Jailbreak your iPhone? Root your Droid? Worry about its legality? Worry no more! The Library of Congress in America has added a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) exception that allows unapproved software on handsets: otherwise known as jailbreaking in the iPhone world, or rooting in the Android and webOS world.

Here’s the full statement by the LoC:

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.

Although this doesn’t mean that these companies will have to jailbreak your phone for you, it means that they won’t be able to sue you or file any legal action against you. So that means that you can jailbreak and unlock your iPhone, and Apple cannot call the practice illegal. And this also allows groups like the iPhone Dev Team and ih8sn0w to continue operating legally. Everyone wins!

As for the Android scene, there isn’t too much scrutiny regarding rooting in Google’s eyes, but maybe it makes the rooted users feel a bit better.

Even better, this means that ripping a DVD is completely legal, as long as you don’t distribute it.

[via LoC]