Government Ruling Invites Everyone to Make an iPhone App

Anyone and everyone can now develop applications not approved by iPhone maker Apple, thanks to a government ruling this week.

The Monday ruling by the U.S. Copyright Office exempts iPhone application developers and others from being sued for breaking the encryption on the iPhone’s operating system in order to run third party applications not approved by Apple.

“The evidence supports the contention that a technological measure is adversely affecting adding applications to the iPhone,” wrote Marybeth Peters, the copyright office's top lawyer, in her recommendations (pdf).

The ruling lays out that consumers can now break into "computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset."

The iPhone has spawned a cottage industry of application developers and small businesses. Some small firms sprouted up to help other small businesses develop their own iPhone app. I wrote a story about it for MainStreet.com.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act says it's illegal to break the digital locks protecting copyright owners’ content unless it’s for a non-infringing use, which is something the Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress define every three years.

The Copyright Office said in its remarks that the record indicates that the total number of "jailbroken" iPhones constitutes up to 10 percent of all iPhones sold.

Members of wireless industry firms are cautioning users who jailbreak their mobile devices, saying tinkering around with the system could invite security breaches, malware and system instability.