Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S.

mashable.com

537 pointsbluetidepro357 comments

I'm wondering if anyone could help me explain why this is a bad idea to others who might be sympathetic but don't really think about unlocking iphones. Like most people, I don't care about unlocked cell phones per se, it's just a consequence of a principle I very roughly characterize as "I want to do what I want with the things I own so long as there's no detrimental social effect."

I've thought of the gas station metaphor: "Imagine owning a car and legally not being able to fill your tank with gasoline from any vendor you chose." But I'm not sure what works best.

Please: I'm not characterizing the people I mean as dumb. On the contrary, they're smart people, who would otherwise see this as an obscure decision (indeed, how many people in the US actually unlock a phone?). I'm not asking how to dumb things down, I'm asking how to convey why decisions like this matter.

The problem is this. I buy a phone from Verizon, go through and pay my 2 year contract.

Legally, I am done and all paid for, except I can't switch out to T-mobile now (or at any time), if I wanted. I have to pay the price that Verizon mandates. I'm basically trapped unless I waste money for a new phone.

So basically when gas prices go up, I can't go to a different gas station a mile away that I know to be 50c/gal cheaper. So they all make it go up to fuck me over.

I don't think this falls under your principle. I'm all about the doctrine of first sale, but this isn't a simple retail transaction where I fork over a sum of cash for a finished product and that's it. I paid for half a phone, my cell provider paid for the other half, and I have contracted to tie this phone to their service for two years in exchange for them shelling out that $300 up front. Once the two years are up they should be legally required to unlock it, but during the contract period it seems reasonable to keep me from taking full ownership of something that I don't yet fully own.

"You can also pay full-price for a phone, not the discounted price that comes with a two-year service contract, to receive the device unlocked from the get-go." - if the full price phone was locked, your principle would certainly apply, but it isn't, so I don't think it does.

I know that here in Canada, even if you buy an iPhone full price from anyone but Apple, it is locked to that vendor. Which seems ludicrous to me.

I thought the newest bill (related to technology, pirating, etc) here in Canada made it legal for Canadians to be allowed to unlock their phones and made it illegal for companies to tie one device to one company.

I don' think that's what the article is about. If you break the contract you'll have to pay a terminal fee anyway.

But you do fully own the phone, even if you're on a contract. It's not like a mortgage or a car loan; the phone company doesn't have a lien on your phone. The penalty for breaking the contract isn't to give the phone back--it's to pay a termination fee.

This, specifically. If they want to deal with ownership do some kind of leasing agreement... otherwise, let's not have public enforcement propping up the business model.

Except that unlocking the phone doesn't free anyone from fulfilling their side of the original contract. So network interests in recapturing their subsidies don't even enter into it.

If I buy an iPhone 5 from ATT and unlock it, even if I pay for a Straight Talk SIM and use that from time to time, I'm still on the hook to pay AT&T whatever monthly fee the contract obligates me to pay.

The only reason AT&T would want me to not unlock my phone, is to ensure they have a captive market for further services that are not part of the contract. Be they usage overages, international roaming, etc.

They'd like my $70/mo for a base smartphone package (with an absurd early termination fee to boot) and to not have to compete for any additional or international service I may need.

Now you can certainly argue that that's a consideration people are willingly agreeing to when they agree to buy subsidized phones on contract. But the argument is that it's a consideration that ought to be explicitly spelled out in the contract terms, rather than enforced by an end-run through copyright law that most people don't know about and have no reason to believe holds any bearing over how they use a device they're paying for.

"Except that unlocking the phone doesn't free anyone from fulfilling their side of the original contract"... it does, the contract now says that you can't unlock the phone. If you do you break the contract.

I thought it was pretty clear that I was speaking in the context of the parent post, about the financial terms of the contract and whether it was reasonable for a network to lock a phone to ensure they recouped their subsidy.

Also, the contract doesn't say anything about (un)locking the phone. An unaccountable executive reading of a largely-obscure copyright law is the only thing saying it. And it isn't being termed a violation of the contract, it's being termed a violation of the law.

The fact that the 'lock' consideration and implications aren't explicitly in the contract is rather the point.

Okay... but I still don't understand your point. You are saying that the contract exists so that telcos can push additional services (over limits, roaming etc.). But there is also an unlocked option. Are you saying that people are not aware of unlocked full-price option? Even if they are not there is an option to buy out the contract any time. And it appears completely reasonable comparing it with original costs. Here is from AT&T: $325 minus $10 for each full month of completed Service Commitment. I would like to know why you think AT&T is ripping people off.

I would like to know why you think I believe AT&T is ripping people off.

Is it that since I think the situation is wrong that I must necessarily think the party that currently stands to benefit is necessarily evil or shafting the other side?

Or is it simply that: because I disagree with you, you assume I hold every position you also disagree with?

I'm sorry, but either of those is simply wrong.

My objection is that an appointed executive can so massively alter the effective terms of private contracts without those terms, or even the law's relevance, ever being reflected in those contracts.

If the 'lock' term was in the contract, I'd be fine with it. I think many people are, in fact, well served by subsidized phones, even when/if they come with 'carrier lock' provisions.

As a minor related concern, I think the situation is worthy of perhaps more-zealous scrutiny, because of the effective duopoly.

Given these terms aren't in the contracts, along with the duopoly's refusal to offer a "byo" phone plan with prices (and early termination fees) that reflect the lack of any subsidy that needs to be recovered, the expected and observed effect is a large distortion in the market toward subsidized phones.

Again, not because I think no-one should buy subsidized phones or they're some sort of 'rip-off', but because I think it's wrong and anti-competitive for the market to warp the cost-benefit of subsidized vs byo.

And having to pay for a subsidy you're not receiving is a very large distortion. Particularly in those places in the US where alternate carriers don't have viable coverage.

Though I'm hopeful the Straight Talk/Walmart partnership bears fruit and begets a trend, so that whole part becomes moot.

Fair enough. I wrongly assumed that you are out with the pitchfork.

You do have a point, but it's not like unlocking the phone gets you out of paying your monthly fees. Hell, they should encourage it because they'd still get your subscription fee and you might not even use their service!

I like your gas station metaphor, I don't see any problem with it. It seems conceptually equivalent and the need to gas up your car is nearly universal in the US so it applies to any region or income demographic.

Imagine you have a nice phone your bought and you've finished up the phone contract, and then you move. Your old phone company has terrible reception (or doesn't operate) where you've just moved. So you'll need to change phone companies. But your phone is locked. You are forced to buy a new phone, even if your old phone works fine. If you were legally allowed unlock it, then you wouldn't need to buy a new phone.

The car metaphor does not work.

As many farmers will tell you, it's illegal [1] to burn Red Farm Fuel Diesel in street vehicles, even though it works.

[1] http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.direct.gov.u...

Update: link to more info on red diesel

You could also siphon your heating oil into your diesel car, with the problem that you are not paying for your share of road use.

It also becomes an interesting conundrum with electric cars. In one sense their externalities in terms of environmental impact and geopolitical costs are generally much lower than conventional cars, but they are not paying for their use of public roads.

Of course that also means that if you limit your consideration to the road only, someone driving a lightweight Ferrari that gets 13MPG is really helping out with the cost of roads, even if they are also needlessly contributing a lot of carbon to the atmosphere.

It would probably be offloaded into yearly registration taxes that are based on the amount of damage your car would create on the road. A heavy truck costs more than a lightweight miata or motorbike.

For now, govt. wants to subsidize electric car's introduction to the market, so this tax deduction will probably stay for quite a while.

You don't need a metaphor. You can use a real life situation:

"I want to go to Europe"

You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to use your phone there without paying ridiculous roaming and data charges.

If you unlock your phone and hop a plane today, you can stop at any mobile phone shop at your destination airport, give them five euro, and they'll give you a new pre-paid SIM card with five euro worth of credit on it.

That's enough to use your phone as much as you like for the duration of your two-week vacation. Top up with another fiver if you want a couple GB of data while you're at it. And you're done. Just remember to pop your old sim back in when you get home.

Travelling the rest of the world is all about picking up cheap local SIM cards in every country you visit and enjoying cheap calls like a local. You're about to lose that.

Is it illegal to unlock your phone in France?

No it's not. Carriers are required to help their clients whenever they want to unlock their phone.

If you are asking "why can't I just go to France and do it there", it is generally illegal [edit: my knowledge of this situation for end users--as opposed to those distributing tools--is apparently somewhat flawed; read the responses to this comment] to knowingly do something illegal in the US while traveling in another country so as to evade US law, so if you intend to return to the US you are still somewhat screwed. (Also, FWIW, many of the core people who do iPhone unlocking research are in the US, such as planetbeing and MuscleNerd.)

[edit: The main reason I left this comment was that the other person responding didn't directly address that Spooky23's question was more about why the US citizen can't just wait to unlock their phone until they arrive in France, rather than doing it before the leave. Maybe someone else who sees this, maybe someone who has experience dealing with international travel, can comment on why that is or is not sufficient, given that the extra-territorial illegality argument that I was making is flawed. Is it really that simple? ;P]

While I would believe you over many other people because of who you are and what you do, there's something about your statement that doesn't feel quite right.

Does that mean that if someone from the US that's under 21 travels to a country where the drinking age is lower (or non-existent?), legally drinking alcohol there would be illegal?

There's a long whitepaper on the subject here, but U.S. laws by default don't have extraterritorial application: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/94-166.pdf

Some laws are explicitly applied extraterritorially; for example, the U.S. has in recent years been prosecuting Americans who travel to other countries to pay for sex with minors, even if legal in the destination country. Drinking when under 21 isn't in that category, though. I have no idea if jailbreaking a phone is. Although, even without extraterritorial application, there might be some kind of U.S. contract violation if the person returns to the U.S. and continues to use the phone.

Interesting! Given that the US has even been attempting to extradite people who aren't even US citizens on DMCA matters (although not with entire success) I am not certain if the powers that be entirely agree on where their rights are (nor arguably will anyone know until they conclusively win or lose such a case).

Internet-related stuff uses a different theory I think, that someone making stuff available over the internet to Americans is basically acting in the U.S. for the purposes of jurisdiction. Same way people who've never been to the UK get sued under UK libel law, because someone in the UK read their article on the internet. The internet makes a big mess of jurisdiction...

Perhaps minorly important: I don't believe the '21 to drink' thing is federal, but rather something the federal government pressures all states into adopting themselves.

Yes. Although obviously, there would most likely not be any consequence from doing so.

This occurs more frequently in cases of sex tourism (most particularly in countries like Thailand), and online gambling.

A few years ago at a previous employer, we had a client in Costa Rica who made online gambling applications who hired us to do an application assessment (preventing cheating and things like that); and it was only after we had started performing the assessment that I happened to inquire in a meeting with our legal department as to whether this was actually legal for us to do.

As a result of that meeting, we had to stop work on the assessment immediately, and not do any invoicing, as our lawyer thought that charging for that assessment would be a pretty clear violation of the law.

Were you doing this work in Costa Rica? Because if not, your example is completely different. You were doing work in the US that the US deems illegal.

And actually, I'm not certain that your lawyers were correct in stating that the work was illegal. It's illegal to operate an online casino in the US. That's not the same as it being illegal to develop software that can be used by an online casino. If the casino in question was serving US customers, then you might be considered an accomplice in a crime. If they were only serving customers outside the US, I seriously doubt you'd be guilty of any crime.

The work was being done in Costa Rica, onsite. And the software was used for their own online gambling site (we were testing the production site, not software that they provided to other people).

I concur that it was probably a more complicated legal matter, but our counsel was pretty confident that this would have been problematic.

The comparison makes more sense, now. :)

Were they allowing US customers to use their site? If so, you were might have been in a gray area. I agree with your legal dept that it could have been problematic either way. Not necessarily illegal, but not worth the hassle.

> While I would believe you over many other people because of who you are and what you do...

Thanks for the sentiment, but on legal grounds for end users I'm quite often not the most knowledgable ;P. In particular, I don't like travelling internationally, and I now actively avoid it, so I also tend to know less about how things work in other countries than more reasonable people. I work with some people here, however (who are asleep currently) that have spent a bunch of time researching the landscape of international law with regards to jailbreaking, but they probably themselves only focussed on "citizen of that country in that country".

