17 ms·

In 2005 Motorola Tried to Sue Me For Unlocking Phones

213 points by sinak 14y ago

trotsky 14y ago
For what it's worth, the DMCA was definitely intended to include circumvention protections well beyond what was needed for copyright protection. It was commonly understood to extend into device locking, commsec and nontraditional drm - this is why you have exceptions to the anti-circumvention elements for security researchers for example. This doesn't make it right at all - but in no way was motorola "misusing" the DMCA as far as the drafters (lobbyists) were concerned.
- kunai 14y ago
  Motorola may not have been misusing the DMCA, but the DMCA is a misuse of the law and a bloody embarrassment to the tech enthusiasts, programmers, and power users of the United States. Remember that. The DMCA should be rewritten from the ground up, with new, innovative laws that effectively combat piracy without restricting freedom. And as far as I know, the only group qualified to do that, and who have the proper knowledge to do that, are us. All of us, in this forum. We know technology. And we know how to revise it. Not some old Librarian of Congress. You know, I go onto any specialized forum for hobbying: car forums, technology forums, sports forums, to name a few, and I invariably, ALWAYS see at least one post about how the government is trying to prevent them from doing what they enjoy. It's not right. And we shouldn't let law get abused by other laws, that get abused by other people.
  - dublinben 14y ago
    It's not the federal government's job to "effectively combat piracy." Private companies should not be able to outsource the protection of their archaic business model to the government.
sdoering 14y ago
I really find the idea of our hardware not belonging to us to the fullest extent somewhat revolting. And not only hardware, but a lot of other things as well (looking at Monsanto for example). Sorry, to say that, but imagine your car-maker of choice. Imagine during the last 50 or more years nobody would have been allowed to tune, to bodykit, to play with the car. What a interesting culture we would have lost. Or imagine two guys named Steve would not have been allowed to tinker with hardware in 1976 (because the makers of the parts would not allow "unlocking" the hardware). Where will we be, if our younglings will only see something with a display as a device for consuming, not for creating? What would a world look like, if it is ruled by "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses/games) like in ancient rome? Is this really a world, to be a maker? Do we really wanna give our basic rights of possession and control (be it hardware or food) to some companies?
- gilgoomesh 14y ago
  > Or imagine two guys named Steve would not have been allowed to tinker with hardware in 1976 (because the makers of the parts would not allow "unlocking" the hardware). This example kinda goes against your argument since the Steves faced exactly the situation you're claiming might have stopped them. The Steves who later founded Apple got their start with phone phreaking which was illegal at the time, despite being something you do with your own phone. But making it illegal didn't stop them -- it was more of a motivating factor. http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2010/09/jobs-and-woz-were-phreaks/ http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2010/09/jobs-and-woz-were-p... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box
  - sdoering 14y ago
    Thanks a lot for the clarification. Did not know that. Then it is so much more interesting, to ask, why did apple is going down the path of making jailbreaking illegal. OK: one might say, that the want to motivate the next generation of Steves...
  - DanBC 14y ago
    > phone phreaking which was illegal at the time, despite being something you do with your own phone No. The important part of phone phreaking is the public telephone network. (Although modifying a phone was probably not legal at that time).
  - thirdtruck 14y ago
    We should emphasize that he essentially got away with the hacking, too. Incomplete coverage in the enforcement of a law bears no relation to the quality of that law.
- vijayr 14y ago
  Is it right to say that today's laws are far more scarier than 30-40 years ago? I mean, 5 years in prison for unlocking a phone, that a person paid money for and bought it? Making it a crime itself is absurd, and a full five years in prison for this?
sinak 14y ago
Hey everyone, author here. The petition to the White House still needs 40k more signatures to get a response. If you haven't done so, please sign it: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel...
- homosaur 14y ago
  Great, only 40K more until they can ignore another petition! I'm guessing if 40 of Obama's corporate owners filed a petition the results would be slightly different.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Yes we've had online petitions in the UK for years of this kind and absolutely nothing at all gets done. Its the equivalent of sitting down and doing fuck all and making you feel happy doing it. Its another form of quelling dissidence from the lazy portion of the population. Direct activism and martyrdom is about the only way to get a result unfortunately. And don't go on about a vote - the population is by majority moronic dross unfit for breathing let alone voting. Don't expect miracles from monkeys. Perhaps a natural disaster may redress the balance.
- Hawkee 14y ago
  Just registered and signed it. This is my first White House signature.
  - sinak 14y ago
    Awesome - thank you Hawkee. I think the biggest barrier to signing is probably registering, thank you for taking the time to do that.
    - gknoy 14y ago
      The biggest barrier for me is that I am fearful of the executive branch of the government having my directly-given opinions about subjects which may be controversial. How long before some analyst starts saying, "I bet people that care deeply about closing Gitmo, legalizing X, and dismantling Y are more likely to be domestic terrorists!" -- and then I end up on a no-fly list or something.
belorn 14y ago
Today, now more than before, it is illegal to modify a device you have bought with your own money. Worse, even if you find a fault in your device that threatens your personal safety, your are still not allowed to fix that fault. On top of that and thus even worse, if that fault actually causes a problem, the entity that is active preventing your from fixing the problem is still not liable for any damages caused by that fault. All risk is on the consumer who owns the device, while all rights belonging to the company. The owner of the device is left with no rights, and has no effective power over the device. Its absurd.
