While Apple may oppose the idea, the federal government announced today that hacking your iPhone to accept third party software not approved or sold by Apple isn’t a violation of the company’s copyright.

Additionally, the Library of Congress’ Copyright Office said it’s not a copyright violation to tweak your phone so it works on a compatible network.

You might remember that Apple petitioned the Library of Congress in 2009 in the hopes of achieving a very different result. Then, the company not only wanted jailbreaking declared a copyright violation, but also that violators be penalized $2,500 and up to 5 years in jail.

According to the AP, other exemptions handed down by the Copyright Office today include:

*Allowing people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws.

*Allowing college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos.

New Gov’t Rules Allow Unapproved iPhone Apps [ABC News]

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