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Monday, July 26, 2010

Tech You Can Legally Unlock Your Phones

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 11:19 AM

Does this mean it's not "jailbreaking" anymore? New government rules say that it's legal to unlock phones like iPhones (although Apple is still within their rights to void warranties and disable unlocked phones with software updates) in order to install unapproved apps or switch data carriers. The new rules will also "allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos."

The exceptions are a big victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had urged the Library of Congress to legalize several of them, including the two regarding cell phones.

Jennifer Stisa Granick, EFF's civil liberties director, said the rules are based on an important principle: Consumers should be allowed to use and modify the devices that they purchase the way they want. "If you bought it, you own it," she said.

Amen—now let's start in on e-books and other downloadable media, please. Gizmodo says that these new rules don't matter much, and they're probably right. A tiny percentage of the population is interested in unlocking their devices, but these rules do at least specify that the devices belong to the people who bought the devices.

Comments (13) RSS

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Damn.

Then what was the point of me getting a beta version of the Verizon iPad 3G?

Now everyone else can use Verizon on their iPhones and iPads ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 26, 2010 at 11:24 AM

Jail-breaking is not important so some uber-geek can do whatever he wants on his phone. Jail-breaking is useful because some uber-geek will come up with an important discovery about your phone that you don't need to unlock your own phone to benefit from. A lot of apps are designed based on data that comes from unlocked phones. This is a big win for consumers.

Posted by Packeteer on July 26, 2010 at 11:24 AM

If you travel, its handy to unlock your phone and buy a local card to make local calls.

Posted by SeMe on July 26, 2010 at 11:38 AM

"although Apple is still within their rights to void warranties and disable unlocked phones with software updates"

The voiding warranties thing, yes. The disabling of your phone, well, courts haven't decided yet (but the way the cases have been dragging out, they may not for another several years at least).

Posted by jodfhs on July 26, 2010 at 11:44 AM

Will, pull it out. Does Verizon support GSM now?

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber

on July 26, 2010 at 12:01 PM

The disabling through software updates of unlocked phones, and the sucking back of previously paid-for e-books, involve rearranging electrons within the device, which you theoretically own because they are physically contained within it.

Should be interesting to see where the line finally gets drawn between physical property and intellectual property.

Posted by rob!

on July 26, 2010 at 12:03 PM

@2 does this mean it's ok to make an app to provide a Wifi hotspot on an iPhone4 too?

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 26, 2010 at 12:24 PM

@3 - I did this last year for my phone before I went to the Caribbean. I called AT&T and requested that they give me the unlock code for my flip-phone. Only question asked by them was "where ya going to" then they unlocked it for me. It's great to have your own cell phone in another country to use freely on another carrier's network with that carrier's sim card and not paying the ridiculous international roaming charges.

Posted by apres_moi on July 26, 2010 at 2:03 PM

"A tiny percentage of the population is interested in unlocking their devices"
And now I know that I'm in with some really geeky folks, since the majority of people I know have jailbroken their phones.

Posted by Dee on July 26, 2010 at 2:13 PM

Revel in your geek status, Dee.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 26, 2010 at 2:19 PM

Yes, but it still voids the warranty if you insert your iPhone in your rectum. Jobs is very much against having his phones shoved in rectums.

Posted by seandr on July 26, 2010 at 5:17 PM

After what Apple did to that Gizmodo JOURNALIST I'll take all the inches we can get. I feel like it's less about the iPhone and more about the consumers ability to modify the item they purchased for whatever legal purpose they want. I'm sure it'll be good news to the people who did break the law by proving they own their own device, knowing now they won't go to jail over it. I think that other part, which I didn't see reported anywhere else, strengthening fair use, that's the absolute most amazing thing about this. College professors, unlike consumers, follow the law, and so even if it's a stupid unconstitutional human rights abuse to claim we cannot criticize something because it's "encrypted". Thankfully people have already obliterated the law in this department, and there's a large number of freeware programs to help them make the most out of that new law.

Posted by watchout5

on July 27, 2010 at 1:18 AM

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Posted by CheapUnlocks on March 27, 2011 at 2:57 PM