Almost eight years ago, the U.S. Copyright Office gave cellphone owners the right to unlock their cellphones. It had been illegal since the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which banned the “circumvention” of any copy protection mechanisms (Section 1201).
Remember, if it sounds too awful to be true, then 99.9% of the time … it’s not true. Or not completely true. And that’s the case with this headline, which made its way ’round the net on Thursday. The story popped up in a Facebook conversation on a different subject. Then I wandered over to […]
Tech news sources report that AT&T is about to settle a class action suit regarding unlocking cellphones, with Apple iPhones exempted. Engadget writes that AT&T would be required “to provide an unlock code for just about any phone it has sold since March 12, 1999.” What I don’t understand is why a law suit was […]