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Just FYI: Saturday Jan 26th It Will Be Illegal in the US to Unlock Your Phone
- Thread starter dgstorm
- Start date
Let's use a current hypothetical situation: I purchased a htc droid dna paid retail and I unlock it to work on t-mobile/att (supposedly some have others not so lucky) the only way for the new company to have a problem with this is if Verizon red flags it has stolen/lost. I believe that is the issue at heart.
Stolen phones that are unlocked for the purpose of selling stolen property.
Maybe the title is a bit misleading?
I do believe that Verizon will try to use this to prevent the usage of their universal phones to another network.
Transfer of property from public to private shouldn't be an issue.
I don't want to believe that the law abiding citizens will be affected but people who unknowingly/knowingly unlock phones for money they will be the ones that get hit with this law.
Stolen phones that are unlocked for the purpose of selling stolen property.
Maybe the title is a bit misleading?
I do believe that Verizon will try to use this to prevent the usage of their universal phones to another network.
Transfer of property from public to private shouldn't be an issue.
I don't want to believe that the law abiding citizens will be affected but people who unknowingly/knowingly unlock phones for money they will be the ones that get hit with this law.
Not even close. You don't pay Ford to use the car on their "network" (read road). You can drive the car anywhere and on any road that the local community and local laws allow. The main reason is that Ford has recovered all their costs, plus the targeted profit at the time of your purchase, all wrapped up into the price paid by the dealer to place it into their inventory, or into the purchase price that you the consumer pay if the dealership is a factory dealership.
Similarly, to use your example since AT&T is technically a co-author/co-owner of the software on the phone, they have the right to recover their costs for the development of the software that runs on the phone, and also to make a profit therefrom as well. However, in contrast to the car example if you take the phone which is designed to run on "their proprietary operating system", and use it to communicate on Verizon's network instead, you are benefiting from the programming that AT&T co-authored/co-owns without fully paying for it (as in purchasing a license rather than being leased). Also, you are eliminating AT&T's primary source of future revenue effectively costing them money that they now have no way of recovering, not to mention removing them from any potential for profit.
If you buy an "unlocked" phone (which has the cost recovery already worked into the higher price), or pay AT&T *(or Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.), whatever fee they deem appropriate in order to release the software lease to you, then you are free to take that phone to competing networks.
Not that I agree with it completely - though I see the reasoning (I think this is where it gets sticky since it's a joint venture btw the phone manufacturer and the network it's designed for), but if I wrote the program and was relying on the service revenue to pay me for my time and skills, and then you took it to use it on another network, I would be ready to protect and exercise my rights to be able to recover my expenses and lost profit.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
I disagree that this law is designed for and primarily due to theft of phones...I think as mentioned above this all comes down to lost revenue of the carrier for the phone's original software.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
I don't think January 26th is the cutoff for which phones can be legally be jailbroken and which can't. I see it as a law that takes effect on January 26th, but is retroactive to January 1, 2013, meaning any phones purchased after December 1, 2012 can't legally be jailbroken (if I am reading the OP correctly);
" Additionally, the ruling will let you arbitrarily unlock smartphones purchased prior to January 2013. "
Of course if this is correct, those people who've jailbroken their phones since January 1, 2013 are at risk of repercussions.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
I can see that happening with the dna a heavily skinned phone but a Nexus device? Or a pure android device?
What you are missing is it's not just the skins...in fact the skins are MOSTLY the manufacturer of the phone - NOT the carrier. For instance, there are no skins on my Droid RAZR that are Verizon specific, however there are certainly Verizon APPS they've pre-installed and some which are unremovable (except through root).
Instead, where the programming of the phone that the carrier has rights to are being violated is in the communication protocols that allow the phone to work on their network, whether it be CDMA, TDMA, GSM, PCS or some other protocols, as well as the codecs used to encrypt the communications so they're difficult to intercept and "wiretap".
