A copyright bylaw has been granted authority by the U. S. copyright office, offering legality to the practice of unlocking smartphones such as Apple Inc.'s iPhones, by people.

Jailbreaking, which is a concept where users alter phone settings that are already fixed by the operators, has become quite a popular practice all around the world, ever since the introduction of iPhones by Apple, in the year 2007.

The decision taken by the copyright office to grant authority to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is going to challenge the manufacturers, who chiefly deal in manufacturing handsets, such as, Apple's capability of controlling the installation of software programs on their iPhones.

The copyright office is included in the Library of Congress.

In a statement, the Library of Congress that has the powers to highlight exceptions to the copyright bylaws that already are present, said that a user has all the rights to outwit the functionality of the phones they are using, in order to make use of any software that has the legal certification.

The verdict that has been given by Fed, as well lets users to opt for any service provider or change the existing one. At present, AT&T Inc. is the only wireless service operator offering its services to Apple in the United States of America.

Electronic Frontier Foundation, the firm which battled its way to get the exemption, in a statement said that no less than one million iPhone users had already jailbroken their phones, so as to switch from their existing service providers to another.