreaking is illegal" crap. There is no legal precedent to support this.

There's nothing wrong with a company trying to set the terms by which they sell you their product provided that that stricture is made perfectly clear up front before I buy and is not buried in a EULA somewhere. Further, I don't feel bound unless I'm required to sign a contract agreeing to the terms. I, for one, would not then buy it. Like Jasen, I believe that once I have purchased a product it's mine to do with as I please.

See, and I can understand where you guys are coming from, but at the same time, I think that we just have some interesting notions of ownership. I think it's quite clear that just because you own something doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it.

Example: I own a 2006 BMW 325xi. Got it when I was working for BMW a little while ago. I'd love to run that car to it's full potential, take it on a freeway and run it up to 155mph (it's supposed upper limit). But I can't, it's illegal. In fact, there are several things I can't do with my car, even though it's mine.

Now, to be clear, I know there is a difference between my example and a cell phone. Driving recklessly is a safety concern, whereas jail breaking an iPhone isn't going to hurt anyone directly. All the same, It's probably fair to say that a good reason for laws that limit your usage of your own device should relate to public safety.

But, consider this, what if Apple and AT&T set up their contact to rely on tethering the phone to AT&Ts network? What if by breaking said contract you are also destroying, to some extent, said contract, and what if by doing so you cause either of the companies to fail at least a little bit.

Well, when companies fail, people lose jobs. And that is definitely a certain amount of harm being done to someone. In fact, someone losing their job can do massive amounts of damage to that individuals life.

So, by extension, jail breaking a phone can cause damage to an individual (though not directly), thus jail breaking should be illegal.

(Again, playing devils advocate, there are several holes in this argument. It's just to get people thinking.)

That's obvious; there is the greater good to be considered. Guns are legal; shooting people with them is not. That does not prevent me, however, from modifying the gun in any way I'd like to. I own that lump of metal.

Same as the gun example. Your example, however, has nothing to do with the brand of car -- the speed limit is not imposed by BMW -- it's general for all cars using public highways. You'd have the right to bitch about it though if BMW installed speed limiters in every car so they physically couldn't exceed the limit.

Sure -- you cannot shoot people and you can't drive 155. In my view, however, you should be able to modify your Xbox or phone or TV to suit yourself and no manufacturer of those devices should have any rights except to void your warranty.

I don't think this last section holds water.

I only have two reasons for jailbreaking my phone. Used to be 3:

1. Winterboard. Apple did a solid by including custom wallpapers to iOS4, but I still want customizable SMS sounds. Why? I don't like having to choose from the 7 canned sounds that everyone else is likely to have.

2. NoAA Tweak. Nukes the album art from the lock screen when music is playing. I never liked the album art showing on the lock screen, so this works well for me.

3. (The "used to" reason) Last.fm. The jailbroken version was able to log your plays and send them to last.fm in the background. Sadly, the app hasn't been updated since the iOS 2.0 days, so it doesn't work.

Just my motives, tis all.

No, it is absolutely not illegal to drive the car at its upper limits. On your own land, for example, you can take the BMW to as fast a speed as you want. Or, you can go to a track where they allow you to drive your own car, and can take the BMW to 155 mph. Or ship the car to Germany and drive on the Autobahn. The only limit is driving on someone else's roads where the owner of the roads doesn't want you driving excessively fast--that someone else in this case is the government, who licenses people to drive on public roads, and that license is what limits your use of the car while you are using the car under the license (i.e. on public roads).

Trevor

Don't expect to keep your insurance rates low, though. :D

That really has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It's not BMW imposing the limits on your use of the vehicle, it's the government. We're only talking about manufacturer/seller vs buyer. It's also illegal to bludgeon baby seals with my iPhone, but Apple doesn't feel a need to remind me of that.

Apple knows they cannot enforce anti-jailbreaking/unlocking on their own, so they attempt to scare people into not doing it by making it sound like it's illegal to do it. The alternative being that every phone is sold with a binding contract stipulating what you will not do with the phone, which is only enforceable by suing the buyer at some later date if Apple ever finds out about it.

Now, there are other real-world examples that fit better. For instance, when you buy a pure bred puppy from a breeder, you're generally not allowed to breed that puppy. The breeder enforces it by making you sign a contract stating you will spay/neuter the animal within a certain timeframe, and breaking this contract could result in the breeder taking the dog away from you (via court action). If there was no contract, you could tell them to go pound sand, and any court would side with you.

