Apple recently told the U.S. Copyright Office that it believes iPhone jailbreaking is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringes on its copyright, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a freedom-of-speech advocacy organization, this is the first public statement from Apple about its legal position on "jailbreaking," the term used to describe hacking an iPhone to install third-party applications not sold via Apple's own App Store.

Apple has filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office claiming that the process constitutes copyright infringement, seeing as how it uses modified versions of Apple's software. The company is also arguing that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act entitles it to restrict device interoperability with anything Apple hasn't pre-approved--a similar argument, incidentally, used by manufacturers of garage door openers.

Suggesting that jailbreaking did no substantial damage to Apple, EFF said that the process introduced the benefit of competition for consumers by allowing applications distributed from places other than Apple’s App Store, perhaps even making the product more attractive to consumers. In its filing, Apple categorically rejects the EFF’s arguments. It points out that opening up iPhone to run unauthorized software requires altering the iPhone’s OS and bootloader (themselves protected by copyright), which could lead to adverse effects on the reliability and security of the device.

Although many phone owners already jailbreak their iPhones, this marks the first time Apple publicly said jailbreaking is illegal.  The Cupertino-based company is working to try and stop the proliferation of jailbreaking, and isn't necessarily looking to outright ban jailbreaking because the company knows it will not be able to realistically accomplish such a thing.