Saturday, January 26, 2013

It is now illegal to unlock phones

Starting Today, It's Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone


It is illegal to unlock a phone from a US carrier unless you have that carrier's permission to do so.

The ban started today after U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) place a ban allowing phone unlocking.

The law reads in Section 1201 of the DMCA: “Upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of Congress may designate certain classes of works as exempt from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.”

"Violations of the DMCA [unlocking your phone] may be punished with a civil suit or, if the violation was done for commercial gain, it may be prosecuted as a criminal act," Brad Shear, a Washington, D.C.-area attorney added.

If your phone has already been unlocked, you are grandfathered in and won't face any legal issues.

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2 comments:

  1. The updated information is.....It is now legal to get our phones unlocked from third party unlocking services in U.S. Recently, I unlocked my mobile .I had to travel outside my country and I had to unlock it very quickly. My network provider prolonged the unlock process...and luckily the amendment of unlocking phone made legal saved my time. I used the service from Unlocking4u.com and removed the network lock very easily. They unlocked my phone within few hours....

    ReplyDelete