What I will say I tend to know more about than average is "stuff that affects myself and my friends", but the reality is that as an end user of these tools, you really aren't ever going to be prosecuted: I thereby would tend to care more about "what if someone took a trip to a conference in Germany, built an unlocking tool with some friends there, and released it while abroad?", and for that situation I can dig up enough to make it sound sketch (although the extent to which DMCA exemptions help people who provide tools is at least in question).

IANAL, but I believe you have over-generalized.

There are certainly some U.S. laws that claim jurisdiction over U.S. citizens, no matter where they are in the world.

  * the U.S. expects U.S. citizens (and perm res) to report income anywhere in the world, and pay taxes on it
  * the U.S. claims jurisdiction on underage sexual assault, no matter what country it occurs in
  * the U.S. claims jurisdiction on bribery and corruption

There may be other examples. But in general, AFAIK, the U.S. does not claim jurisdiction on random behaviour in other countries.

http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/6503/are-there-any...

Thanks! That's actually great to hear! What I normally end up seeing, however, are a bunch of cases where the US not only claims jurisdiction over their own citizens, but even demanding extradition of people from other countries for "helping or encouraging others" to violate the DMCA (one well-known example being Richard O'Dwyer).

Although, such cases that come to my mind were websites, which operate internationally, even if hosted entirely outside of the US. This is obviously a different situation than the seemingly commonly-cited "underage drinking" examples. For the people who build unlocks, though, like MuscleNerd, that is apropos, and those are the people who I mostly spend my time contemplating (although whether the DMCA exemptions actually help them much is another question).

(For individual users messing with their phones, of course, most of this is pointless: there is really no practical chance in hell that individual customers will be taken to court over things like this; it would be more a looming situation for people who offer this as a service at their store, which is quite common at phone repair shops.)

The law might not cover it, but prosecutors can always try to convict you for it, and it's up to you to fight it in court if you feel that US law should not have jurisdiction over $Something in $Elsewhere.

I doubt most US courts are likely to say, "well we don't have jurisdiction over __that__".

Right; Richard O'Dwyer is actually an example of exactly that (the US didn't even win in the end: the situation dragged out and was settled and the charges were dropped; they sadly, thereby, also did not clearly lose).

The US kinda did win: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-1654433...

The UK was allowing him to be extradited?? I don't feel so bad about UK libel law applying to US companies anymore (although it hurts everyone).

Also, O'Dwyer had his domain name seized from him by the US somehow.

Regarding websites operating internationally, including tvshack.net and O'Dwyer, I think pretty much every country tries to regulate websites that server pages within their borders.

Consider "obscene" speech/media/etc. Consider hate speech. Or look up "google vividown lawsuit" (the defendants all live in the U.S., and no one cared about that fact). And let's not even get into national firewalls (e.g. China, half the Middle East, etc).

With respect to the phones... first of all, it sounds like we agree about the likely odds of individual phone users being taken to court. There's no way that anyone would be individually prosecuted for this, without there being an ulterior motive. Of course, that's a big "without"... the RIAA/MPAA seem to be utterly free of compunction, and there are so very many cases of prosecutors bullying people with obscure drug laws for various incomprehensible reasons. "3 felonies a day" and all that.

Second, yeah, if you run a business in France unlocking phones, and some of the phones you unlock happen to belong to U.S. citizens vacationing, it's not clear that the US would claim jurisdiction over you. IANAL!!! But if you run a business in NYC unlocking phones, yeah, you've got a problem.

Did I mention that I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice? 'Cos I'm not.

As a side note, I have a huge problem with #1.

IIRC, the US is one of a very small number of countries that does this.

If income is generated without using US resources, I don't see why it is necessary for that income to be double taxed.

There are double taxation agreements in place with a very large number of countries so you never effectively have to pay double taxes, you generally have to pay the higher amount since you can deduct the tax already paid in the other country. Check what the regulations are for wherever you are.

Does this actually work, though? I was under the impression that most phones sold in the US have incompatible GSM frequencies to those sold in Europe.

I don't know if this help but I couldn't get a plan at some companies in Canada because my french phone had different frequencies.

In Europe where I grew up, we use 900/1800MHz - my original GSM phone wouldn't work in the States when I visited. I had to wait quite a while for the first tri-band phone to come out before I could get one that would work in Canada where I now live where we predominantly use 850/1900. Interestingly 1900 is the predominant band in Canada with 850 being a "backup", but in the U.S. it's determined by regulatory requirements of the location.

A quad-band "world phone" (that supports 850/900/1800/1900) will work in _most_ places (some exceptions) in the world that support GSM. There are some countries that use some obscure bands - Benelux, Russia etc. use 450MHz.

It gets a little more complicated when you get to UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA... but Wikipedia explains it all quite nicely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands

So your iPhone will work everywhere - at least everywhere that uses at least one of the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies... if it's unlocked.

You forgot 2100MHz 3g.

2100 MHz 3G/4G are HSDPA/LTE so your phone needs to support HSDPA/LTE as well as being GSM... and then you also get 2100 MHz LTE on CDMA...

On 2G, 2100MHz was only on CDMA, which most of the world (still) doesn't support... so if you've got a CDMA phone and are travelling anywhere outside of a very limited list of some 45 countries (North/Central/South America, Caribbean, Far East), you're SOL.

So like I said UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA gets more complicated, because then you're not just talking GSM or CDMA... your phone needs to talk UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA as well as having the correct frequencies and GSM or CDMA.

It used to be the case, but very rarely with new phones.

wrong, as stated below...

technically, baudehlo is mostly correct. Most new phones: androids (HTC, Samsung, etc), iphones and whatever, are able to be used around the world as long as they're unlocked and have SIM card slots because these countries are at least using one or more of these frequencies: 850/900/1800/1900/2100, which most new phones are capable of.

The parts that he's wrong would be those few "dumb" phones that companies still sell that aren't able to use the other frequencies, but this is rare. Also, some countries don't use the same "LTE" or "4g" frequencies that the US uses, so if you were to bring your phone there, it would still work, but it be limited to "3g" instead of "4g" speeds, but this varies country to country and it also depends on the network and plan that you choose.

GSM phones bought in the US work in Brazil, at least.

It works fine. You just need to make sure the phone you buy is compatible with European frequencies. Many are, including the iPhone and iPad. Both my AT&T iPhone 4G (unlocked) and iPad 3rd gen work fine on a German sim card. The Verizon iPhone 5 also works.

iPhone 5 from Verizon or AT&T will work with European and Australian GSM, but data will be 3G. LTE does not work in Europe. I am assuming Android phones with similar radios to the iPhone 5 will support the same networks abroad.

that's also because there is nearly no LTE coverage in Europe... besides, who needs that for daily use? 3G is just fine ;)

There is some LTE but on odd frequencies. There is lots of hdspa+ or 3.5g though.

Yes, but if you foresee that you would need to travel, couldn't you just buy an unlocked phone? (I normally just buy an entirely different phone, a cheap Nokia brick handset, for travel use). This law doesn't prevent people from using unlocked phones, it prevents people from taking advantage of the carrier subsidy.

Carriers agreed to give you a shiny new smartphone for a massively subsidized prize in return for you being locked to their network.

It seems rather exploitative to take advantage of this quid pro quo by breaking free from that agreement. All this law seems to do is to prevent people from taking without giving.

But you're not breaking your agreement.

You're still paying your monthly bill like a good customer. You're just replacing the SIM for a couple weeks.

You could certainly achieve the same result by buying a second phone just for traveling. But you already have a phone. In the rest of the world (and in the US until tomorrow), that's all the phones you need.

You are not paying the roaming charges if you unlock your phone. Thus breaking your agreement.

You're also not using their service. Is turning your phone off and leaving it in a drawer for a month also breaking the agreement?

If you turn off the phone and leave it in a drawer you will pay the minimum fees. The phone companies are aiming for the maximum. That is having you go over the limits, pay roaming etc. By letting you unlock the phone it opens the door for always receiving only the minimum. This is what they want to avoid.

next big thing:

Credit card companies lobby to make debit cards illegal

Yes they want you to overspend. Their revenue strategy should not depend on it.

You could argue that because the phone is locked to AT&T's network, part of the agreement is that you'll use AT&T's service if you take the phone abroad. Basically, by selling a phone that only works on its network, AT&T is bargaining for the right to any international usage of that particular phone, if there is any.

This is a very common contractual scenario--you get a discount for agreeing to only use one particular vendor, to the extent that you have a need for the particular kind of service they provide.

Well, not only are you not using their service, you're using somebody else's service when theirs is available.

As per your binding contract, you agree to only use their service in return for getting the phone at a subsidized price. Their incentive to charge you less for the handset (incurring a loss on the sale) is that you agree to guarantee doing business with them.

And if that's a problem, unlocked phones are still always an option.

"As per your binding contract, you agree to only use their service in return for getting the phone at a subsidized price."

You mistakenly believe that contracts are in perpetuity.

You're suggesting Protectionism. An industry won't innovate or provide realistic pricing based on their actual costs, so you suggest we protect their income through artificial means. Sure, I'd love some protectionism - how big do I have to be before the government will invent some laws for me to make sure you can only use my service, and not yours?

Honestly I'm not suggesting anything. All I'm saying is that this contract is optional. People can buy full price and say fuck-you to the contract. In fact I have gotten iPhones cheaper from AT&T by buying locked and immediately buying out the contract than buying unlocked from Apple.

>In fact I have gotten iPhones cheaper from AT&T by buying locked

In which case I'm sure we'd all consider it reasonable to first ensure AT&T covers it's cost by increasing its contract buyout amount. We're talking here about the price of roaming being artificially high. You step across the border and come back to an inflated bill because of termination 'agreements' between providers.

When I went traveling, I called T-Mobile and they provided me an unlock code without any bellyaching.

It took me several days to get an unlock code from T-Mobile, for a phone I'd paid for unsubsidized. And, they make a big deal out of the process, and make a lot of noise about possibly being unable to provide unlock codes if they don't have them.

That's not to say T-Mobile isn't better than some other carriers. As I understand it, they are. But, I shouldn't have to ask permission to use my phone, that I paid $600 for, in Mexico for a few weeks, while I continue to pay for my US service.

Making unlocking a phone yourself illegal is anti-consumer and pro-corporate in ways that I find extremely distasteful and it makes me angry that the US state serves corporate interests so much more enthusiastically than individual interests.

----- I want to fight this -----

HN, my brother is just about to relaunch an unlocking site I made in 2002 (mockup here: http://j.mp/WRfm6A).

I really want to help him fight this ruling.

I'm guessing that petitioning the librarian is the best idea. Any ideas or thoughts on how to go about this would be very, very much appreciated.

And if anyone's willing to help, email me (email in profile).

if you paid for the phone unsubsidised, why was it even locked in the first place?

They are locked, by default. I bought it in a T-Mobile store, because my Nexus 1 died while I was travelling and needed something quick (it's an HTC Sensation 4G, which is the worst phone I've owned, possibly ever). Maybe they'll unlock it immediately if you ask them to, I dunno.

Hey I don't know why, but the same happened to me in the UK. Bought a phone outright from Three, then later paid them to unlock it. Silly.

So you can only use it with the vendor you bought it from? I guess the OP means bought with no plan. This is the primary use case for locking.

AT&T also has this policy. Sprint and Verizon will not, but CDMA phones don't work in most places around the world anyway.

All it took was one short call to Sprint to get my iPhone 4S unlocked for international SIM cards. Domestic cards still say invalid, but everything else works.

That was about 6 months into the contract.

It all depends on how long you've been a customer, how long you've had your phone, and the status of your current contract.

The reason they gave you a code is because they have competition in unlocking - you could just go to an iPhone unlock website and do it yourself.

Once it becomes illegal to unlock your phone by any other method it won't take long for them to start charging for this 'premium service' or not allowing it at all.

I went travelling this past December and wanted to unlock my iPhone 5. I was told by AT&T I would have had to wait 2 years before I could get the phone unlocked...

You should have bought an iPhone 5 if you wanted to own one.

I buy my iPhones, and the first time they sync, I get the message, "Congratulations, your phone is unlocked."

As it stands, AT&T owns your iPhone until you finish your contract just like the dealer owns your leased car.

Do you pay $300 extra for the privilege? I don't believe AT&T offers unsubsidized discounts.

That might be how it works in the US, but why roll over and accept that when literally the rest of the world doesn't.

In Australia, subsidised androids on 2 year plans aren't locked at all, and for iPhone its as simple as ringing the carrier for the unlock code, you can do it the day you get your phone.

They're going to get the full value of the contract anyway, why pay them insane roaming fees too.

