Jailbreaking phones becomes legal, but you'd need your carrier's permission to unlock a handset from 2013

Jailbreaking your phone is now finally officially legal in the United States, but if you are trying to treat your tablet to the same level of freedom you’d be in violation of the law. What sounds like an absurd decision comes straight from the US Copyright Office, saying that jailbreaking a phone doesn’t break copyright law, but this does not apply to other devices.

Why are tablets so weirdly not included? It seems that tablets are simply too hard to define and an exemption could have been used for e-readers and mobile gaming consoles. The decision comes in a triennial review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

But what’s even more baffling, is the fact that unlocking your phone to work with any carrier - while still legal - is now much more limited. You’d be able to unlock your phone freely by January 2013. What happens next? Starting in 2013, you’d need permission from your carrier to unlock your phone to have it work on other carriers.

Outside mobile, the Copyright Office decided that making personal backups of DVDs is still illegal, and modding game consoles is a breach of the law as well.

What are your thoughts about those rulings?