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Hot on the heels of the ruling by the United States Copyright Office that it was legal to hack an iPhone 4, the first ‘jailbreak’ software has been made available for download.

The process of jailbreaking was made illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, where it was deemed to circumvent and copy protection measures taken. However, this new ruling decrees that installing third party applications that have been legally acquired is not in violation of United States copyright law.

Jailbreaking an iPhone enabled a user to use third party applications that were not approved by Apple, to change the device’s wallpaper and to change the mobile phone network. Although Apple had never brought a lawsuit against anyone over the issue, it was nevertheless frowned upon.

Users visiting the Jailbreak site to download the latest version of the software crashed it following the ruling, even though there were initial problems with multi-media messaging and Facetime, the video chat application.

The site now makes the process of unlocking an iPhone much easier than before, but also works with the iPod Touch and Apple’s new toy, the iPad. However, this is not without risks, and the jailbreak software will not work on the iPad’s OS 3.2.1. The main downside to unlocking your device is that it voids your warranty, meaning that it is imperative to have some comprehensive mobile phone, iPod or iPad insurance.

The hacker known as ‘Comex’, who launched the software, is rumoured to be a member of the team responsible for developing the iPhone. He has made the software available for free, but the site invites anyone downloading the software to make a donation. Comex stated on his Twitter feed that he is currently working on a fix for the known issues with Facetime and MMS messages, and has assured visitors to the his site that it may be possible for an unlocked Apple device to be ‘un-jailbroken’ and reverted back to its prior state.

The demand for the software was said to be so great that the site’s owners had to create a sister site to cope with the number of visitors wishing to download the software.