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

[iGrip]

Yeah, but that's only if you set up a business where you unlock customer's phones for money. If you unlock your own cellphone so that you can use it on another network, that's not really for 'commercial advantage' or 'private financial gain', is it...?

You would need to delve into the case law to see how the court interprets the phrase "private financial gain" in the context of the statute. The language could be interpreted to mean that you did not buy a more expensive unlocked phone, but instead, to save money, you unlock a subsidized phone.

In fact, I don't know how else it could be interpreted. If you do it for a third party for money, that seems to be "commercial advantage". Doing it for yourself in order to save money seems to be personal financial gain. But my guess is only a guess.

 

[Puevlo]

Thanks Obama

 

[Battlefield Fan]

As a US citizen I'm not exactly shocked that the government is taking our rights away. That slowly started happening 4 years ago....

 

[RolyPolyBird]

To make laws that man can not and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?

—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1860)

 

[Mausse]

Only in the U.S...

Land of the free!

You're all welcome in Amsterdam ;-)

 

[everything-i]

Seems a bit draconian to criminalise something that essentially hurts no one, after all the phone is not being damaged and is being paid for with a fixed term service contract but this is going to be defined as a 'criminal' act. It doesn't make sense

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To make laws that man can not and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?

—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1860)

Sounds like a woman who had a pretty good grasp of reality unlike current politicians it seems.

 

[Reason077]

Even more bizarre than this appalling decision, what country lets unelected librarians make important regulatory, legal, competitive, and economic rulings such as this?

Mobile phone unlocking has nothing to do with copyright. It falls under the same category as things like number portability and "bundling", and should be regulated by the FCC or the FTC. It is absurd that the Library of Congress and the DMCA are even involved here.

As for librarians: I may be stereotyping here, but they're generally pretty meek and submissive personalities. The sorts of people who are easily manipulated by those representing big-corporate interests?

 

[Xenc]

Subsidised phones have been sold unlocked in the UK for the past few years. This is a step backward!

 

[vmachiel]

So.. why should this be illegal. You are still paying over 2 years right, no matter what you do with the phone. I don't get it...

 

[dazzer21]

Only in the U.S...

You got that right!!!

 

[Macist]

Ironically, given that the US, via puppets like the IMF, likes to impose neoliberal voodoo economics on the world regardless of local conditions it's increasingly one of the less free markets in the developed world. Social Democrat Europe wouldn't pull this kind of crap.

How on earth is this good for competition and the consumer?

Rome is falling.

 

[iHateMacs]

Illegal? Who's going to arrest me?

Steve Jobs? Oh no, he's dead. Should be ok then as Tim Cook is a wimp.

 

[ZivaD]

1984 and then some more, what a disgrace.

 

[Quu]

I think in the UK it is illegal for telco's to lock a mobile and not give you the ability to unlock it.

That's true.

And our mobile atmosphere is quite good. Now obviously the UK is smaller so it's easier to cover the whole country but we have lots and lots of phone networks with almost total coverage on all of them. And as we all use GSM and no CDMA it makes it easy to switch networks.

Personally I have an iPhone 5 64GB with Three and I pay £16 a month for 300 minutes, 3000 texts and unlimited data with tethering. That's $25 USD a month. My contract is 12 months but I also had the choice to have the contract only last 1 month with auto-renewal until cancelled. If I chose that my minutes would be 150 instead of 300 and my texts would be 1000 instead of 3000 but those were the only differences between the two contract times.

I feel really sorry for you guys in America. I mean sure you got LTE on a few different providers while we only have EE for 4G but on my network I get 14.4Mb/s down over 3G on my iPhone 5. I'm pretty happy with that even for tethering use that's very good.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

So your assertion the United States is becoming a communist country is quite contrary to this article.

That's because historically illiterate people who are right-inclined call anything they don't like "communist" without having any understanding of the real meaning of the word.

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Should have voted Romney

The Librarian of Congress is not a political position, it is an academic one and he was appointed by Ronald Reagan (R). Furthermore, the Librarian did not create the legislation (DMCA) that allowed this to happen - that was introduced by Republican Howard Coble.

 

[VulchR]

I take it that nobody from the Library of Congress ever travels overseas, where the phone and data rates are outrageously high.... What a stupid ruling.

I wonder if the US electorate has any say in who's running the Library of Congress. If not, then perhaps it is about time they do.

 

[objc]

As a US citizen I'm not exactly shocked that the government is taking our rights away. That slowly started happening 4 years ago....

If you think this started happening just 4 years ago, you need to pull your head out of the sand. Draconian laws like DMCA are passed with support from both corrupt parties. Powerful interests own both.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I wonder if the US electorate has any say in who's running the Library of Congress. If not, then perhaps it is about time they do.

Just because the DMCA legislation has been applied in this way does not mean it is lawful. All it takes is one legal challenge against it!

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As a US citizen I'm not exactly shocked that the government is taking our rights away. That slowly started happening 4 years ago....

4 years ago? are you kidding? The biggest single erosion of individual rights and privacy in the last century in the US was the Patriot Act, introduced over 10 years ago during the presidency of George W. Bush.

 

[GermanyChris]

We get the government we deserve..This is why corporations shouldn't have first amendment rights..

 

[rmwebs]

We get the government we deserve..This is why corporations shouldn't have first amendment rights..

But if we believe the junk the pro gun members of this forum were posting a few weeks ago - you shouldn't be able to make any changes to your rights as they are perfect.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I hope you all now see the USA's descent into TOTALITARIAN rule by the Communist government of the USA..
...
but this is just what happened in the 1930s when Germany's government went down the toilet.. The same will happen to the US..

Except that regardless of the party name, Nazi Germany was a Fascist dictatorship. Fascism opposes both Communism and Democracy.

You're confusing your isms again.

 

[SiPat]

Surely there must have been some collusion between the networks during any "consultation period", and the networks must be doing cartwheels out of sheer joy. The DoJ now needs to get involved.

In Europe, competition laws tend to favour the consumer and create a somewhat level playing field. There are some disadvantages but, by and large, the system works.

Networks are not allowed to lock-in customers by disallowing unlocking, but there is nothing stopping the manufacturer from doing this. Case in point is Nokia -- these used to be dead easy to unlock through freely available (via internet) calculators using just the IMEI.

The newer handsets based on Nokia's own OS doesn't allow this without some sophisticated and costly equipment and some even require hardware modification by shorting out some pins on the motherboard.

One operator in the UK always sold their handsets unlocked and will even unlock your iPhone free-of-charge as long as you continue to pay your monthly charges for the duration of the contract. Other networks see unlocking as a cash-cow and charge £15-£20 for unlocking.

 

[GermanyChris]

But if we believe the junk the pro gun members of this forum were posting a few weeks ago - you shouldn't be able to make any changes to your rights as they are perfect.

The problem is one is a constitutional right..the other not

Corporate person hood and 14th and 1st amendment protections have let a long an tortured path since 1819

“Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”--Lincoln

**edit** we should probably save the gun debate for the gun debate threads PRSI

 

[rmwebs]

**edit** we should probably save the gun debate for the gun debate threads PRSI

Agreed.

(And I get what you're saying )

 

[michaelsviews]

So what ?

What are they going to do? Nothing ! at all. They can't tell if your unlocked unless you take the device to them or I would think if your IMEI number show's up say on TMO's network. All this is going to do is boost sales to the people that unlock devices.

These celluar companies are raping customers, look at Verizon's latest.

Greed