How many of you out there have a jailbroken iPod? How many of you own a Wii with the Homebrew Channel installed? How many of you have unlocked your cell phones? In the past, these activities were a part of the underbelly of the technology world. They were all instances of “hacking” supported by no one other than the fans. It let us download unofficial apps, re-skin our browsers, and add backup consoles to our gaming systems. It was illegal, but we did it anyway because, quite frankly, it made our devices better. Well, all of that is about to change.

No, hacking into your electronics is still very useful, but now it is way more legal. Recently, James H. Billington revealed new exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which will change the way we see DRM.

(1) Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos

So in short, if you want to show a film to a class, make a documentary, or produce a crappy Youtube video, hack away!

(2) 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.

Simply put, this means that the government can’t give two shits whether or not you jailbreak your iPod or iPhone. Apple will still most likely void your warranty though.

(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

Yeah this basically just extends the same iPhone rights to other cell phones too. It also makes tethering OK as long as your cell phone company has not said it is not OK.

(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

Essentially, you now have free rights to say what goes in and out of your computer systems. You can now break DRM to make your system more secure. In short, the bootmii recovery system for the Wii now gets a thumbs up by the government.

(5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace;

Basically, if there is a certain thing you need to buy to get a computer program or video game working, but it is no longer available on the market commercially, you can bypass DRM to get the program functioning, as you have no other option.

(6) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

As far as I can tell, if an e-book does not support the read-aloud function, then you can break it so it does.

So there you have it! Plenty of new exemptions that make all that hacking we do acceptable. You can now waltz into an Apple store with your jailbroken iPhone and … well they probably still won’t help you fix the damn thing, but at least the government won’t care.

P.S. We at 30ninjas have attempted to break the new DMCA rules down to plain speech as best we could but we are not lawyers and none of this article should be taken as legal advice. Besides, if you take your legal advice from internet blogs, you need to work on your problem-solving skills.

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• Sony’s Response to Playstation Hackers? The Law!
• Nintendo Says Greater Online Support Coming in the Future With Wii 2
• I Only Laugh When It Hurts: 7 Rules for Comedy Violence
• New Super Mario Bros. 3 — Hacking Excellence