Unlocking phones becomes illegal in the US this Saturday

unlockphonesIf you were planning to unlock your phone, and you live in the US, you will want to do so very soon, say, within the next two day. Why is that? Well, because it will be illegal to do so after that. That’s right, the Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress “90 day period” stated in the above text ends this Saturday, January 26th, and after said date, it will be illegal to unlock your phone for use on other carriers. At least, here in the US it will. If you think the terms “unlock” and “jailbreak” go hand in hand though, you are partially wrong. For those of us on iOS, jailbreaking is still legal, as per a 2010 ruling. It is the unlocking that is illegal. iPads are the exclusion to that, as it was deemed illegal to jailbreak tablets, but not phones. These laws are beginning to confuse people, I bet. Another thing to note is that unlocked phones aren’t illegal, so you can still purchase those, it is actually unlocking the device after purchasing it. That’s the illegal part.

What do you think? Are you unlocking your device? Have you already? Let us know in the comments, or tweet me @TiP_Kyle.

 

Via: AppAdvice, DMCA

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I've got my unlocked iPhone 5 just 2 weeks ago. and it works well though

 

David58 5 pts

Washington must be smoking too much crack coming up with this idea making unlocking your own phone is illegal.  Is it one step to take away our freedom?

For such a short "article", the accuracy is so bad and the whole thing so poorly written, to correct it would require more words than were originally typed. Please do not write stuff like this without properly researching it. The issue is worth attention, and the removal of the DMCA exemption is a bigger deal than you're making it out to be, so please don't mess it up with false information for the purpose of writing click-bait.

I'd tell them to F*%K themselves... It's my phone, I bought it.. If they want to bring me to court go ahead, I'm hoping no judge with common sense would up hold this ridiculous law...

 

Thank god I live in Ireland were there's no stupid people making these laws.

CallChrisNow 18 pts

The way it reads, you have to go through he carrier first, but if they fail to comply within reasonable time you're off the hook. I don't really see a problem there.

jabombardier 20 pts

@CallChrisNow that makes more sense.

If enough people caused a stink about this it could be changed but that will not happen so we are stuck with our robot overlords rules for us. 

jabombardier 20 pts

They shouldn't tell you what to do with something you paid for.

PatrickMcLaren 5 pts

 jabombardier with that attitude anyone could buy a gun and start killing people legally, or be drunk and tripping while driving because you "paid" for them. I think it makes sense even though it does suck

jabombardier 20 pts

@PatrickMcLaren all that you said is common sense. Since we are in a blog about iPhone and iPad and the subject is about unlocking handsets, my comment wouldn't mean anything beyond the subject. But i should've been specific from the jump because i knew i was going to receive"tangent" response

visionsdivine 6 pts

 PatrickMcLaren  jabombardier  Your analogy is stupid. Unlocking phones doesn't affect other people like murder and drunk driving do.

Tuliomesa82 23 pts

wait why would it be illegal to unlock iphones? i don't get it and how would they find out? and thats stupid ._. there has to be a finer law to what you can and cant do with your phones