Is It Legal To Unlock An Iphone

You likely have a cellphone that you bought from a carrier, like AT&T, Verizon or Sprint, and that phone only works on that carrier's cellular and data network -- unless you 'unlock' it. Unlock Disabled Iphone 4 Without Computer more. That is a software process that allows the phone to work on other carriers if you put in a new SIM card or want to take the phone to another carrier for service. If that sounds complicated to you and like something you wouldn't bother with, then today's news won't matter to you.

Free Iphone Imei Icloud Unlock there. Look, there are a lot of legal issues surrounding unlocking, but the most applicable law in the US is everyone's favorite piece of legislation, the DMCA. Just like any other piece of code, the iPhone's firmware is protected by the Copyright Act, and circumventing the access controls in place to get at that code is a violation of the DMCA.

But if that's something you've done before or have thought about doing, then you should know that starting today it is illegal to unlock a subsidized phone or tablet that's bought through a U.S. Starting today, the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress are no longer allowing phone unlocking as an exemption under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

You can read the but, in short, it is illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier's permission to do so. If you're wondering what this has to do with copyright, it turns out not much. 'It wasn't a good ruling,' Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told ABC News. 'You should be able to unlock your phone. This law was meant to combat copyright infringement, not to prevent people to do what they want to do with the device they bought.' Of course, the carriers prefer the new rule because it ties your phone to their network.