Via CNNMoney.com:

IPhone users can now legally hack their phones to download applications that aren’t in Apple’s App Store.

The U.S. Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, has authorized several new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of which will allow mobile phone users to “jailbreak” — or hack into — their devices to use apps not authorized by the phone’s manufacturer. The new rules will be published on Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Jailbreaking iPhones in order to download apps that are unavailable in Apple’s App Store had been a legal gray area: Apple technically had the right to request a $2,500 government fine for damages every time a user violated the law that bans “circumvention of technological measures” controlling access to copyrighted works — in this case, the iPhone’s iOS software.

I’m glad that the government made the correct decision.  Sure, the warranty is void if you do so, and they’ll continue to try to prevent it (and spend a lot of money doing so in a losing effort), but that’s a public step in the right direction.  In my opinion, you should be allowed to do whatever you want to with any device that you purchase.

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