Digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is lobbying to make it legal to "jailbreak" tablets and consoles under US copyright law.

Last year the group successfully lobbied for the jailbreaking of smartphones to be made exempt from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and is calling for that to be expanded to cover consoles and tablets, Edge reports.
This would mean that consumers would be free to use their devices in any way they see fit, liberating them to run operating systems and applications from any source, not just those approved by the manufacturer.

"The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement," said EFF IP director Corynne McSherry. "But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property.

"Hobbyists and tinkerers who want to modify their phones or videogame consoles to run software programs of their choice deserve protection under the law... Copyright law shouldn't be stifling such uses - it should be encouraging them."

The Copyright Office is expected to rule on EFF's in October 2012.

Posted: Dec 05, 2011 1:36 pm

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/328446/digital-rights-group-lobbying-for-console-jailbreaks/