. . . For Now
For the next three years (unless successfully challenged in court), consumers will, in most cases, be free to switch their existing handset cell phones to a different wireless carrier.
September 12, 2007: Kramer interviewed on Business News Network (Canada) regarding unlocking issues. The video will start in a few moments. The running time is just over 7 minutes.
August 28, 2007: Kramer quoted in a MacNewsWorld.com article regarding the Apple iPhone unlocking story. Follow this link to read the online story.
August 28, 2007: Kramer quoted in BusinessWeek article regaring the Apple iPhone unlocking story. Follow this link to read the
online story.
| The U.S. Copyright Office, a part of the Library of Congress, as issued new rules that permit consumers to 'unlock' their cell phones. Most cell phones sold by wireless carriers are equipped with a software locking code that prevents a consumer from using the phone on a different wireless network. Unlocking a cell phone permits it to be switched to a different carrier, subject to some technology limitations. Up to now, the wireless carriers and handset manufacturers have claimed that altering their code locking the software to a particular network is a copyright violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), thus opening the door to a lawsuit against those who provide the software keys to do the unlocking. The Copyright Office's new regulations exempt as copyright violations, "Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network." Unlocking cell phones is only one of the six areas exempted from copyright protection under the new regulations, which sunset in three years. The other five areas are: Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors. |
Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read–aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format. The question seems to turn on whether a person can, for a fee, unlock someone else's cell phone. To read the rules and explanatory text for all six areas (plus areas considered by not acted upon) as reported in the Federal Register, please click here. (Requires Adobe PDF reader.) |
