[Infowarrior] - Why Cellphone Unlocking Could Soon Be Illegal Once Again

[Richard Forno]

Why Cellphone Unlocking Could Soon Be Illegal Once Again

	• By Kyle Wiens  
	• 12.09.14  |  
	• 6:30 am  |  
	• Permalink

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Two years ago, national fervor ignited around cellphone unlocking after the Librarian of Congress (an unelected official) effectively made cellphone unlocking illegal. Some 114,000 people—and a united front of consumer advocates, digital rights crusaders, and recycling groups—registered their displeasure with the White House. Thus began a long battle to reverse the Librarian of Congress’s decision.

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So why is this issue on the table again? One reason: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, better known as the DMCA.

The massive missive, passed in 1998, governs the tense and often amorphous intersection of intellectual property and physical property. The law was birthed when digital piracy (of things like DVDs and music) first and truly reared its head. As a reaction, Congress built “anti-circumvention” edicts into Section 1201 of the DMCA. The provision makes it a violation of copyright law to break any sort of technological protection measure over content—like, say, the encryption on DVDs. But the DMCA doesn’t take intention into account. Breaking the lock is a violation, whether or not the locked content is actually pirated.

Back when the DMCA was penned, lawmakers had no idea that content—in the form of software and firmware—would find its way into almost every device we own. From WiFi routers to microwaves, everything with a chip contains some sort of copyrighted content. And lawmakers had no idea that manufacturers would start putting locks on top of that programming to prevent people from accessing and modifying it.

But lawmakers did engineer a failsafe into the DMCA, just in case: a triennial review—and it’s just as arcane as it sounds.

Every three years, the public can petition the Librarian of Congress to issue exemptions. It takes a huge undertaking of time, effort, and legal maneuvering to push each one of these exemptions through the review process. Eight years ago, the Copyright Office almost removed an exemption that allowed blind people use e-readers. In the last go-round, the Librarian of Congress denied the exemption for cellphones. The new Unlocking Law reversed his decision, but not permanently—just until the next triennial review, which just so happens to be starting right now.

And so, after all the effort of passing a law, the legality of unlocking is once again on tenuous ground. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.

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http://www.wired.com/2014/12/dmca-exemptions-cell-phone-unlocking/

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