I've worked in telco in Australia for a number of years now, we are better off: the phones cost is built into the plan these days (hence why an iphone on a $35 plan is an extra $23 per month).

It used to be worse. They used to come locked, and getting unlocked was an exercise in pulling teeth. Thankfully things are better now.

To those that say it's a lease, it's not: you cannot give the phone back and receive the money you've paid for it. It is your handset. You cannot even request a new one if it doesn't suit you (here in Australia anyway). Unlocking the phone does not cancel the contract: you still pay that monthly fee.

On a lease, you also can't give the car back and receive the money you've paid for it. Nor can you swap the car for a different one. Even if you left the car at the dealer, you'd still pay your monthly lease fee. It's a contract.

> You could certainly achieve the same result by buying a second phone just for traveling. But you already have a phone. In the rest of the world (and in the US until tomorrow), that's all the phones you need.

If you got your phone subsidized, then no, you don't have a phone. You don't get to unlock this not-paid-for phone the same way you don't get to change out the drive train on a leased car. At the end of the lease, after the dollar buyout, go wild. After your contract is over, unlock away. It's yours, do as you wish.

I believe the carrier owns the phone until you've satisfied your subsidy contract.

Similarly, I believe an unsubsidized phone should come unlocked.

I believe Jason's point is that you're still paying off the phone subsidy. Nothing's changed, as far as that's concerned.

You may be avoiding exorbitant surcharges, such as roaming fees.

Well... why are those surcharges so exorbitant?

Pay through the arse. Or toss another disposable phone into a landfill. People are starting to think that "some law" doesn't necessarily make it "right".

No, the carrier does not "own your phone"--they're taking a risk that you'll abide by the contract.

Even if you get out of your contract early, you have to pay a termination fee, which is effectively the remaining part of your carrier subsidy. AT&T is going to get their money one way or another.

Also, going to Europe for 2 weeks doesn't mean you stopped paying your AT&T bill for those weeks, either. It's perfectly reasonable to expect your phone to not be carrier locked.

I wasn't clear. I didn't mean the carrier literally owns your phone. I prefixed with "I believe" intending to convey how it seems to work, not the technical fact. I should have written, "It's as though the carrier owns your phone".

But the technical fact is all that matters. What you "believe" is irrelevant.

Not quite. You have bought your phone effectively with a loan. It's not rented, it's bought with a loan and you're paying that loan back in monthly fees. You can't give the phone back and receive the part of the loan you paid, so it must be your phone. Leasing is just a special kind of loaning money, where you're loaned money for the sole purpose of purchasing a given product by the same merchant that sells you that product. If the telecom expects that you will use the phone only on their network, they can trivially add a "minimum monthly charge" so they'll cover the cost of the phone regardless. In fact, I believe all of them already do it.

As a country with an economy built around loans (i.e. credit cards and so on), making things bought on credit not really yours seems insane.

Unlocking your phone has nothing to do with taking advantage of the carrier subsidy. If you are under contract and "unlocked" you are still bound to pay your monthly fee to your carrier unless you pay the ETF or early termination fee.

It has got everything do with carrier subsidy. If you don't want the subsidy they will sell you a unlocked phone. Problem solved.

No, they they have damaged the free market for phones and phone service using these subsidies to create bundles, so you will pay an inflated price for both your phone and your service.

Whether you buy it locked or unlocked you are being ripped off. They essentially learned it from the US employment/health insurance co-bundle.

Given that several branches have to spend considerable time reviewing just how noncompetitive the wireless industry is, it is kind of absurd for one to hand them another tool to continue competing on everything except price and service.

They'll gladly sell you an unlocked phone, but they won't reduce the monthly rate.

T-mobile is going to stop offering subsidized phones this year--either pay up front or rent-to-own. Their monthly plans will decrease accordingly, so non-contract customers aren't getting hosed.

False. I haven't taken a carrier subsidy since 2007 and I have to jump through hoops to get my phones unlocked.

If you buy a prepaid phone at full price with no subsidy many carriers have policies on how long you must be a customer of theirs before they give you the unlock code.

Additionally, if you buy a used phone on Ebay/Craigslist - aka nothing to do with carrier subsidies - this now requires you to break the law in order to unlock your phone.

Convinced?

No, not convinced. I haven't taken a subsidy on the last 3 iPhones or Android phones and I've had no hoops at all to jump through, neither on AT&T nor on T-Mobile.

The iPhones, I simply demanded at the Apple store to pay full price (this is before the officially unlocked version was being marketed), and the first time I plugged the phone into iTunes, I got a dialog congratulating me on unlocking my phone. This was not widely reported, but always worked.

The Android phones, I can simply pull out the T-Mobile SIM and put in an AT&T one and I've never talked to anyone about it.

Both types work with pay as you go SIMs in Europe. I've never spoken to AT&T or T-Mobile about any of them.

Convinced?

T-mobile prepaid requirement: "you have a minimum of 60 consecutive days of active service with T-Mobile"

http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1588

AT&T prepaid is much worse:

http://forums.att.com/t5/Prepaid/Unlocking-PrePaid-Phones/td...

"Requirements for prepaid wireless plans with AT&T branded phones: You have had AT&T service for six months or longer You can provide a receipt or other proof of purchase"

The last line illustrates how carriers are dictating policy in an effort to subvert the secondary phone market.

Even more frustrating in the same link you will see that certain AT&T phones are "ineligible" for unlocking presumably due to some arbitrary restriction.

>Carriers agreed to give you a shiny new smartphone for a massively subsidized prize in return for you being locked to their network.

Another way to look at things is that carriers subsidize the cost of your phone in exchange for you signing up to a fixed-length phone contract with a set monthly price.

Whether or not you can unlock your phone really has nothing to do with this, as you're committed to the contract either way.

The real issue is what happens after you've completed the 18 or 24 month contract. The carrier recouped their subsidy on the phone and has profited from your contract. But you can't use your phone (which you have more than paid for) on any other network.

>The real issue is what happens after you've completed the 18 or 24 month contract. The carrier recouped their subsidy on the phone and has profited from your contract. But you can't use your phone (which you have more than paid for) on any other network.

I'm not so sure this is true. Carriers will allow you to unlock your phone once your contract is up, and according to this DMCA law, it is legal to unlock your phone if your carrier allows you to do so.

What if the carrier refuses to allow you to unlock the phone? Just because they do today doesn't mean they will tomorrow if nothing compels them to. One cannot assume the good intentions of companies that exist to make money.

The reason such a law is beneficial to carriers is that if they decide to not allow the unlock, the phone is likely only good for their service. If the phone is only good for their service then you might as well renew your contract. Right?

AT&T has been unlocking off-contract iPhones for less than a year (of the over 5 years they've carried it):

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/6/2930642/att-sim-unlock-ipho...

And who knows if they'll change their mind again in the face of T-Mobile's spectrum refarming?

>it prevents people from taking advantage of the carrier subsidy...Carriers agreed to give you a shiny new smartphone for a massively subsidized prize in return for you being locked to their network.

Aren't you contractually locked? What does locking your phone have to do with your contract?

I'm not sure why there should be criminal penalties if you took advantage of a carrier subsidy anyway. Gaming consoles are a clear example of this. I know XBox used to make up the subsidy on game sales.

att didn't unlock initial iPhones (e.g. 3GS) even after contract was over, not until April 2012 - nearly a year after contract was expired. I wish we had laws declaring that practice illegal. Keeping phone locked beyond the contract seems way "exploitative" to me.

There was a landmark case about this same issue in 1936 concerning IBM punch cards.[1] IBM leased its machines to customers, and they also sold punch cards, which they argued were effectively part of the machine.

The pricing was an important component of their business model. IBM wanted to get the machines into skeptical customers' buildings before they had a chance to be shocked by the sticker price so that they could discover how useful computing really was. The per unit price of punch cards however increased with the volume of punch cards purchased—which arguably made sense if the customers got more value out of each punch card once they got rolling on how to use the machines.

Anyway, the US Supreme Court said that was too bad, and enjoined IBM from dictating that they must be the exclusive supplier for all punch cards as a condition of lease agreements.

The principle here seems like it should even be more clear. Are you leasing you phone, or promising to use purchase their service for 24 months at an agreed rate? You get to pay a hefty cancellation fee if you choose to cancel the service, but you are not required to return the phone.

IANAL, but it seems like the Clayton Act(1914)[2], was pretty clear about "tying", and it was affirmed by the Supreme Court. While that does not mean that cell phone providers need to help you unlock your phone (unless separate legislation affirms that responsibility), it seems both anti-competitive in spirit, and contrary to the doctrine of firs sale to legally prohibit customers from tinkering and developing their own capabilities and uses for their property.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/298/131#writing... [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/14

The really interesting thing to me is what (I assume was) one of IBM's biggest customers -- Germany -- for its punch card/punch card machine business was doing with those punch cards.

I feel like it's not just about taking advantage of a subsidy. I'm a canadian, so I'm not sure about what happens when you early terminate in the US, but here if you early terminate you have to pay a fee. So you mean to tell me that if I leave the carrier for whatever reason, and pay $250 to do so, I then am not allowed to use this phone again until I come back to the carrier? Sounds more like them trying to take advantage of me.

In fact, this was the key argument made by the copyright office: that the landscape has changed since the original exemption, and now it is commonly possible to purchase unlocked phones in the US (even the weird recent "no unlock ever" phones, such as the iPhone, can now be purchased unlocked), so there is no longer a need for a specific exemption on unlocking.

Whats exploitative are the roaming fees levied by carriers.

My carrier didn't subsidize my phone. I bought it from Google, and put my old SIM card in it.

But it's not exploitative to charge monthly fees that high, or require one to pay extra for tethering, or force one to pay extra to blacklist phone numbers from calling one, etc.? If they cannot afford to subsidize phones like that because too many people hate their service so much that they switch, quite frankly; fuck them. I'd much rather they need to compete instead of granting them monopolies and legislating against leaving their service with your phone.

iPhone 5 on Verizon is not locked and you can do this if you desire. I'm not sure about other phones.

Verizon phones don't use sim cards.

Even LTE ones?

Actually, the iPhone 5 on verizon does use a SIM card. When I asked the sales person about it, they said it was for LTE.

That said, the slot is unlocked on the verizon model, so you can pop another micro SIM in there for travel use.

It requires a sim cutter. I am not sure if anyone in Europe offers pre-paid nano sims, but I'll find out in a few months.

http://www.zdnet.com/nano-sim-redux-using-the-iphone-5-in-th...

looks like 3 does http://store.three.co.uk/SIM_Only/Mobile_Broadband_iPad_Nano...

when the smaller iPhone sims came out a couple years back there was a backlog on pay and go for a few months as they were reserved for their iPhone contract customers, same will happen with these tiny sims.

(I know that says iPad, so I'm extrapolating)

edit: Yes they have Pay and Go nano for iPhone 5 as well: http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchSimOnly?tariff=112

Cutting a normal SIM to size isn't that hard - or buy a SIM punch in advance to do it an a fail-safe way.

They do for LTE on the iPhone 5

In addition to what others have mentioned, you can buy many CDMA phones for Verizon that also have GSM slots. (These phones are generally branded as "Global").

Exactly why I got my Dinc2 on VZW unlocked. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Ecuador (beautiful country, btw) and I bought a Claro SIM in a store on the street and was able to call and text home (though Skype was cheaper when in the hotels, being able to call around the country and home if need-be was what I wanted).

Ditto in India over Christmas. I bought a Vodafone card and was able to call home, or would have if my phone wasn't being stupid (yay! for unstable roms!)

From some years ago, in pre-smart phone days, stories from Europe would be somewhat transfixing.

'When I became unhappy with my current provider / traveled to another country / didn't want a monthly plan and fixed fee, I simply bought a different SIM and popped it in.'

You mean, you changed your cell service by changing the 'memory card'? You didn't have to pay $40/month (or equivalent) for 90 minutes of phone calls? You're not locked into a 2 year contract? You don't get caught and screwed over with roaming fees (remember those)? (Different SIM card for the different country.) THEY DON'T $0.10, $0.20, WHATEVER PER TEXT MESSAGE?

I'm probably forgetting many of the other "astonishing" differences.

All you needed to do was have an "average" U.S. person talk for 2 minutes with an "average" European about cell phone use, and the American was ready for a change.

P.S. I realize this is sarcastic, but I suppose this change will end up getting someone charged with a felony for "hacking", at the DOJ's or other law enforcement organization's convenience.

