If you jailbreak your iPhone, you are knowingly modifying the versions of Apple’s software on the device. This is the reason why Apple would likely be calling jailbreakers as criminals. The company recently filed a 27 page comment with the US Copyright Office citing that jailbreaking of the iPhone is copyright infringement and thus is a DMCA violation.

In January 2009, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a request to DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to make jailbreaking legal. EFF in the filing argued that jailbreaking their devices allow users to run applications not necessarily approved by the phone maker. There was further clarification that jailbreaking of the iPhone in no way relates to protecting Apple software from piracy.

Apple’s complaint is a counter filing to EFF’s appeal. Apple has always considered jailbreaking as illegal and have tried to stop the trend through the various software updates it has released till date. However, this is the first time that the company is making a public statement on the issue of jailbreaking.

If the hearing comes out in favor of Apple, we would soon hear the company taking legal action against individuals and groups that support and advocate jailbreaking. Those who offer softwares that modify the iPhone software could be in trouble.

It is sad in someways that Apple has to practically dictate how I should use my iPhone even after I’ve paid for it. The company should have considered submitting the complaint only after enabling all those features iPhone users have been asking for, such as copy paste, video recording, tethering, etc. If you jailbreak, you get all these features. We’ll know soon where this game ends.