- homosaur 14y ago
  At the risk of getting downvoted, this scenario was exactly the thing that Stallman and co were freaking out about for 20 years.
  - ajross 14y ago
    Certainly no downvotes from me. I spent more than a decade on the "RMS is a dirty f'ing hippie who will bring down the wonderful open source movement with his intemperate antics." side of the argument too (though to be fair: I never bought into the "Copyleft is an unreasonable infringement on freedom" nonsense that some of my compatriots did). The guy was right about basically everything. The anti-tivoization provisions that the FSF was talking about more than a decade ago, and that appeared in a usable license almost 6 tears ago, would absolutely have had a place in preventing this nonsense. Yet no one uses it, because RMS is a dirty f'ing hippie. (And yes, I know the real world is complicated, and that corporate sponsors of copyleft development "refuse" to use the GPLv3 and cannot be convinced. The same thing was said about copyleft itself 15 years ago. The commercial world adapted. They'll figure this out too if we demand it.)
    - homosaur 14y ago
      It's probably RMS's single mindedness and inflexibility that allowed the FSF to see this coming down the pipe. I now feel naive that I thought this was Chicken Little stuff and irrelevant to most users.
zee007 14y ago
I have DMCA, record companies and movie studios that make me feel like a criminal despite having paid full price. I hate them with a passion. HATE THEM! However, in this case I can totally see Motorola's argument. Not sure in your case, but most people don't pay full price for their phones, they buy it subsidized. The reason you're locked on AT&T (in your example) is that you buy a highly subsidized device in exchange for staying with them for x years. That's precisely why I buy unlocked phones and never sign contracts. But if you signed a contract then you should honour that contract.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  Unlocking a phone doesn't end your cell phone contract, and subsidized phones come with an early termination fee if you choose to end your contract early.
- homosaur 14y ago
  Irrelevant, the phone should not be in question. If you break the contract, you will pay the contract breakage fee, the phone is not even considered. It doesn't have anything to do with the contract, it's just yet another way for the company to lock down the slaves.
- kunai 14y ago
  I accidentally upvoted you without reading your entire post. Here's an honorary downvote: -1 Anyway, your argument is again moot, because it doesn't matter if the phone is subsidized. You signed a contract to pay off the phone over the course of 2 years through the carrier. When you buy a car, financed, does the dealer say "We're not going to let you change the timing of the engine! You didn't pay us in full, so you can't do what you want to!" No, they DO let you do what you want to, because that is your car. Not theirs. It's off their hands. Why should it be any different for mobile devices? Also, say you buy a locked phone off-contract, full price -- but it's still locked to AT&T, and you do use AT&T for one year, but then want to switch to T-Mobile. You've paid off the phone. AT&T agrees, and they don't charge you any early termination fees. Then, you want to unlock it to use it on T-Mobile, but wait! You can't, because the DMCA doesn't let you. Don't you see how unjust this is?
spwestwood 14y ago
If you are reading this and haven't signed the petition yet please do so: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel... At the current rate of signatures it's going to just fail to get to the 100k. It's a really great petition because it's both popular with the public, as well as being an easy thing for the administration to change. Has there ever been a Whitehouse petition that was successful? Perhaps this could be the first.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  So one the one side we have a bunch of people willing to... click a button on a web site. On the other we have companies willing to spend millions of dollars. Hard to decide who we should be listening to.
  - Retric 14y ago
    Assuming 100,000 signatures represents even 5,000 votes it's is not an obvious choice.
    - flyinRyan 14y ago
      I think we have enough evidence at this point to conclude that simply spending lots of money will produce an outcome. There's no need to really worry about the small minority who will actually be clued in and care about the issue because they won't be enough to overcome everyone else who will simply do what the ads tell them to.
      - Retric 14y ago
        Money helps, but you hit diminishing returns so votes become really expensive as in 100-1000+$ per vote.
MechaJDI 14y ago
While I agree that OWNERS of the hardware shouldn't be bound by arbitrary rules laid out by the service providers, you can still get your phone unlocked, but only from the carrier...At least with T-Mobile, it's free (to my knowledge) as long as your account is in good standing. The law still sucks though...
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  I don't believe carriers are in any way required to do that. They could stop doing it at any point.
  - MechaJDI 14y ago
    True, but the opportunity still exists at this point.
musashibaka 14y ago
Another way people can fight this is to not buy locked phones with such restrictions placed on them.
- meaty 14y ago
  I was recently informed that it's not that easy to do this in the US.
