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Unauthorized Unlocking of New Mobile Phones Set to Become Illegal in U.S.

Ok make this a law and then also make it a law that the day your contract has been fufilled your phone becomes unlocked without any interacation or request from the owner. And while they are at it they should investigate if unlocked phone prices are artificially inflated to get people to buy locked phones and two year contracts...I bet you anything AT&T is not paying the same price per phone a consumer would from Apple.
 
wxman2003 said:
So if I purchase a house, the architect who designed the house could prevent me from hanging a picture on the wall. Or if I buy a car, the automaker could prevent me from using other than the listed recommended octane based on your analogy. By the way, the mobile providers do not "own" the intellectual rights to the phone.
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If it's a historical building then the council can prevent you from modifying the house's structure :D:D:D
 
So... It wasn't illegal yesterday. It will be illegal shortly. No new laws were ever passed, enacted, modified or otherwise changed. So my question is, just WTF is this "librarian" and WTF do they get to decide what is and what is not legal??? I must have missed the part of the Constitution that authorized some custodian in some library to decide what is and what is not allowed in this country. :rolleyes:

A better question would be WTF does a "copyright" law got to do with unlocking phones to be used on different carriers? What code is being "copied" here? The DMCA is really an all-purpose anti-hacking, anti-freedom law at heart. You are NOT allowed to use your computer/smart phone the way you want to. You will beholden to large corporations and their desires! :apple:

"Given that so many unlocked phones are available, I've arbitrarilary and capriciously decided that I will no longer allow you to unlock your phone and use it on the carrier of you choice. You freedom has been revoked. The DMCA (vague, abstract and therefore BS law that it is) will be used in name by me, Darth Dewey to tell you that you can no longer use your AT&T phone on T-mobile! Muahahahahaaha!" --The Librarian :cool:
 
mrsir2009 said:
If it's a historical building then the council can prevent you from modifying the house's structure :D:D:D
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I guess they could try, just like HOA's tried to prevent people from installing antennas or satellite dishes to their property. FCC shot that down. :D:D
 
marc11 said:
Ok make this a law and then also make it a law that the day your contract has been fufilled your phone becomes unlocked without any interacation or request from the owner. And while they are at it they should investigate if unlocked phone prices are artificially inflated to get people to buy locked phones and two year contracts...I bet you anything AT&T is not paying the same price per phone a consumer would from Apple.
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It's called economies of scale and purchasing power. A consumer is not buying iPhones by the millions. It's more expensive to buy one can of soda than to buy a 12 pack.
 
barkomatic said:
You left off the rest. It's my phone, I'm committed to a contract and will pay AT&T a monthly service charge whether I occasionally use it overseas or not. This is an anti-consumer ruling.
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If you don't like their terms then don't sign a contract with them.
 
This story seems utterly absurd. I call BS. How can a "Librarian of Congress" or whatever decide what law goes into effect and when? Who made this person king? This sounds totally fake to me, or something extremely specific that has been blown out of proportion.
 
I'm not surprised. All it takes is a few million dollars of lobbying to get whatever you want. Looking at at&t's quarterly earnings, it's a drop in the bucket.
 
jay_app said:
This is what a massive, extremely powerful federal government looks like - the power is taken from the people and given to the powerful.
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This is what massive, extremely powerful corporations look like - the power is taken from the people and given to the powerful.

Fixed that for you.
 
law. unLAWful

People have been doing this for years with non-smart phones........ What makes you think a law is going to be any good ? It was illegal for them to. it always has.

If people choose to unlock their phones, then they do so either the legal way and pay money, or via third party hardware that is readably available or these "mobile services" that all you need is the IMEI number....and go the illegal route..

I have had a few successful attempts with this in the past.. not on the iphone, but with non-smartphone... (nokia 32xx etc...61xx series.)

Is this article saying you must pay money if the phone is on the block list ?
 
lazard said:
they are locked because they are subsidized. You want an unlocked phone, then buy one outright (like the rest of the world). There's nothing backwards about it.
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I got a subsidy in exchange for a contract. Why should the phone be locked? Even if I sell the phone or give it to somebody else, I'm still under contract and still have to give the carrier the money, or pay ETF. They don't lose anything. Provider locking only restrict consumer choice and is anti-competitive.
 
AZREOSpecialist said:
This story seems utterly absurd. I call BS. How can a "Librarian of Congress" or whatever decide what law goes into effect and when? Who made this person king? This sounds totally fake to me, or something extremely specific that has been blown out of proportion.
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It's called a delegation of powers. The DMCA is written in a way that gives the Librarian of Congress to make exemptions to the "anti-circumvention" portion of the law. An exemption to the anti-circumvention provision for the unlocking of cell phones has been in place since the late 90s or early 2000s. The Librarian has deemed the exemption to be no longer needed, since cell providers regularly provide unlocking services for phones.

The real question is interpretation. The exemption's purpose was to allow hacking (or rather circumvention) to allow people to unlock their phones (versus a legitimate unlock, who's legality has never been questioned). So, I'd say a legitimate unlock, that does not require the user to circumvent digital rights management of any kind, such as a "legitimate" unlock (ie one that doesnt require the end user to circumvent DRM) purchased from some grey market seller would actually not be violating the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, because nobody is circumventing any sort of DRM.

/kind of an authority on this.
//wrote extensive award winning articles in law school on the DMCA anti-circumvention provision.
 
Its been said before, but i'll say it again .... :)

This is why Australia rox..

I never COULD understand why US was always turning the other cheek on not selling unlocked iphones, only to finally come out with it later...... (guess someone at the top was smart)

Something Aussies have been used to.


US is good for other stuff :)
 
The Register concluded after a review of the statutory factors that an exemption to the prohibition on circumvention of mobile phone computer programs to permit users to unlock "legacy'' phones is both warranted and unlikely to harm the market for such programs. At the same time, in light of carriers' current unlocking policies and the ready availability of new unlocked phones in the marketplace, the record did not support an exemption for newly purchased phones. Looking to precedents in copyright law, the Register recommended that the class designated by the Librarian include a 90-day transitional period to allow unlocking by those who may acquire phones shortly after the new exemption goes into effect.
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Allow me to translate:

Due to extensive lobbying and campaign contributions to candidates of both parties, we are staffed and lead by people with deep ties to the industry we are meant to regulate. Therefore, we've decided to bend the American people over a barrel and **** ****, and **** them in the **** **** and especially the ****.
Consequently, you will go to jail if you use the device you (thought you) bought for purposes that don't maximally enrich our mutual overlords.
 
iSee said:
Allow me to translate:

Due to extensive lobbying and campaign contributions to candidates of both parties, we are staffed and lead by people with deep ties to the industry we are meant to regulate. Therefore, we've decided to bend the American people over a barrel and **** ****, and **** them in the **** **** and especially the ****.
Consequently, you will go to jail if you use the device you (thought you) bought for purposes that don't maximally enrich our mutual overlords.
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lol.... uh... painful stuff.
 
Unlocking cell phones ????

W T F ????

So, what is being proclaimed here is that NO new cell phone from any manufacturer coming into the US can be unlocked? And the idiotic US congress actually agreed to this ??? and they actually passed a law to make this a law ?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!

NO.
 
Well, here you go. Another totally dumb, useless law made by those with their heads up their a**es.

Guess those lobbying telecom dollars were well spent /s
 
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