Why some years ago? That's what we do even today. I don't think our iPhones are locked, Androids definitely aren't (Greece).

I've been cut off in my hermit cave.

Also, alternatives have been starting to catch on, here. Such as pre-paid plans that offer significant discounts. Also FaceTime, Skype, and whatever else (although these eat into often stingy data quotas).

Many in the U.S. still have little or no clue. But I don't think it's quite as bad as before; also, someone "technically" "gaming" the system isn't as astonishing as it used to be.

Or so it seems, from my cave. Mostly, I'm just more familiar with reactions back at that time.

You can buy unlocked iPhones at apple stores in Canada. I get unlimited minutes and text with chatr. That comes with free long distance, call display, voicemail etc. everything except picture messaging or data.

Chatr doesn't sell microsims. So at the mall, there is a kiosk that will legally cut the chatr sim for $10. Chatr encourages this.

This plan works even if I travel to another city, as long as its a major center.

No contract. They're actually illegal in Quebec. Instead, companies offer the same agreements to consumers, and conscmersd just have to pay back part of the phone price if they leave early.

If you have a discounted agreement that doesnt include a subsidy, you can leave anytime you want.

FYI Chatr is a Rogers subsidiary. They created it specifically to compete[1] with the other cheap services like Wind and Mobilicity. This is why your iPhone works, because it's on the same Rogers network.

[1] Some argue that the only reason they created Chatr was to drive the smaller guys out of the market.

Yeah, I expect that's why they did it. Or at least to keep people in the Rogers ecosystem.

A lot of the smaller guys didn't work in my area, or on my iPhone.

I just wanted to highlight that a big company encourages you to unlock your phone and deface their sim cards. Chatr reps directed me to the sim cutter.

It's funny how different the implementations are, I could never understand on my trips to Canada how a mobile phone could have an area code.

Now, we have our own peccadilloes in the UK. "Free-phone" numbers are expensive from a mobile. Special cheap 'local rate' phone numbers for businesses cost a fortune.

But yeah, that seemed just nuts.

Random Story:

Back in the days (I think somewhere in the 90s) GSM service in Germany was still relatively expensive, I remember my cousin brought back a SIM-Card from Finland and used it for over a year back home. Even including roaming prices it was still cheaper.

Austrian mobile contracts are still cheaper in Germany than German ones. But the Austrian market is special case.

Wait, that's seriously true? All of it?

Thank you for the clearest explanation so far - I never knew what unlocking was (and never cared so far).

Now I kind of care. But I would oppose making it illegal.

Yeah, I have switched out SIM cards on my travels.

When I Had a locked phone, I would keep it on Airplane mode for the duration of my trip.

> "I want to go to Europe"

> You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to use your phone there without paying ridiculous roaming and data charges.

Would it be legal for me to unlock the phone once I land in Europe? Would it also be legal for me to return to the U.S. with said phone that I unlocked over seas?

In a way you circumvented their copyright so I guess yes you would be in trouble when you returned. If people are actually going to get into trouble about it.

You probably can't use your phone for travel if you have Sprint or Verizon anyway, since they don't use the same cellular standards as most of the world. And if you have a typical "tri-band" phone from another carrier you may be unable to use 3G data. It is unfortunately complicated in ways it does not need to be. And don't even get me started on the wonders of APNs when travelling...many customer service folks don't know how to set up data on foreign phones anyway. It should all be automatic.

Not sure that's a great example either- a new SIM gives you a new (local) phone number.

If I'm only overseas for a week (or other short period), and especially if it's for business, it's a whole lot more convenient for me to pay exorbitant roaming fees and still get phone service to my normal number.

Yes, it's cheaper to buy a new sim, and locals can call you a little easier, but in some cases it's not worth it.

The problem that the OP states is that nowadays there doesn't seem to be a lot of real-world practical examples where one would want or need to unlock their phone....

When you want to change carrier, or sell your phone.

If you use VoIP you can keep your number even if you switch to a temporary SIM while travelling. Or just tell people to use Skype etc.

I'm in Thailand for the next couple of weeks and roaming data costs about $8/megabyte. It's too hard to predict and control data usage when you're used to free data. If I forget one background app or get one setting wrong I could end up with hundreds of dollars in charges.

So no - it's not easier to pay roaming charges. It means I can't trust any app unless I fully understand how it uses data. Swapping out the SIM is the only reasonable option.

Of course - the real solution would be sane roaming data charges.

To get normal usage out of my smartphone

Well, MOST of the world has cheap (below $10 USD) prepaid plans like europe, I think japan is an exception where "cheap" calls using prepaid sim cards is very difficult (nearly impossible) to get because the three most popular providers docomo, au, Softbank all have very steep prices for just calls. The situation is even worse for prepaid data plans (~$25/mb using Softbank, insane. Texts were also $2.50/text, so that's not an option either). Their reasoning is to prevent criminals from buying burners. And if your phone is locked then you would have no choice but to rent their phones for about $50/week or $200/month, to put it into a monthly contract perspective.

There are a few exceptions such as buying from other networks besides the big three but those networks don't work in non-metropolitan areas (i.e. outside of tokyo, kyoto, or most major cities), and that's when you might need your phone the most, especially if you can't speak Japanese.

The loopholes: using wifi to gvoice call internationally at $0.11/min in Japan, or payphones, because receiving calls is free. I digress, but to explain the situation, I found a store (Mobal) at narita int'l airport that gave free SIM cards where you "pay as you go" at around $2.50/min (the other stores charge ~$1.50/min but you needed to pay $25 flat fee and then a rate of $1.50/min), but I also bought a portable wifi router so that I could make internet calls through gvoice for $0.11/min (or free calls back home in the U.S.) and you can avoid paying them as long as you can make wifi calls (free wifi isn't as common in japan as everyone thinks).

> I've thought of the gas station metaphor: "Imagine owning a car and legally not being able to fill your tank with gasoline from any vendor you chose."

That's misleading. It's more like: "Imagine if Shell sold you a car at 1/3 of retail and being legally not allowed to refill it at any gas station you choose."

You're leaving an important part of the equation out by ignoring the subsidy, and potentially making people think it's illegal to move phones you buy unlocked for full price between carriers.

In my experience, ordinary people respond quite strongly to the idea that if I'm they're getting a discount on something, there might be strings attached. They don't see anything wrong with it generally.

As stated out by another user this not an accurate metaphor. With yours Shell loses out on potential revenue if you go to another gas station. To buy a subsided phone it is in contract that you must stay with that said company for a period of time. If you break that contract you have to pay full price for that phone. Unlocking a phone does not in anyway alleviate you from your obligation to abide by that contract and pay your bill. Unlocked or not unlocked you still have to pay.

You're making unwarranted assumptions about AT&T's revenue model. Who says staying on the contract for two years is the entirety of the benefit AT&T bargained for? They also benefit from the control over the secondary and overseas market that locking the phones gives them.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that people don't necessarily pay what they owe on contract. AT&T has to deal with this statistically. Some percentage of people will take the discount and not pay the termination fee. It costs money to go after those people and they take a big haircut selling the debt to a collections agency. Maybe they found that locking the phones is a cheaper way of enforcing the contract because most people can't figure out how to get past the lock.

I'm not arguing that unlocking your phone should be a violation of the DMCA. But it's also unfair to leave out the fact that you didn't buy an unlocked phone--you bought, at a huge discount, a locked phone tied to a contract.

Any secondary income is assumed income. A user can not be held liable or to contract for assumed income.

For your argument how is a user unlocking his phone and the user just stop using their phone different? As far as i understand your argument this should yield the same result as far as assumed income. (yes i know this is ridiculous but thats the point) Should it be illegal for a user to simply stop using his phones?

I'm not defending making it illegal, I'm defending AT&T's locking of the phones they sell.

It's not secondary if it's contemplated by the contract. I haven't read AT&T's contract, but presumably it prohibits modifying the software on your phone that way.

Overseas phone usage is expensive because the overseas networks have free reign to decide what they charge. The cost that your carrier charges you per minute/sms/MB is almost exactly the same as what the overseas carrier charges them. AT&T don't make money off overseas usage (which incidentally must be a very, very small portion of phone usage - enough to make it inconsequential).

Here in Europe the EU regularly reduce the maximum price that a network can charge overseas (EU) visitors for calls and texts. The networks are very willing to tell us why european phone usage costs what it does - because of overseas network charges.

You can see why a network would want to charge stupid amounts to visiting networks for usage - the more they charge, the more they make. There's no recourse because you're charging the customers of someone else.

The difference is, if I pay full price for an unlocked handset, I still pay the same monthly bill as someone who doesn't. Explain that one.

Imagine not being able to buy cheap gas because some economist got it in his head that people were more easily fooled by cheap cars subsidized by marked up gas with an implicit 20%+ interest rate so that you had to buy the gas and car that way even if you were perfectly willing to pay up-front for the car rather than the implicit financing fee via marked-up gas.

There, that's the analogy we should be using.

That is, in fact, almost exactly the model used for razors/razor blades.

There are many people that need to travel around all the time. I am a University of Waterloo student and we have a coop/intern program that allows us to travel between US and Canada all the time if we could find a job in the States.

Every four month we will be going back and forth between Canada and US. It is a major PIA that we cannot use the phone between the two countries. Right now I am on contract under Fido in Canada and I am currently in Seattle. I am actually still paying the fees for my Fido account in Canada in order to keep my discounted contract plan. However my phone is now totally useless in the States. The only official way of unlocking is to pay Fido a premium for canceling the plan. I mean if I'm already paying you guys money while I am out of country can't I just have it unlocked? What difference does it make that I unlock now vs unlocking it when my contract is due? Even if I unlock my phone, I will still be on contract which means I must pay the fees for the contract until it ends. If I then decide to switch carrier after unlocking, you can still charge me the same fee for cancelling the plan. It simply makes no sense and it's just screwing around with people like us that need to go out of country all the time.

Maybe fido has different policies, but typically if your phone has the right radios, your carrier will let you "roam", and they charge you for the privilege. This means you should get service in the states, it just costs a lot of money.

I am able to roam in the States, and it's connected to At&t right now. Like you said though, the roaming charges are ridiculous, it basically renders the cellphone unusable in accordance to my normal browsing habits.

If it has the right radios, there are about a million sites online that will sell you an unlock code for $20-40 depending on model. They seem a bit sketchy, but I've never been ripped off on 4 different sites.

I look at it from a free-markets perspective. I'm a big fan, you see.

Monopoly-inclined companies hate free markets, because they'd rather not compete fairly. They tend to think of customers not as respected partners, but as their property. We are cows that they are entitled to milk.

In this case they are taking advantage of information asymmetries, a size asymmetry, and human cognitive biases to reduce the freedom in the marketplace. It's bullshit, but very profitable bullshit. Profitable enough that they could buy the laws they wanted.

Locked phones go to landfills. Unlocked ones keep doing good when you donate or sell them.

You don't want to put all of those dangerous chemicals in the ground next to your drinking water source because of some silly "lobbyist-law" do you?

The reason it's difficult is that in principle, there's nothing wrong per se with a company giving you something with terms like this. The problem is that our political environment is corrupt and these big businesses are operating to large degree on what can only be called privilege -- and making this case is very very hard, most people live inside something that might be called "The Matrix."

If you own the devices you should do as you please. This would be like someone telling you that you can ONLY use a certain brand on brake pads on your car or only stop at an Exxon brand gas station.

I've been told before that most Americans have never been outside the country. I never realized "phone unlocking" would be a perspective that would be affected by this isolationism.

Does it strike anyone as odd the the Librarian of Congress is deciding critical technology policy? How did that happen? Is this just a random anomaly, or a sign of some sort of sneakiness?

It's because of the way the DMCA is written; there's a vast scope for actions that are by default illegal and need 'exceptions'.

The LOC defining those exceptions instead of some agency setting administrative rules (which is normal procedure for things like this that are too specific and move too fast for congress) is just an artifact of the US gov't not having a clear agency to deal with tech issues like this.

I found out the answer to this just yesterday in a different context. Here's how it was explained to me:

When those who opposed the impending passage of the DMCA realized they couldn't defeat it, they (mainly EFF at that point) decided to salvage what they could, which is to stick in a clause to allow the Librarian to decide exemptions. The *AA didn't try to shut that clause down because they thought it was basically a joke and would never amount to anything. But in reality the Librarian has indeed exercised some power, so it's considered a minor win for consumer advocates.