EULA's are a whole other can of worms, and I dread the day somebody starts trying to use them on physical goods. Could you imagine buying a car, and then after you buy it, a contract pops out of the glove box telling you what you're not allowed to do with the car?

I'm going to keep playing devils advocate (especially considering I own a jailbroken iPhone on T-Mobile... Yeah, my stance is pretty clear. I just want us to think this through is all ;)).

Perhaps not, but oddly it's the only section no one has argued with. My BMW
example was clearly flimsily...perhaps my post was just too long so nobody else read the end? :).

I think we, as people, tend to prefer to see major corporations as one of two things. 1) Faceless giants that are out to get us. 2) A bunch of fat cat CEO's who make more money than they likely deserve considering the modest output they add to their companies.

But you know what? Music Piracy doesn't hurt the CEO's and the Rock Stars, they stay rich. Nope, it hurts the local audio engineer, who may find himself out of work, or only able to charge less per hour. And perhaps that puts them out of a job...maybe it closes their studio and puts a couple dozen people out of a job, who knows? That effects them and their families, not to mention the shops that depend on their patronage to continue business. It's a giant economic web. One lost studio can affect 100s of people negatively.

Granted, we might consider the ebb and flow of business a natural thing. And yeah it is, but we still strive to avoid negative consequences. That's what social norms are set up for, that's what rule of law is for. That's why things like stealing are illegal.

Breaking AT&T and Apples contract won't hurt Steve Jobs or Apple, they're both loaded. But it will hurt their hiring opportunities, and that puts someone out of work.

The reality of a corporation is that it's not made up of one idiot/genius who heads the company and is backed by a faceless board. Companies are made up of tens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of individuals who get hurt when we, as a group, swindle them.

Does this apply to Jailbreaking? I think this is the all important question that needs to be thought through. Clearly the US Government thinks it's all right, but I'm not one to trust "morality" to any national institution.

I'm just asking that, for a moment, we think of this problem in terms of the people who actually stand to lose something, the employees of Apple and AT&T. Perhaps in thinking about it, we find out that really jail breaking is doing more good than harm. If so, then great, if not...well, maybe we should reconsider.

How does downloading something affect the sound tech? His job was finished and paid for long before the finished product hit the internet. I can see piracy having a long-term effect on the studio industry IF you accept the premise that each unpaid download is a lost sale.

Here's a perfect example of using your hardware how you want to: TI Calculator DRM Defeated. The first time, TI put out a system upgrade that offered no new features, it just defeated the first jailbreak. Days later the new one was defeated. What I don't get is why TI cares.

Jailbreaking just allows us to install applications on the phone that Apple did not approve. There is nothing inherently immoral or harmful about this. I should have the ability to install whatever I choose, Apple's blessing or not.
If you use the jailbreak to pirate AppStore apps without paying, that's a different story. However, simply the act of opening up the restrictions on your phone doesn't do anyone any harm.

I also unlocked my phone and used it on T-Mobile. I've been screwed by AT&T in the past, so they can blow me. I hope everyone does this and they go out of business, but that's just me. :D

Jay, if you decide that you don't like one brand of toilet paper any more and switch to another, employees in one mill lose a little while another set gains. Every commercial decision (including jail breaking so you can switch to T-Mobile) is a choice of that type. It isn't different than switching from an analog to a digital camera; there are always winners and losers. Many of these things are a zero-sum game.

I like this answer. In summary, I think it's what I'd probably go with.

At this point to continue the discussion I'd have to branch the discussion into something that is actually still illegal... you know, like pirating music. But that would be entirely off topic.

I really think it would be interesting to explore why corporate law exists. Or, more specifically, how corporate law could, dare I say should exist to help defend workers interests.

But, maybe that's a discussion for another time.

Be an interesting one though. I think a major reform in corporate law, the one I think most badly needed, would be to make worker's pensions inviolate. As it is (I say this without significant research), if a company goes bust its workers lose their pensions, largely because the corporation has not treated them as an untouchable fund, they've spent them. I can see the compromise that every worker should as a minimum get back every penny he or she put in.