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I did get the date wrong, but this has nothing to do with jailbreaking, rooting or unlocking the bootloader. This is to do with carrier unlocking.
OK, so perhaps I am misusing one term for another. Carrier unlocking is what I was referring to, but a very large part of the community uses jailbreaking to indicate the process of unlocking a phone from the carrier it's locked to, so it can be activated on another one. The terminology may have been wrong, but the reasoning for preventing said carrier unlocking remains the same...lost potential future revenue and lost reimbursement compensation for programming costs and proprietary licensing by circumventing the license lease.
Don't get me wrong...this will also reduce or potentially make into a non-issue the process of stealing, carrier-unlocking and the reselling the stolen phones to be activated on another network. Still, the results are the same...the original network loses the future revenue for the phone through lost network activations. IMHO, nothing this big in terms of law comes about in a for-profit consumer product world unless money is the underlying reason.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
OK, mystery solved...now I understand the confusion. At least with iPhones, you must first Jailbreak the phone, so that you can then install and run an unsigned application that would otherwise be prevented from running.
Once the phone is Jailbroken, the unsigned app - the carrier unlocker is then installed and run, completing the carrier unlocking process.
Where it differs with Android phones is that from what I know, you don't need to Jailbreak them to install and run unsigned software that will unlock them from the carrier. To install unsigned software, or at least software not on the Play Store, you simply have to check a box in the Settings , Security & Screen Lock menu to "Allow installation of apps from unknown sources". So the term Jailbreak is synonymous with carrier unlocking when referring to at least iPhones. The same is apparently not true for Android phones.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
Once the phone is Jailbroken, the unsigned app - the carrier unlocker is then installed and run, completing the carrier unlocking process.
Where it differs with Android phones is that from what I know, you don't need to Jailbreak them to install and run unsigned software that will unlock them from the carrier. To install unsigned software, or at least software not on the Play Store, you simply have to check a box in the Settings , Security & Screen Lock menu to "Allow installation of apps from unknown sources". So the term Jailbreak is synonymous with carrier unlocking when referring to at least iPhones. The same is apparently not true for Android phones.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
Well, I suppose I'm not surprised that someone has figured out a way through the protection and bypassing that step. It's only a matter of time before someone breaks through whatever roadblocks manufacturers put in place.
I certainly won't make the wrong distinction in this case again. Thanks for bringing my misunderstanding to my attention.
Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk HD
Well I have here a petition going around to try and get the courts to adjust this.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7
Another thing it was to stop people from avoiding roaming charges in other countries.
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/f...ing-of-mobile-phones-set-to-be-illegal-in-u-s
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7
Another thing it was to stop people from avoiding roaming charges in other countries.
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/f...ing-of-mobile-phones-set-to-be-illegal-in-u-s
So what they're saying is that I either have to use the crappy phones my carrier provides or I have to spend an outrageous amount of money on a carrier that has the phone I really want and be stuck with a contract. Seriously?
:soapbox:
This will probably be enforced about as well as the piracy cases; it's only worth their time to go after those who offer unlocking services rather than individuals. So tired of my consumer rights being trampled on.
Another thing I'd liked to know is sellers on ebay who break their contract with a carrier have phones with "bad esns" and they sell them for the sole purpose of being used on a different carrier which allows those of us with shallow pockets to actually afford a phone without signing a ridiculous contract. So what happens to those sellers? Are they stuck with the phones? Ugh, this whole thing is ludicrous.
:soapbox:
This will probably be enforced about as well as the piracy cases; it's only worth their time to go after those who offer unlocking services rather than individuals. So tired of my consumer rights being trampled on.
Another thing I'd liked to know is sellers on ebay who break their contract with a carrier have phones with "bad esns" and they sell them for the sole purpose of being used on a different carrier which allows those of us with shallow pockets to actually afford a phone without signing a ridiculous contract. So what happens to those sellers? Are they stuck with the phones? Ugh, this whole thing is ludicrous.