The latest version of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which developers must agree to before downloading and/or using the iPhone SDK or beta versions of the iPhone OS, has added a clause forbidding developers from working on or assisting with jailbreak projects or jailbroken applications. According to Ars Technica, the clause also forbids developers from jailbreaking their own devices.
The move follows comments filed by Apple with the U.S. Copyright Office arguing that that jailbreaking constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, and is therefore illegal.
The relevant clause states, “(e)You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so; and (f) Applications developed using the Apple Software may only be distributed if selected by Apple (in its sole discretion) for distribution via the App Store or for limited distribution on Registered Devices (ad hoc distribution) as contemplated in this Agreement.”