Copyright Office Okays TV Hacking

Owners of Smart TVs can legally hack into their systems to install improvements after the U.S. Copyright Office exempted such hacking from being illegal under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention protections. The Software Freedom Conservancy fought for the exemptions, saying that jailbreaking smart televisions would help consumers achieve inter-operability and install third-party software to make these televisions better or safer for consumers. Creative groups had expressed concern that jailbreaking would allow consumers to install software that would let users watch pirated TV shows or movies.