Until you realize that the LoC is basically deciding these things by executive fiat. Seriously, what has changed in the last few years that suddenly makes phone unlocking a threat to digital security when before it was just fine?

Nothing has changed except who's getting the money.

You are not looking at it in the same way the LoC is; instead, the question they pose is "has the situation changed sufficiently to no longer warrant maintaining an explicit exemption of a law--one that was instated by Congress and which we thereby must upheld and abide--for what we agreed six years ago was a dire and necessary reason?", and they felt the answer was "yes, while when we first put this exemption in place six years ago it was nearly impossible to purchase unlocked phones, it is now the case that numerous handset lines either come unlocked by default or have an option to purchase them unlocked, carriers have better policies with regards to unlocking them, and generally this is just no longer considered as much of a serious problem by users; we thereby no longer see the extreme necessity required in maintaining this explicit exemption: removing it will not cause the original problem to reappear".

I'm pretty sure the Register of Copyrights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_of_Copyrights) actually makes the decision / recommendation, and the Librarian of Congress just announces / rubber stamps it. Of course, the question still remains why this person is setting critical technology policy.

These days, wouldn't this be more the domain of the "copyright czar" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/intellectualproperty), Victoria Espinel?

The Copyright Office (which also handles copyright registration) is part of the Library of Congress. Historically it made sense. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap7.html

Does it strike me as odd that our federal government continues to limit the autonomy and freedom of Americans right down to what we can do with our phones? No. Does is strike me as wrong? Absolutely.

I don't think it is so much a matter of the Librarian being given authority to decide as it is a matter of his office being responsible for interpreting the law as it is written. The Librarian has a ministerial role, not executive authority.

Partially, this situation may be attributed to the way in which the law has been written. Many laws charge agencies with rule making authority and this necessitates public input. If Congress does not delegate rule making to an agency, then interpretation is the only option.

(Edit)

The relevant section is Title IV clause 5.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

What strikes me as more odd is how backward some of our laws are. Looking at the comments on that page I was amazed to read this one:

> "lol.. In Australia it's illegal to sell them locked (if they're factory locked then consumers only have to ask the carriers and they will unlock it on the spot free of charge)"

And this one...

> "...where I live they finally allowed us to unlock ours cellphones [...] it was fun seeing thousands of people trying to finally leave their company they hated to much (some cellphones carriers here are horrible). It has such a happy day lol. Now carriers have to try harder to get people to chose their company, because they can leave at any time, yaay! It's definitely a better system."

Ironic how Capitalism seems to function much better in other countries, even though the U.S. made Capitalism what it is today.

That's because too many in the US believe that free markets are defined by the lack of regulation rather than by the quality of regulation.

This is a regulation, though. A regulation on consumers. Anything that restricts freedom and choice is a regulation.

"Anything that restricts freedom and choice is a regulation"

A meaningless statement. Industry collusion (legal under free marketeerism), for example, is not a regulation.

But not a quality regulation.

>> "Ironic how Capitalism seems to function much better in other countries, even though the U.S. made Capitalism what it is today."

Plus 1000. In waaay to many cases, the government merely helps corporations deliver less value while extorting more money out of us for that lower value.

Consider cable monopolies, internet service monopolies, and many other examples.

In Capitalism, a business's proceeds should be based on its ability to deliver more value than other competitors ... not on its ability to get the government to help it strong-arm money out of people's pockets.

What's ironic is the companies and individuals that hide behind the excuse of capitalism for most of their ethically questionable activities are the same people who actively lobby to destroy free markets thus further leveraging their control over consumers.

Sometimes I wonder if Americans really live in a democratic and capitalist society, because sometimes it feels more like a dictatorship ran by the "megacorps" who crush any competition they can through excessive lobbying and abusing the various intellectual property mechanisms.

What's even more ironic is the "evil" communist nation of China has more of a free market due to their blatant disregard of intellectual property. Anyone can make any bit of hardware they want, sell it anywhere they want and shop keepers can charge whatever price they want.

I'm not saying that China's lack of control is is a good thing necessarily, China are too far in the opposite direction in my opinion. But I just love the perverse logic that the "land of the free" and the pioneers of capitalism is one of the most controlled and anti-consumer markets in the world.

The world is truly topsy-turvy.

The Australia remark is utter bullshit. From Wikipedia:

> In Australia, carriers can choose whether to SIM/Network Lock handsets or not and usually tend to only SIM/Network lock prepaid handsets. There does not appear to be any regulation or law on SIM locking in Australia.

Most phones can be unlocked for free by the carrier after a few years, but if you want it unlocked upfront (usually before passing n years or sometimes $k of credit in the case of prepaid phones), you'll have to pay the carrier.

Actually, you're incorrect, at least Optus[0]. All android handsets on contract are unlocked out of the box, and all iPhones are unlocked free of charge any time in the contract.

[0] I used to work for them up until this year

It could be worse. Here in Mexico, the goverment signed ACTA without the congress approval.

Something similar happens every time a patent is granted: One patent examiner makes industrial policy that is very difficult to overturn.

In most of the developed world, it's either illegal to sell a network-locked phone, or there's a legal requirement for networks to provide an unlock code at the end of your contract. Locking is generally seen as fundamentally anti-competitive and permissible only under strict restrictions, in order to maintain the economic viability of handset subsidies.

It's entirely reasonable that if your phone is discounted as part of a contract, you should be obliged to complete the contracted term or pay an early termination fee in order to keep the handset. What's not reasonable is the idea that the subsidy arrangement gives a network complete control over your device in perpetuity. Either the device is rented to you by the network, in which case they are responsible for it, or it's sold to you at a discounted price and is yours so long as you finish paying for it.

I'm always amazed at what Americans let slide of governmental abuse as long as big private companies profit. I find it difficult to comprehend that even hard core libertarians will defend laws like these.

Why would hardcore libertarians defend laws like these? It's an obvious market restriction.

Yes, it's also obvious that the government is in bed with the corporations (crony capitalism).

Just an observation on my part. Americans who call themselves libertarian often seem to be reflexively pro-corporate, even when it flies right in the face of their professed ideals.

My primitive reading of libertarian philosophy in this case would go something along the lines of: Companies should lobby for whatever regulation/deregulation benefits them because they are rational actors in a free market.

However the government should not have the power to actually grant this.

I suppose a hardcore libertarian might allow a contract clause which allows the phone network to hire someone to shoot you in the face if you unlock your phone.

"Should" is a little loaded; I would say "Companies would be expected to lobby..."

But yeah I think your interpretation is correct.

my general observation is that libertarians don't object to "i'm bigger than you, and therefore i get my way", just to "i'm the government and therefore i get my way". nowhere is this thrown into sharper relief than when discussing "i'm the government and therefore i say you cannot use the fact that you're bigger to get your way".

Americans who call themselves libertarian often seem to be reflexively pro-corporate

That's not been my experience. Organizations like reason.com and the Cato Institute regularly criticize businesses that use government regulations to stifle competition and restrict the rights of customers. A solid majority of libertarians support either eliminating or substantially weakening IP laws. (There is a minority that believes that IP be treated the same as physical property, with infinite copyright terms and other silliness).

DMCA, as in the Digital Millenium COPYRIGHT Act? I can't believe what the fuck I'm reading here. I paid for the phone. I own it. I can do whatever I bloody please with it.

I'm furious right now.

I agree it's total abuse of the DMCA, and a stupid idea.

But note, from TFA: "You can also pay full-price for a phone, not the discounted price that comes with a two-year service contract, to receive the device unlocked from the get-go. Apple sells an unlocked iPhone 5 starting at $649, and Google sells its Nexus 4 unlocked for $300."

You didn't buy the phone outright. You agreed to a massively subsidized price in exchange for a quid pro quo. At the very least, AT&T should be able to sue you for the breach of contract and get their $350 back.

But I think that's exactly what they should have to do, not have the government use the DMCA to enforce their contractual provisions for them.

> At the very least, AT&T should be able to sue you for the breach of contract and get their $350 back.

That's exactly what they do, except that a lawsuit isn't necessary. It's already part of the contract. Specifically, AT&T charges $350 - ($10 * <number of months used>).

And, I agree, that's actually quite fair.

http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/articles-resources/early-t...

Edit: Added link to AT&T termination fees

    $350 - ($10 * <number of months used>)

Weird; that would make more sense for a three year contract.

Seems like it's weighted to be more beneficial earlier in the contract, and later on makes more sense as the user to see the contract through to the end.

If you're unlocking your subsidized phone and moving to another carrier, you either have to keep paying your original contract or pay the early termination fee, both of which balance out the subsidy. If you're off-contract or have already completed your contract term, you've already bought the phone outright. As far as I am aware, there is literally no point of time where you can unlock your phone and leave your carrier high and dry.

I don't know what AT&T's reasoning is for not unlocking under-contract phones. They must make money off it somehow. Maybe they want to limit resale so people buy new phones, or limit hand-me-downs for use on other carriers. Who knows? See: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/theres-lots-of-mone...

The point is, that reasoning is built into the terms. You don't get to decide, after the fact, when you feel like AT&T has gotten the benefit of their bargain.

The quid pro quo was to sign a service contract. No part of that transaction made the phone any less mine, or gave them any rights to my hardware.

Had you not heard of the DMCA? It puts all kinds of restrictions on what you can do with things you "own". For instance, playing a DVD in an unauthorized DVD player.

>>>I paid for the phone. I own it. I can do whatever I bloody please with it.

I keep trying to make that point to people who defend lock-in to specific app stores and so far it hasn't worked. It's your device. Not someone else's damned colony.

It is a lost fight. The moment you hear competent developers and tech savvy people telling you that the locked bootloaders and the ability of apple or microsoft to be total moral arbiters is "fine and good for the users", some of them people that have benefited greatly from the openness of the PC and WWW ... its is sad.

Yes. I understand their need to make a living, but it's the same shortsightedness that leads to the entire mess we're in with everything.

I have no problem with lockin to specific app stores, consoles that only run approved games etc. A company can sell what they like; it's their product

... but ... once purchased the owner should be free to do what they like with it. Jailbreak, hack, whatever. It's their physical device to do with what they like. Sure, this may not suit some business models (like consoles sold at a loss) but too bad. Those companies are free to make hacking/jailbreaking said device as dificult as they like, but if someone can bypass that then good. I don't believe the goventment should be involved at all, on either side

> I paid for the phone. I own it. I can do whatever I bloody please with it.

But you didn't pay for it. You paid for part of it. The phone provider paid for the other part of it. In exchange for the use of something you didn't completely pay for, you agree to certain conditions.

No, you completely paid for it. You get a discount on the phone when you agree to contractual obligations. You own the phone no matter what, irrelevant to the performance of your contractual obligations.

You're partially correct in that you would still be "paying" for the phone through your contract, but once you get the phone, you own it, but because most contracts state that if you were to cancel your contract before its completion, you would have to pay a cancellation fee, most of which would be the "subsidy" portion for your phone.

This is to prevent people from getting iphone 5s for free and then running off with them and selling them on craigslist or china for $1000 (which you'd probably still make money even if you paid the $600 or $700 cancellation fee)

I'm an even tempered person, but seeing a law like this passed really makes me angry.

Dear government, how about passing a law that benefits me for a change? It's been a while.

Even worse is that the "Librarian of Congress [...] decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed" seemingly without an input from the people.

The regulatory agencies, dubbed the "fourth branch of government," are able to pass regulations with criminal penalties without passing a law through Congress.

This increase in arbitrary government authority threatens the very nature of a Republic.

Yes, regulatory agencies making laws is a hard call. The agencies are at least more specialist than Congress and don't have nearly the quid pro quo problems that election funding entails.

However, I'm sure a lot of them come from industry, which biases them to the establishment.

The nice thing is that they can easily be changed through public outcry unlike stupid laws passed through Congress.

This isn't exactly accurate; "... are able to pass regulations with criminal penalties without passing a law through Congress."

The DMCA was passed by congress and provides the criminal penalties. It's up to the agencies to work out the exact details of what falls under those penalties, within congress' wording. The larger problem is congress passing extremely broad laws.

Congress can't possibly legislate out every detail of every law (imagine holding hearings to decide on what species of tree in some national forest can be logged or on the details of the airport airspace restrictions around Des Moines Iowa), so they leave it to agencies. This isn't anything new.

That's not to say that there are no oversight issues though...

