Free your mobile — help it break jail
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has begun a new campaign to get the public to complain to lawmakers about the limitations of locked mobile phones. (Note this is not just iPhones. This is all phones.)
The new site, FreeYourPhone.org, encourages citizens to sign a petition going to the US Copyright Office in support of the EFF’s request for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). What it is looking for is legal protection to phone users who have jailbroken (is there such a word?) or unlocked their devices. Which will be quite a lot of people.
This request was submitted in December as part of the Copyright Office’s three-times-a-year look at possible exemptions. In addition to phone jailbreaks and unlocks, the EFF asked for exemptions from the DMCA for YouTube’s ‘remix culture,’ and university libraries across the country asked for more rights for using DVDs in class.
The noise you can hear is the feedback from developers who create applications for popular phones. Not happy, John. Not happy. The EFF argues that one of the main purposes of ‘software locks’ imposed by carriers in the United States is to limit customers to approved applications and service providers. This is not something with which many would argue.
And it could, perhaps, be argued that jailbreaking is a form of DRM circumvention and therefore something against action could be taken. But the EFF is of the view that neither jailbreaking nor installing legal programs violate copyright.
Indeed, this is exactly the same kind of exemption request that got cell phone unlocking to be deemed legal in 2006. But that exemption is only for three years.
Should it not be renewed, it may not just be illegal to distribute jailbreaking and unlocking software under the DMCA, it could also be illegal for you, as an individual, to use it on your phone.
Let us take a daft parallel. Ford does a deal with a petrol company and installs special filler caps so that you can only fill up at one of these designated stations. Immediately a lot of engineers design modifications so that your car can be fill up at any gas station. Is that a breach of copyright?
FreeYourPhone.org asks you to sign a petition and, if you feel like it, submit stories about you have been affected by your phones being locked to specific carriers or to specific software.
On Aim 168 EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick said, ‘Companies are using the DMCA to threaten customers out of exercising their consumer rights. The Copyright Office needs to hear real stories about how these software locks frustrate consumers and developers.’ Damn right.
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January 18th, 2009
By not allowing companies to protect their IP, you’re providing a disincentive to them to develop new products. Why would Apple develop cool prouducts like the iPhone if it can’t make money out of it?
January 18th, 2009
Why would carriers offer subsidized pricing on a phone if you institute this disincentive? By all means, do go sign up for this ridiculous plan that will make you pay $600 or more for that unlocked device. Morons.
I have to laugh when I watch idiots support something like this (for example) when they can’t “unlock” their Verizon phone and use it on T-Mobile.
January 18th, 2009
Funny how unlocking phones has led to the complete deterioration of the mobile phone industry in the UK, and the loss of all subsidized mobile phones. Oh, wait, that hasn’t happened. Infact they are legally required to allow you to transfer your existing number to a carrier of your choosing here in the UK. And yet the UK has probably the healthiest mobile phone industry in the world outside of Japan.
January 19th, 2009
Plainly a contentious issue. Nailing my colors to the flag I am totally, utterly and completely opposed to companies using technical blocks to force customers in one direction.
It has been going on since the earliest computer with Microsoft and IBM being the biggest sinners. I travel the world and I work in different countries where different rules apply. Unlocked is ALWAYS better. Always. If you think that makes me an idiot, tough. Worse things have been said to me. But it does not change my position in the slightest. And, incidentally, Apple would have made serious, serious, money from the iPhone whether it had been locked or not.