There are always discussions on the illegality of copyright laws and piracy issues, ranging from illegally downloading songs onto your iPod all the way to the annoying reminders on any rented movie stating the fines and punishment of piracy.

I agree that illegal downloads and piracy is not a victimless crime. It takes away funds the artist can receive from sources that offer their songs for a small fee, but I’m here to tell you that the worst type of piracy and illegal downloads is happening on the Apple platforms and not a lot is being done about it.

One of the most popular things to do with Apple devices is Jailbreaking. For anyone who wants to get a lot of free stuff by doing something illegal listen up right now.

Jailbreaking your Apple device makes certain apps available that are not in the App Store, things Apple cannot regulate. One of these apps is called Cydia.

Cydia is an app that enables certain software packages, only on the jailbroken iOS Apple device, to work the same way as a purchased application, without paying for it.

Jailbreaking your device seems to be a grey area in the area of legality against illegality.

According to an article on The Huffington Post, you can jailbreak your iPhone, but your Apple iPad is off limits.

The actual wordage of the legislation by the Copyright Office is so complex I can’t even interpret it, but it seems iPhones can be jailbroken with no consequences by the government.

Apple can’t be too happy with this, at least I wouldn’t be. Even though I am very against piracy and a proponent of letting the people who deserve the money get their money, even I am tempted to see if I could do this.
Why wouldn’t I be excited to get a bunch of apps to fill up my iPad so I could be even more obsessed with it?

It looks like a lot of other people have the same thought process I do.
According to a Readwrite article posted on Jan. 24, nearly one million people jailbroke their iPhone or iPad after the emergence of a new jailbreaking tool named Absinthe in late January.

According to the article, in a matter of four days one million devices were jailbroken. Lets do a little calculation example of how much this could potentially cost Apple and their App Store.

Say every one of the million people who jailbroke their device installed the popular application, Keynote which sells for $9.99 on their device.
Let us remember that this is only one application that could potentially be free for these people.

That comes out to $9,990,000 dollars that has been “pirated” from Apple and other companies. In four days. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of cash that is slipping away from people who deserve it.

Now does this seem fair? I don’t think so. If you think that this is the total monetary damage that this could cause, you’re a fool.
If those million people could do it in four days, that’s a very small number in the big scope of things.

Apple has come out with a help page on the Apple.com website under the support tab that is a passive-aggressive way of saying “we hate this, we hate everything about this,please stop.”

Instead, Apple states the disadvantage of jailbreaking your device, such as security vulnerabilities, instability, reduced battery life and inability to access future software updates.

I don’t know about you, but I want my iOS updates as much as anyone else. Apple itself is an ingenious company and if they come out with an awesome new interface or something drastically different, I’m going to want it.
I also want the awesome battery life on my iPad. I don’t have to charge it for three days, and I use it all the time.

If I did jailbreak my device and it really did do all these negative things, I don’t know if the benefits and my guilty conscience could outweigh all the negatives.

Well done, Apple. You have solidified my stance of not jailbreaking my iPad, be happy. Now I am going to feel much better about myself.
This is just another example of copyright laws and piracy that probably is not being regulated as well as it should and there is a lot of grey area, but from a young age, I have been taught to not take things that aren’t mine and I am going to abide by my morals. I hope you do, too.