The regulatory agencies are largely controlled by the executive branch, and the increase in their power in part of a larger, seemingly irreversible towards the president being a sort of elected king.

There are many reasons for this, but the growing staleness and corruption of congress is a major one. That, in turn, is caused by a historical low in congressional turnover (with a multitude of causes, including Gerrymandering, Power determined by seniority, etc)

Term limits, preferably on consecutive terms rather than absolute ones, would help. And it's considerably more likely to happen than, say, switching our voting system to proportional representation.

Congress is supposed to be the people's chamber, in fact, the most important and powerful branch of government. Without a strong one, the Republic, in the form it was intended, will fail.

It's a basic principle of administrative law that administrative regulations can only be adopted with legislative authority, which in this case was granted by a statute Congress passed. It should be possible to look up the second step taken on this issue as an administrative regulation, which was a public notice and comment period. I have read the official notices and public comments for other administrative regulations on other topics, and generally regulators get plenty of commentary from the public (with "public" of course including interest groups, but also private citizens) whenever a new regulation is in the notice and commment period. "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The Common Law (1881), p. 1.

The quote refers to experience gained in the process of the development of common law.

"Common law, also known as case law or precedent, is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch."

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law

The Librarian of Congress was responsible for the exemption that exempted jailbreaking in the first place, and then decided not to renew it. The public is actually petitioned for what they think should be exempted and their argument for or against. As to whether it's truly illegal or not is now up to the courts.

Note: this is about "unlocking" (as the term is used for purposes of using a device on a different carrier, as opposed to the usage you often see on Android devices of "unlocking the bootloader"), not "jailbreaking" (which is about removing the defenses on the phone against the installation of third-party unauthorized software; not just "apps" but replacements of core operating system functionality).

In fact, the Library of Congress renewed the exemption on jailbreaking; they did not, however, see fit to expand it to cover any of the proposed expansions ("tablets", "video game consoles", or "personal computing devices"). This standing exemption, which was put into place in the 2009 exemption window due to an EFF application, covers the jailbreaking of "mobile telecommunication handsets".

Yes, I mixed the words up because I was trying to post quickly. But my point is more that LoC is in a position to provide or to no longer extend previously provided exemptions to 17 USC 1201 for 3 year durations. That is, they do not really issue prohibitions. Something that they don't provide an exemption for could possibly turn out to actually be legal through court doctrine and caselaw.

Don't worry, I'm sure the tens of thousands of new federal laws passed since 1990 have you covered.

The states are passing upwards of 40,000 new laws per year at this point (per MSNBC).

It's a nation that has gone completely insane politically.

It's only insane if you think that every new law makes something illegal. A law can do just about anything: clarify or update the language of existing laws, create or amend a budget, add or revoke a subsidy for a product or economic activity, be a statement of purpose, or allocate funds for infrastructure projects. In other words, just claiming that "40,000" laws is insane doesn't really mean much. Governments work by way of laws, so this metric simply tells me that these governments are active. To determine whether or not their activity is insane, one must investigate the types of laws being passed.

I don't see the word 'illegal' or any permutation thereof in the post you're responding to.

Personally, 40,000 additions to the surface area of the legal system qualifies as pretty crazy under just about every circumstance. Not all government activity requires a new law.

As phones become[1] no longer subsidized by network operators in the United States, this will become a non-issue.

[1] EDIT: I changed the former word "are" to "become" for clarity. What I mean, as some readers picked up and some did not, is that I expect United States mobile phone networks to get out of the business of selling mobile handsets at a heavily subsidized price (as is current practice in the United States), and thus get out of the business of needing to lock in contracts to gain revenue to cover the up-front cost of the subsidy. When handsets are sold at near full list price, the networks can charge just their network costs to customers who are free to shop with unlocked phones. The United States market is confusing in having different technical standards for basic voice phone service on different networks, but the networks are converging on similar technical standards for their data networks, so eventually most smart phone users will be able to shop for networks here.

Is there some sort of legal nuance I'm missing here? Phones are surely still subsidized by Verizon, AT&T, etc.. Are you saying that those entities aren't network operators?

Why do you think this is going to change any time soon? AFAICT, it's not going to.

T-Mobile is already dropping subsidized phones. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/07/us-tmobileusa-ipho...

That's interesting because I see AT&T doing the opposite.

i.e. if you want a Nokia Lumia 920, they'll sell you one without a contract, but it's still locked.

I called them and told them I'd like to use it when traveling, and they told me that since I had been a customer with them for so long they'd help me out. They later came back and told me they wouldn't be able to unlock the phone for me until the middle of May.

Do you mean as time goes on, we'll have more unsubsidized phones like the Nexus 4?

Likely yes. China wants in here and what better way than to offer cheaper phones that you can use with any carrier? To fend off that competition, the big name brands will have to do it first. I keep asking how much of a carrier-free phone's "price" is actually too fat a margin built in to soak carriers, who can seemingly afford to pay up.

That only works if the carriers do indeed offer a lower price for not taking the subsidy. AFAIK, T-Mobile is currently the only one to do that explicitly (I guess you could go PAYGO on other carriers, but it's not quite the same).

If you have to pay the same every month whether you take the subsidy or not, then you'd be a sucker to not take it.

>>>If you have to pay the same every month whether you take the subsidy or not, then you'd be a sucker to not take it.

Yes. But I think rates will change too. I think everything will sink to PAYG-like levels in the next few years. Maybe Sprint, being desperate, will change the industry.

So if this happens. Why not just buy unlocked phones directly then, instead of buying them from the provider?

I guess for the same reason that people buy cars on credit.

Here in the UK there are millions of students and people of limited means who own iphone5s but probably wouldn't have had the spare £550 in their bank account at a discreet point in time to buy one straight up.

If you need to unlock your GSM Samsung Galaxy S3 or Note 2, here's how:

Dial the following keys #197328640#

Main Menu > [1] UMTS > [1] Debug Screen > [8] Phone Control > [6] Network Lock > Options [3]Perso SHA256 OFF > (after choosing this option, wait about 30 seconds, then go back one step by pressing the Menu button then select Back, now you are in [6] Network Lock then choose [4] NW Lock NV Data INITIALLIZ ..... wait for a minute then reboot your phone... enjoy!!!

This is a PERMANENT UNLOCK, and does NOT trigger anything for warranty

/standard disclaimer: I am not responsible if you don't follow directions and what you do with your phone. Credit goes to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=34661189&...

Your post is missing the asterisk in the key listing -- it ended up italicizing the text.

If I remember correctly, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T have all settled class-action lawsuits regarding their locked down handsets after consumers claimed it was anti-competitive.

1 step forward, 10 steps backwards. How is this happening?

> Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1929, Dr. Billington was. . .

Oh, the guy who just decided unlocking smartphones should be illegal was born in 1929? Cool. That's how rotary phones used to work, right?

Age has nothing to do with it. Ideas held, does.

Dr. Billington believes the government should have that kind of authority. It's no more complicated than that, and it tells you all you probably need to know about what the man believes - whether he's 20, or 90.

> That's how rotary phones used to work, right?

Haven't LOL'd at an online comment in a long time. In all seriousness, he grew up in the era where AT&T owned the phone line all the way into your house AND the phone itself! I guess he misses the old days...

>Oh, the guy who just decided unlocking smartphones should be illegal was born in 1929? Cool. That's how rotary phones used to work, right? //

Rotary [dial] phones weren't locked to a particular provider were they? You could buy anyone's phone and connect it to your line and indeed buy any line and connect it to your phone - post network standardisation at least.

For a long time they weren't just provided by the phone company, they were owned by the phone company. The theory (at least as presented to the public) was you couldn't let ordinary people hook anything they wanted to the phone lines -- think of the potential for chaos!

Bell Systems phones ("telephonic instruments") were owned by the Bell System, not by you.

You were prohibited from modifying it in any way. That included moving the phone from room to room or attaching any kind of accessory to the phone.

The idea that someone's age prevents them from making good decisions about technology is offensive to me. It's a bullshit argument.

Martin Cooper, inventor of the cellphone, was born in 1928.

I also had to look up who the heck the Librarian of Congress was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Billington

Yep, we've got an 83 year-old historian making legal edicts regarding cell phones.

It isn't just him (and arguably it isn't him at all: its people he has working under him); I got a chance to meet some of the people on the panel when they were at the hearings in LA, and they actually seemed quite "with it" (although certainly not "technology expert", but that's asking a lot).

Yes, there is no way he is making the decision himself, or even capable of doing so. That's exactly my point. Yet somehow he's in charge of the whole show? In any case, TFA does give him sole credit for the edict.

More to the point, why exactly does the Librarian of Congress' staff have authority over cell phones? Oh, because it involves the DMCA. Supposedly, the DMCA was made for copyright, like books and music recordings. Books and music fall under the interests of the library. So do cell phones? That's just too much of a stretch. Either the law is being applied far too broadly, or the DMCA is really outside of the purview of the Library of Congress.

"Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

Heh, I thought it was Emma Goldman. Interesting how similar opposites are sometimes.

I don't give a rat's arse if it becomes illegal, I'm going to do it anyway.

Even so, the government has no right to declare what users can or cannot do with their mobile phones. Another "victimless crime" on the books. How has the war on drugs been working out for you, Congress? So much money and so many resources wasted on a crime that has no direct victims.

Seriously, someone needs to keep these loonies that run our country in check, because our masses are so stupid that they keep electing the idiots back into office. Ridiculous.

> Seriously, someone needs to keep these loonies that run our country in check, because our masses are so stupid that they keep electing the idiots back into office. Ridiculous.

The electing isn't the problem, the voting is. If nobody voted, these politicians couldn't justify their actions with "we're just representing the people!"

USA is already rock bottom in voting turnout. See how well it works. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/soc_glance-2011-en/08/04/...

It's impossible to say, even THINK that people would stop voting as a form of silent protest. With all the propagandist lies being shoved down our throats --

"Rock the vote!" "Your vote counts!" "If you don't vote, you will be doing your country a disservice! Blahbedyblahbedyblah"

And all this propaganda is more bipartisan lies. The root cause of this entire problem is that people think they can only decide between the lesser of two evils because of naivety or misguidedness and delusion. The bipartisan system is corrupt. Third parties, particularly the Libertarian and Green parties, embody the true meaning of Americanism and are perhaps the only way to get this hellhole of a country back on track. The only way to do that is to raise awareness of the lies and evil in our current administration and other administrations of the past, and to increase awareness of a third, even fourth choice. It is difficult, however, with the entertainment industry shamelessly supporting big government and limited rights. The RIAA, anyone?

Blank votes, then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_vote

As it is today you're absolutely right. If there were a campaign equal to those "rock the vote" campaigns, it could be interesting.

I'm also realistic. If voter turnout was even 1%, it would still be considered a legitimate election. It wouldn't matter if any law on the books says otherwise.

What happens in the US if nobody turns out to vote at all?

In the UK we would defacto go back to being an actual monarchy.

It's ironic that unlocked phones benefit carriers arguably as much as locked phones do. An unlocked phone makes it easier to switch carriers, thus cheaper for carriers to acquire customers, but maybe they'd all rather have it be expensive to acquire customers so that it's harder for smaller providers to compete.

Either way, I don't think that the DMCA was designed to ensure a telecom oligopoly.

> An unlocked phone makes it easier to switch carriers

But this also means losing customers, and losing that predictable 2 year revenue. They know their own services and prices and customer service is utter crap (at least here in US), I don't think any of them are delusional, so they don't want people to leave on a whim, because (gasp!) they might have to actually start competing (lowering prices, better customer services etc.).

Carriers have an escape clause fee in their contracts.

If you cancel your contract, you get hit with the fee.

I don't think phones should be locked to any carrier. Instead change the contract rules. If you cancel after the cooling off period and in the first 30 days you pay (blah), and every month there after it's (blah) - (something)*number of Months. Only if the phone was subsidized by the contract, of course.

I say this as someone who needs to be able to change out sims when I travel.

That's exactly how it works in Australia, and I believe that is fair.

I don't think it's ironic at all. Big corporations spend more on lobbying and only want a free marked where it helps them. Big corporations are the biggest threat to a functioning and free market.

Verizon has been trying to persuade me off their unlimited 4G data plan for ages now (I'm grandfathered in). Little do they realize that, as soon as they remove the one incentive I have to stick with Verizon, I'm ditching them for an open carrier.

Amusingly, I'm also paying for much more data than I use - I use maybe ~200-300 MB/month, so there's no way they're losing money off of me. But then again, we've learned time and again that the data caps have nothing to do with costs....

