New Copyright Rules Allow Consumers to Legally Hack, Repair Phones

New rules from the U.S. Copyright Office are making it much easier for smartphone users to hack or repair their devices.

In a big win for the “right to repair” movement, the U.S. Copyright Office decided this week that smartphone users have the right to jailbreak and repair their own devices. The protections will allow users to hack the firmware of their smart devices. Previous restrictions were in place to prevent users from hacking their devices to circumvent copyright protections that are often placed on media.

The new rules, which go into effect immediately, will allow users, or their smart device repairman, to hack into the firmware as a means of maintenance or repair. “The Acting Register recommended a new exemption allowing for the circumvention of TPMs restricting access to firmware that controls smartphones and home appliances and home systems for the purposes of diagnosis, maintenance, or repair,” the document from the U.S. Copyright Office reads.

Although the new rules don’t specifically condemn the DRM copyright protections that made it illegal to hack smart devices in the past, they aim to benefit consumers by giving them greater ownership over their own devices.

So how exactly do the new rules give users more control over their devices? Take for example Apple’s decision to build a “kill switch” into its MacBook Pro laptops. The switch would be tripped anytime the MacBook was undergoing an “unauthorized” repair. Under the new rules, it is likely that repairmen could trick the “kill switch” software via a hack into not realizing that the machine is undergoing an “unauthorized” repair.

Unfortunately, the new rules don’t apply to video game consoles. For the foreseeable future, repairs to video game consoles could remain costly for this reason.