(image from concept-phones.com)

If you’ve been following hacking news of other devices, you probably know that recent updates in the US law finally confirmed that jailbreaking an iPhone is legal in this country. Out of curiosity, I read the original announcement from the US copyright office. Of course, I assumed it doesn’t mention the iPhone specifially, so maybe this change in the DMCA would have a positive impact on the PSP as well ?

It turns out that the hacking of the PSP remains in a grey area, as the article says:

The purpose of the proceeding is to determine whether current technologies that control access to copyrighted works are diminishing the ability of individuals to use works in lawful, noninfringing ways.[…]

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.

So, you are authorized to jailbreak your iPhone, if your goal is to run software that you legally obtained AND that cannot run on the iPhone because of DRMs. In other words, it is alright to jailbreak a phone in order to run homebrews.

What I find annoying is that this precision in the law specifically mentions “wireless telephone handsets”…which the PSP isn’t…oh, but wait, Skype is officially provided by Sony on the PSP 2000, 3000, and on the PSP Go, so technically, these PSP are wireless telephone handsets…

Hence my cool conclusion of the day: in the US, hacking your PSP (for example using Half Byte Loader) to run Wagic is perfectly legal, unless it’s a psp 1000 🙂

By the way, it is wrong to say that it means that hacking a psp1000 is illegal in the US. It just means the psp1000 remains in a grey area because it is not a handled phone. Companies like Apple and Sony will always try to make you believe that hacking your device is illegal. The truth is, it’s not. Of course, hacking these machines will (obviously) void your warranty, and what you do with an unlocked device can be illegal, but that’s a different story.

Additionally, the update of the DMCA clears another area, for reverse engineering. It is now officially legal to look for vulnerabilities in video games, as long as your goal is to improve the security of the game and/or fix bugs. To quote the statement:

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.

I believe such a law was already clearly specified in many European countries, in order to protect Free Software and the right to fix bugs on systems you own, as well as IT companies that specialize in security.

In case you didn’t figure it out, I’m not a lawyer, so this article has absolutely no legal meaning 🙂