I love the part where the article says, "this wasn't what the DCMA was supposed to do." Is anyone else shocked that intention and expectations change when someone is given enormous power to change the rules? Come on guys! Stop being so gullible!

I couldn't figure out from the article what exactly it is that's illegal. Which of these situations cause me to break the law as an American?

1. I travel to Canada, unlock my cellphone there where it is legal, and bring it back to the U.S.

2. My Canadian nephew unlocks my phone while I am not looking.

3. I unlock my phone, but then never turn it on so it never connects to a carrier.

4. I buy a phone in New York, then move to Canada never to return. On arrival in Canada, I unlock my phone.

If it's really true that "unlocking cellphones is illegal in the U.S.", then only 3 should be illegal.

It sounds like you are crossing state lines (and international lines) for the purpose of committing a felony. I'm half joking. I think you can get fined for smoking a cuban cigar overseas, so I think you need to hand the phone off to a Canadian and let them unlock it.

There is further discussion about this started from a comment I made elsewhere on this article; the replies seem to clarify that only specific laws (including, apparently, this cigar issue you bring up, looking into it; that is apparently new as of 2004) have extra-territorial application.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5111405

Thanks for the link. Those are some surprising insights.

I hear that Carmen Ortiz is already gearing up her office to enforce this. Unlock your phone, get charged with 13 felonies and up to 50 years in jail. But you'll be able to plead guilty and get away with just 6 months or so.

We really need to reflect on the slippery slope, America.

I recommend checking out this TED talk because it's very inspirational: http://on.ted.com/Stevenson The focus of the talk is a bit more on inequality in the justice system than tech laws, say. But it's relevant since a) we need to be mindful of the "other" who's persecuted, as we're reminded by some of our own who are persecuted. and b) this talk highlights how we accept the moment as normal even when the moment is unjust. The talk reminds us to stand up and fight for what's right, rather than accept the new normal.

Finally, I'm reminded of the Martin Niemöller quote that we should always remember:

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the catholics, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a catholic.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

EDIT: I do apologize for the hyperbole folks... it was more inspired by the TED talk I linked to than the article above and the feelings caused by the Schwartz case and others. I went off topic, sorry!

I'm sorry, but you have an extremely warped sense of history if you think contractual arrangements between mobile phone network operators and their customers are comparable to the restrictions on freedom in Nazi Germany. This is a really bleak example of Godwin's Law in action.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/godwins-law

AFTER EDIT: Seeing the kind reply from the person with whom I am disagreeing here, I note from the dates of Martin Niemöller's life (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller

that his quotation was surely about the Nazis, and it couldn't possibly have preceded the presence of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in Germany "by half a century," so you were referring to the Nazis whether your knowledge of history included that realization or not. I have known that quotation since 1969, when I learned it from my elementary school teacher that year, when Niemöller was still alive.

With all due respect, even if the rhetoric is a bit hyperbolic, redwood's point is still valid. Winning major legislative and court victories against telecom, for example, makes no difference if consumers are willing (or forced) to negotiate their way into even worse positions than before as technological and market forces render cable/broadband and wireless providers the true behemoths of the modern market.

While I appreciate you're point, I'm thinking about this in the context of the Schwartz case and others. There is value to pointing to the slippery slope and fighting against it. I don't accept the premise of the Godwin's Law argument but respect that you do. I'd also point out that the quote pre-dates the Nazis by half a century so I didn't really go there

EDIT: You're right I literally misred his bio and had thought he died the year he was born :) Makes more sense, I admit :)

This a thousand times. It seems geeks get their panties in a bunch and start spouting off nonsense at the drop of a hat around here lately. I don't imagine many are engineers or they would use more logic.

It's a bit shocking that people do not realize the context in which this quote was born.

For anyone who makes such misguided comparisons, I urge you seek out someone who actually lived through Nazi rule or in the Soviet Union and find out what they think of your ideas.

I don't believe the OP was actually comparing a 2-year contract to getting killed in a gas chamber. But rather comparing how easy it is for many people to just look away and not care about things that happen to others since it is not happening to them... only to find that one day it DOES happen to them and then they're screwed. This happens on many levels less than genocide. Getting involved should not be reserved for only combating genocide.

Well I suppose persecution by one's cellphone carrier is better than by race or religion. I enjoyed your outstanding level of hyperbole though.

Well... I get it even if others don't. I've used this same quote before to point out how easy it is to give up the freedoms of others when it does not effect you. Sure, there will likely (hopefully) never be atrocities committed at the level of those committed by Nazi Germany, but the ideas in that quote can hold true for lesser events. This quote perfectly outlines what happens on that "slippery slope" we like to talk about.

This is sad.

In Brazil, my home country, is illegal for a carrier to not unlock your phone if you ask.

Same in France for instance

The EU has been good for mobile phone pricing.

£12.50 a month for unlimited data (and enough minutes and texts), oh yeah.

In Brazil, it's illegal for carriers to subsidize their phones. It's the carrier subsidy that gives rise to network locking here in the U.S. If you buy the phone at retail price, the carrier will unlock it if you ask.

Not true. We also have contract subsidized phones, and you can still unlock and use your phone however you want, you still have the contract to fulfill, or you can pay the ETF and be done with it.

Is this inaccurate? http://www.androidauthority.com/brazil-carriers-stop-selling...

Original ruling (Section III.C of 77 FR 65260) from Copyright Office, Library of Congress available at, https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/10/26/2012-263...

It may be marginally off topic, but this is exactly why it makes me sad seeing people claiming that monopolies are why capitalism doesn't work. The only reason monopolies really succeed is because of government regulations like this one. Without government regulations, all monopolies would crash very quickly.

Without government regulation cartels wouldn't be illegal.

Instead we have a regime where cartels and monopolies are illegal, unless specifically created by law. Which is what we have here.

My point is that without government regulation cartels wouldn't arise in the first place. Cartels are vulnerable to competition from outside. No industry has a high enough barrier of entry these days, since many huge corporations shoot all over the place for new business opportunities.

> Christopher S. Reed from the U.S. Copyright Office noted in an email to TechNewsDaily that "only a consumer, who is also the owner of the copy of software on the handset under the law, may unlock the handset."

So if I flash the firmware with a copy of software I own, am I then free to perform the unlocking action?

It should be noted that the baseband typically runs unrelated software to the actual phone, and one usually has to modify the software of the baseband to unlock it; thereby, when they say "software" they don't, for example, mean something like "CyanogenMod". If, however, your device doesn't have any protection mechanisms on it keeping you from flashing the baseband, and you own the rights to the software you are flashing to the baseband, and that software doesn't keep you from unlocking the phone, then I do not see any way in which the DMCA is relevant. (That said, while I have a vested interest in this sort of thing, I am not a lawyer.)

Totally the opposite on how is my country (Chile). Here it's illegal to sell locked phones.

Long term, the locked business model due to smartphone subsidies will die anyway since it largely benefits the manufacturers and app developers. Carriers are the ones currently taking the considerable risks facing consumers.

So, it is really a question whether it is appropriate to have semi-random administrative laws being applied by a "Librarian" at any time being good for society or progress.

The EFF and others who argued for how these exemptions to draconian laws are applied may yet rue the day the asked for this opening on their effective rights. At least the passed law was a static target that could be outpaced by technology.

From TFA: "The DMCA only permits you to unlock your phone yourself once you've asked your carrier first."

This struck me as odd. Not having read it myself, I didn't realize the DMCA was that particular.

So, is this "illegal" in the sense that ripping your own DVDs is "illegal"? Will we have "cellphone johns" under fire from phone maker and phone-unlocking code on t-shirts in a few weeks/months?

I've never owned a phone fancy enough to warrant unlocking, but this news irks me nonetheless. Seems plain as day that once you buy hardware, you have the right to modify it and use it as you see fit, so long as you own it outright.

Let the game of whack-a-mole begin...

Yes, it is illegal in very much the same way that ripping your own DVDs is illegal (no need for scare quotes -- it really is illegal, even if you think it shouldn't be)

>ripping your own DVDs is illegal //

That's not true in the USA is it - I understood that Fair Use terms meant that you could rip your own DVDs for backup, format shifting and such personal activities.

Perhaps the person using the scare quotes considers that perfectly moral activities that are classified in statute as being illegal are overridden by the demos' agreed morality of the actions. Does anyone find making/using a backup - even if it's format shifted, even if you torrent the backup - to be immoral given you paid your share of the copyright license already?

If the dvd is protected by a technical mechanism which you are circumventing in ripping it, then yes, it is unless you meet one of the LoC exemptions. In the current phase they allowed it only for disability access and for short clips for documentaries, educational use, etc.

They specifically denied an exemption for space-shifting, so ripping a DVD to view on a tablet, for instance, is still a DMCA violation.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-...

> it really is illegal, even if you think it shouldn't be

Is there anyone besides the LoC and the DVD lobby that think it should be illegal?

I've no doubt that the majority of the computer owning public are guilty of this "crime." We only have to wait another 20 years before DVD media starts to fail and maybe we'll see this "decriminalized."

Removal of a specific exemption from a law is not the same as "becomes illegal". Do we have any clear reasons that this becomes illegal, or is it now just more of an unexplored gray area of the law?

Because it's circumvention of an access control mechanism which is not exempted under the DMCA, making it illegal under the DMCA which bans all circumvention of all access control mechanisms, except those specifically exempted.

So, some context: Xuzz (whom I work with) possibly brings this up as I often make such an argument for the jailbreaking exemption in reverse. Specifically, that people who say it is "now legal" under an exemption are incorrect, as it might still be the case that there are other laws that apply; it just means that this one law now doesn't.

Additionally, I tend to make the argument that we didn't consider it to be "illegal" in the first place, but with jailbreaking the situation is somewhat different: the people opposing the exemptions actually cite as one of their reasons "you don't need an explicit exemption as you are covered by the blanket interoperability clause already".

With regards to unlocking, I have not read all of the relevant history (I have generally avoided working on the unlocking tools for various reasons; if nothing else, I simply haven't personally needed them); the DMCA, though, is mostly supposed to apply to cases of clear copyright infringement, which this is not; it isn't quite "interoperability", though, either.

In particular, there was a case I was interested in, with General Electric as the defendant (yay! ;P), which was hinging on the argument of whether the DMCA could apply to cases unrelated to copyright infringement (GE, by way of a company it acquired, apparently was doing unauthorized field service on a UPS made by a company that required a hardware security dongle to access the software it was running).

The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology publishes the JOLT Digest, where they summarize various cases. This case was summarized there.

http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/software/mge-ups-systems-...

The good news:

> The Fifth Circuit held that the DMCA’s provisions apply to protections designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material and not protection from mere access to that material.

> In so holding, the court limits the DMCA to those cases where a defendant circumvents a protection that is designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material.

The bad news:

> Barry Sookman provides an overview of the case and an analysis of the court’s ruling. Info/Law has a critical discussion of the DMCA in light of this case’s holding.

> As pointed out by Barry Sookman, such a limitation is inconsistent with prior circuit court decisions and fails “to consider [] legislative history.”

(I had actually forgotten about this case, and thereby had never actually seen the final court opinion. I guess I now have some reading to do this week ;P.)

Also, let's say you are with AT&T and your phone breaks or you lose it a few months before you qualify for a new phone. You are forced to pay for a new one at full price even though you've already decided you are going to switch to T-Mobile or a prepaid service when your contract is up.

If you can unlock it and the new carrier is also GSM, you can take the phone with you. Or, if you want a new phone with your new carrier, you can sell your existing phone that you just paid full price for. If it's unlocked (or unlockable) you can sell it to ANYONE if it's unlocked and might get a better price since the potential customer pool is larger than if you HAVE to find someone on the AT&T network to buy it.

I just bought a currently locked AT&T phone because I was told I can unlock it for use with T-Mobile. Then I discovered that when it arrives tomorrow I have EXACTLY ONE DAY to unlock it before that becomes illegal. In my case, the scenario described above is exactly what happened to the guy I bought the phone from. Only he wanted to stay with AT&T but when his contract renewed (3 months after buying the phone I just bought from him) he was eligible for a new higher end phone (actually an iPhone 5).

I just can't get over how freaking BIG BROTHER-ESQUE this new law is. I HAS to be unconstitutional, right???

What is the name of the person ultimately responsible for this decision?

