“As of January 26, it is illegal for U.S. mobile phone users to unlock newly purchased cell phones without express permission from their cell phone carriers,” Juli Clover reports for MacRumors. “Cell phone unlocking used to be possible as part of an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), but the exception ended following a ruling by the Library of Congress’s Copyright Office in October of 2012.”
“Sina Khanifar, co-founder of OpenSignal, is protesting the new law with a whitehouse.gov petition calling for the decision to be rescinded,” Clover reports. “In 2004, Khanifar started Cell-Unlock.com, a business centered around unlocking mobile phones.”
Clover reports, “As Khanifar mentions in his petition, the loss of the exemption hinders mobile phone users who wish to unlock their phones for use abroad and it also devalues the devices.”
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