You can usually transfer it to another user on the same registrar. They just don't want to lose it to another company. (At least, that's my super rough understanding of it.)
$conn = fsockopen ('whois.verisign-grs.com', 43, $errno, $errstr, 1);
fputs($conn, $domain."\r\n");
while(!feof($conn))
$output .= fgets($conn,128);
$registrar = reset(explode("\n",end(explode('Registrar:',$output))));