There is no single party responsible. There are many. The entire government is to blame. We are talking about people, bureaucrats, who haven't the slightest idea of how a hard disk works or how their computer connects to the internet, and they think that they know everything about computers and can single-handedly swipe technological rights out of the American people. See Carmen Ortiz above.

It's the entire government. The sooner people understand this, things like these won't happen.

Without corporations wanting this to happen in the first place, this specific example of corruption doesn't happen. Let's not forget the party to whom this benefits the most.

How's about instead of calling out a specific party, we all try and fight the onslaught of corporate influence and the government bending over and answering to the companies' every whim?

Seriously, calling out political parties does NOTHING unlessy you're prepared to fight against those parties. See my other comment about "misguidedness and delusion" for more details.

Well, I mean corporations in general, so I certainly endorse reigning in their influence in general, not just a specific company.

Good point. You highlight the inherent danger of corporations: the mob has never been good at applying justice. Individuals, with accountability and transparency have always been better than the mob which is concerned only with profits.

> The sooner people understand this, things like these won't happen.

Something tells me that even widespread awareness wouldn't change things one bit.

I can think of no good reason to enter into a contract for cell phone use.

It always seems to me to be at least as cheap to buy the phone outright and use a prepaid sim. You pay more up front but less monthly.

You have more freedom, you can still buy on credit with a credit card if you wish to (and benefit from additional protections by doing so usually). You can change networks if you relocate or have signal problems, you can keep your number and you can sell your phone and buy a new one if you fancy it.

I use a prepay in the UK, I bought my own Note 2 which was expensive (~£400), but now I pay £12 a month for unlimited data and text and more minutes than I'll use by an order of magnitude.

Even in the US, where airtime charges are comparatively high, it seems to be cheaper to do this overall. Why save $400 on the phone by agreeing to pay $20-30 a month more than you need to for two years?

Am I missing something? Why do people get sucked in?

Phones are shiny and easy to buy, especially if they have a "Free with this contract" sticker.

Phone plans are baffling, and boring. You don't fondle your phone plan. You don't buy a case for your phone plan.

The problem here is way deeper than just the possibility to unlock a phone (which obviously is already quite a big practical problem, you just have to read a couple of comments above who explain why very well). The problem is the culture in which we live in, and the transition that we are experiencing, going from `free culture`(read more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_culture_movement) towards a 'permission culture`, in which big companies basically control assets which should be creative commons.

This transition will not pull through, it will most probably lead to a revolution of some kind (this is a pattern seen throughout history).

This article is frustrating, it doesn't really explain the implications.

In what sense is this "illegal"? Could I be jailed or fined for doing this? I doubt it's going to be enforceable, unless somehow the carriers care enough to keep a database of phone ids and actually go after people? If a friend unlocks a phone for me, or I buy an unlocked phone unknowingly, am I now implicated?

It just seems to me that this is going to effect businesses that repair phones and phone companies with bring your own phone plans, not individuals, because people will go on modding regardless. Or is it somehow going to be "illegal" to the extent that roms will be modified and forum posts referring to "illegal" activities like unlocking the phone will be blocked?

If you do the math, unlocked phones turn out to be cheaper over 2 years.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/prepaid-phone-plans...

I hope people start avoiding the contracts because of this stupid law.

As one commenter points out on that page, this may only be true for plans with a single phone. I have a family plan with 5 phones on it, and I couldn't find a prepaid account with comparable service for the same price.

Are they really cheaper? Last I looked if I purchase an unsubsidized and unlocked phone, I still pay the same monthly service fees to AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. They don't give me a discount. So the only benefit is the ability to stop service at anytime. But since I can't use their phones on another service where does that get me?

Yes, T-Moblie or the service resellers (Virgin, Credo, SmartTalk, etc) may provide cheaper monthly service with your unsubsidized phone. However, I have found them to be inferior in their service (technical, coverage and/or administrative) compared to the big three

At least, that has been my direct experience and research. I am actually hopeful that this will change in the coming year. I would very much like to take this path with my next phone.

Exactly, for someone like me who doesn't make international trips, the only benefit is not "being in a contract" which gains me practically nothing other than being able to leave on a whim. But to whom would I switch really?

Unlocked phones are a big deal to people in Europe, people who travel internationally a lot and people who just want to have an unlocked phone.

That said, when my contract goes up, I will be getting AT&T to unlock my phone because it makes it easier to sell should I desire.

I forgot to mention the international travel angle. I think that I will get my old iPhone 3GS unlocked for use in Europe if I need it in the next couple of years.

The petition: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel...

The HN discussion of the petition (in short, it's not nearly enough, but it's a start): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112020

I'm at a loss for words over this one. All I can think to say is: money talks ladies and gentlemen. Freedom is the only thing that's ever been worth paying for.

Apparently I'm totally confused and don't understand this at all.

"III. The Designated Classes Upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian has determined that the following classes of works shall be exempt from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures set forth in Section 1201(a)(1)(A):

...

C. Wireless telephone handsets – interoperability with alternative networks Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable a wireless telephone handset originally acquired from the operator of a wireless telecommunications network or retailer no later than ninety days after the effective date of this exemption to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network, if the operator of the wireless communications network to which the handset is locked has failed to unlock it within a reasonable period of time following a request by the owner of the wireless telephone handset, and when circumvention is initiated by the owner, an individual consumer, who is also the owner of the copy of the computer program in such wireless telephone handset, solely in order to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network,and such access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network."[1]

As far as I can tell, software unlocking your cell phone was already illegal under the DMCA; in October this exemption was enacted, saying that software unlocking old phones will no longer be illegal; new phones purchased between then and this upcoming Saturday are also legally software unlockable; it's only new phones purchased after the 90 day period that don't fall under the exemption."

Is this interpretation accurate?

e: And of course there's the whole issue that software unlocks are primarily illegal because of their use to circumvent contracts after buying subsidized phones, but I don't have a well-reasoned opinion about that :\

[1]http://www.scribd.com/doc/111227035/DMCA-Rules-2012 https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/10/26/2012-263...

My view is that requiring the user _not_ to unlock the phone is a perfectly reasonable element of the agreement between the user and the phone provider. It's all about what both sides are getting -- and it's certainly true that you are not getting an unrestricted device. But, I would dare say that everyone has a certain price at which they would find a restricted device to be worthwhile. So, the qualitative aspects of such a transaction are absolutely fine and it's perfectly reasonable for the law to uphold that.

Most of the time, contract law is sufficient to handle such agreements between service providers and their customers. Why should unlocking phones be given special treatment under the law? Early termination fees are very enforceable and generally seem to be sufficient to stop people from breaking their contracts.

Good point. This has certainly complicated my thinking.

I don't work for them, or am associated with them in anyway other than being a customer, but I did get an unlock through them: http://applenberry.com/

Was flawless, though I did have to buy a nano sim from T-Mobile to make it all happen.

I spend about half the year in Vietnam. My first trip there, I had a locked iPhone and had to use a Gevey Ultra-Sim to get my phone to work on Viettel. It worked OK, but just OK. Had to fiddle with it a lot.

I've unlocked an iPhone 4s and an iPhone 5 with them.

Is this like Aaron Swartz illegal or something else? Is it a felony?

well it would be a DMCA violation, so you'd be subject to those penalties http://www.chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/faq.cgi#QID...

It reduces corporate profit so yes it's Aaron Swartz / terrorist illegal.

Maybe this is just my ignorance on Unlocking vs Jailbreaking, but will you still be able to Jailbreak your iPhone (legally) to get access to things like Cydia?

It's in the article:

>(Note that unlocking is different from "jailbreaking," which opens the phone up for running additional software and remains legal for smartphones.)

So, yup, that's still okay... For now.

I don't see this being a major problem. It's technically been illegal in the UK for years as you don't own the handset until your contract has paid up.

However, every handset I've ever had is either "SIM-free" or has been unlocked.

I now however only buy SIM-free unlocked handsets so I can give my telco the finger or throw another SIM in if they go down.

You don't see it as a problem because you find it easy to buy pre-unlocked phones. This is not as easy in the US. Possible? Yes. Common? Hell no. And until very recently, it was near-impossible to find cheaper service for unsubsidized phones.

To add on, you're also effed if you want to buy used phones. They're locked, and since you were never a customer, they won't unlock them for you. Even if you were to "become" a customer for a month with no contract, they still wouldn't unlock them for you, I think you have to be a "customer in good standing" for three months or so according to most providers' policy? That's also only for the carriers who have policies that allow their agents to unlock.

Myself, yesterday I paid a person in India ~$2.00 to unlock an iPhone so I could use the gift on another service. People on Craigslist or local GSM repair shops are less lucky, I've seen demands of 40-100 bucks for the same privilege.

Unlocking has never been illegal in the UK. Unlocking a phone may be a breach of your network contract, but that's never been enforced and is almost certainly unenforcable. It's illegal to unblock a handset, but that's a different matter - IMEI blocking is an anti-theft measure that stops a phone from being used on any network.

B2C businesses (like mobile carriers) that require customer contracts and/or other "lock in" tactics are destined to die through market disruption. "Lock in" is an artificial way to increase LTV of a customer. Market innovations that reduce cost of customer acquisition will displace these archaic business models.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 with AT&T Wireless. I went on their website and found their "Online Chat" support. I told the support person that I needed to unlock my phone so I could use a prepaid SIM while traveling overseas. Three minutes later I had my unlock code, no questions asked.

Carriers must have lobbied for that in order to kill the second hand market. Locked phones have very little resell value so it makes their bundles much more attractive. Needless to say, telecom operators had to innovate to continue growing !

Why would they just switch their stance? https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26 Something's rotten in the state of Denmark^H^H^H^H^H^HC

(Yes, I know DC isn't a "state")

>>For example, Verizon's iPhone 5 comes out of the box already unlocked, and AT&T will unlock a phone once it is out of contract.

Can someone explain to me why AT&T is allowed to unlock phones if unlocking phones is illegal?

Unlocking phones isn't illegal. Unlocking phones without permission (of the manufacturer and/or the carrier the phone is locked to) is what will become illegal.

Well, damn... No worries, it will just make these things: http://www.gsmserver.com/shop/gsm/sigma_key.php cheaper, more popular and reliable...

It is illegal for telcos to sell locked phones in countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and I believe some more Asian countries. I take it as a pro-consumer or a pro-business decision by a government.

Funny story. Since october, If you own your cellphone on Mexico (not subsidized or contract has ended), according to the NOM-184-SCFI-2012 you can ask your carrier to unlock it for you, free of charge.

Eh? The WMATA buses in Washington, DC, have advertisements on the side from one carrier (Verizon?) offering deals for users bringing in unlocked phones from another carrier (AT&T)?

It'd be legal for the carriers to do it themselves, I imagine.

The power of lobbying. The legislation that can bring candidates the most money always seems to take priority. This goes to show that the common man has far less power then is ideal.

Prohibition on unlocking cellphones, unreal, who lobbied for that, When I hear stories like this, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", springs into mind!

My condolences to all US travelers who now will have to either pay outrageous roaming bills, be criminalized, or buy a second (unlocked) phone...

I haven't ever had locked phone, and I won't have one in future either. What's the problem. If you don't want locked phone, don't buy one.

Why is locking a phone to a particular carrier covered by the DMCA? What part of the DMCA covers it, and why?

I still want to know why a completely unelected government official gets to decide what is and isn't illegal.

Wow, who got paid to make this law?

New Title: Unlocking Cellphones Becomes a Much More Lucrative Endeavor Saturday in the U.S.

There is little or no way for this to be actually be regulated.

OMG> Should I open "mail me your phone to unlock" e-store?

Just another way to make sure your are felon.

Unless you knowingly launder drug money in a major bank chain, then you are fine and no-one will go to prison, you'll only lost a month of profit and everyone is fine.

only buy unlocked phones. people need to wise up, stop signing contracts. make these companies bend to our will.

Another big step backwards for the U.S.

STOP CORPORATE TYRANNY!!!

That is plain stupid and only supports Apple

Dear law,

no.

Signed, Users

faithInUSGovernment--;

It has to wrap around at some point.

And your faith in private industry is increasing, right?

Private industry isn't elected.

What about voting with your wallet

What about extorted wallet votes?

Since the politicians and their servants invented these new regulations to please their friends and intend to enforce it at gunpoint, my question is now: what respect-instilling reprisals should be inflicted -- thoroughly -- to discourage them from trying this again? It is not possible to make an omelet without breaking eggs. So what's next?

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