Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain recently appeared on NPR’s “On The Media” to discuss the recent decision by the Librarian of Congress that “jailbreaking” a smart phone is not in violation the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was enacted in 1998 to prevent the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material via new media. The decision comes more than a year after a comment submitted by Apple Inc. to the U.S. Copyright Office claiming that hacking its devices in order to run unauthorized, third-party software is in violation of the Act.
In the interview below, Zittrain asserts that, while the decision makes a difference “symbolically,” the practical and technological ramifications for the end user are still unclear.