While we knew that as of last Saturday, January 26th, it is illegal to unlock your iPhone to
use it on another carrier’s network in the U.S., we really didn’t know
what this meant for someone who is found guilty of unlocking their
phone.
We’ve just found out the penalties for unlocking a subsidized phone without carriers consent can be severe.
Civil penalties are based on the
carrier’s actual damages and any additional profits of the violator, or a
court can award statutory damages of not less than $200 or more than
$2,500 per individual act.
Criminal penalties are even more severe: any person convicted of violating section 1201 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain (1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and (2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.
It doesn’t mean that the police are going to come knocking on your
door because you unlocked your phone, but as Electronic Frontier
Foundation lawyer Mitch Stoltz points out,
it makes lawsuits more likely. But it will still be left to the courts
to decide if it was indeed illegal for the person to unlock his phone.Criminal penalties are even more severe: any person convicted of violating section 1201 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain (1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and (2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.
“What’s happening is not that the Copyright Office is declaring unlocking to be illegal, but rather that they’re taking away a shield that unlockers could use in court if they get sued.”There are a number of genuine reasons where you may want to unlock your phone, for example, if you end up moving to an area during the two-year contract where your carrier doesn’t have coverage. It can also be useful for users who travel abroad regularly, and want to use a local SIM to avoid exorbitant international roaming charges.
As Derek Khanna of TheAtlantic points out, what’s absurd about this situation is that Librarian of Congress has been able to pass a law that can put people in jail rather than elected officials. If you don’t agree, sign the White House petition which is seeking to make unlocking legal again. At the time of writing, there were more than 25,000 signatures on the petition. An official White House response requires 100,000 signatures by February 23, 2013.
Via: TechCrunch, CTIA blog
1 Comments:
A White House petition to make unlocking cell phones legal again has passed 1 lakh signature . Passing the milestone means the U.S. government has to issue an official response. On January 26th, unlocking a cell phone that is under contract became illegal in the U.S Just before that went into effect , a petition was started at whitehouse.gov https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...legal/1g9KhZG7 to have the Librarian of Congress revisit that decision. 'It reduces consumer choice, and decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full. The Librarian noted that carriers are offering more unlocked phones at present, but the great majority of phones sold are still locked,this can be done using any third party vendors like Unlock-Free.com (free of cost for most of basic phones) , OnlineGSMUnlock.com .The policy is a big issue for anyone who wants to use their phone abroad, without needing to go through their U.S.' carrier's expensive roaming and international plans. Additionally, anyone who wants to move to a new GSM carrier in the U.S. (such as T-Mobile to AT&T), will have issues.
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