  - dublinben 14y ago
    It's not easy, nor does it make financial sense. Only one 'major' carrier (T-Mobile, at less than 10% of the market) offers a discount on monthly contracts when you decline the subsidized phone. On AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, you are throwing away a $300-400 discount that you're paying for anyway. Only very recently, with Google's $300 Nexus 4 and improving prepaid GSM data plans has it even been feasible to avoid the lock-in when shopping for a smartphone. Europe, Asia, and the developing world are far ahead of the US in terms of wireless competition.
  - dubcanada 14y ago
    Funny, it's extremely easy to do outside of US. I can walk into most cell companies up here get a 3 year contract with a new phone, pay some fee ($10-75 or so depending on the carrier) and walk out with a fully unlocked phone on a 3 year contract.
    - meaty 14y ago
      Similar here in the UK. I bought an unlocked Nokia Lumia 710 for £99 new and am on a £20 a month giffgaff pay as you go service. 800 mins to any number, free calls to other giffgaff users, free texts to any network and unlimited data.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
This isn't the first time we've had this debate. In the 20th century, automakers tried to make it illegal for people to service their own cars (or hire third party mechanics to do it). The "right to repair" movement had to fight to have that right of ownership enshrined in law. This time around, citizens/consumers are losing the computing device edition of the right to repair campaign.
- sdoering 14y ago
  Do you (or anyone else) have any links for me, as this might just be one more egg in my argumentative basket? Thanks a lot in advance...
  - dhimes 14y ago
    Going through something like it in MA now. Car dealers are locking out third party repairs by obfuscating the diagnostics. People are attempting to make them share. I hope you guys can see this- not sure how the Boston Globe's paywall works http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/07/voters-leaning-toward-passing-right-repair-ballot-question/MnQvUcjV5zgJ71AxGdZnZK/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/07/voters-leaning-t...
    - youngerdryas 14y ago
      >Massachusetts voters resoundingly passed the “Right to Repair” ballot question, meaning the new law requiring automakers to provide independent repair shops as well as dealers with easy access to the computer codes needed to diagnose complex car problems will need to be reconciled with compromise legislation passed after the ballots were approved. Legislators could also decide to reapprove the compromise. The regulations are the first of their kind in the nation. Under the ballot legislation, automakers are required to make diagnostic and repair information available to independent shops and dealers through a universal system by 2015. The compromise legislation, passed in July, gives automakers until 2018 to comply with new regulations. Following that compromise, voters were initially urged to skip Question 1. But in recent weeks, AAA of Southern New England and other supporters began encouraging residents to cast a yes vote to ensure that Massachusetts consumers would have more choice when choosing who repairs their cars. “We considered telling people to skip the question,” said Arthur Kinsman, a spokesman for the Right to Repair Committee, which backed the original effort to get the issue on Tuesday’s ballot. “The resounding response we got was that people still wanted to vote for this.” ‘’ Still, he recognized that passage of the ballot question creates issues, including what types of vehicles will be regulated by the law, what kind of penalties manufacturers will face if they do not comply, and what the deadline will be. “We promised the Legislature we would work with them on any reconciliation that may take place,” Kinsman said. Still he said, the margin of victory proves similar bills should be passed in other states. Opponents of the “Right to Repair” ballot question decried passage of the issue, saying it “creates confusion and uncertainty for automakers, repairers, and consumers.” They say that complying with the new regulation by 2015 would be too onerous for most manufacturers and would probably result in higher sticker prices for cars. On Tuesday night, Daniel Gage, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, one of the industry groups opposing the original Right to Repair bill, said they would ask legislators to reapprove the compromise. “Automakers continue to support the negotiated Right to Repair compromise — previously agreed to by all parties — that became law prior to the election,” Gage said in a statement.
jackalope 14y ago
...a crime that’s punishable by up to 5 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines per incident. It's time for some common sense sentencing caps if this is a possibility for merely tampering with an inanimate object. If it can't be proven that you actually harmed someone (and physical harm should carry far more weight than financial harm), the threat of any jail time at all should be easy to laugh off. Laws with such harsh potential sentences indicate an abuse of power by a privileged class.
KMag 14y ago
Is it the "Don't Be Evil" Google that now owns Motorola Mobility, or am I thinking of the wrong Google?
- Kerrick 14y ago
  This was before Google bought them.
at-fates-hands 14y ago
Pretty sure the only real solution to this is going to be getting a congressman to support an amendment to the bill which would allow for cases where people would have the option of unlocking their phone. The other huge hurdle would be to have the carriers on board so they would be responsible for unlocking the phone.
joelhaus 14y ago
No doubt that carriers are behind Motorola's actions, even going back to 2005. It is easy to imagine AT&T requiring that manufacturers prosecute end-users who unlock phones to the full extent of the law, as a condition for certifying a device on their network. This new dictum from the Library of Congress[1] actually extends the law and most likely the obligations of device manufacturers. During the days of the Bell monopoly, consumers faced similar restrictions on what they could connect to the network... I'm not that old, but I remember being stunned as a kid when I saw what could be accomplished simply by connecting my computer to the phone network. At a time when the nation needs new engines of economic growth, it's a real shame to see communications policy that continues to protect the entrenched incumbents while shying away from promoting innovation. P.S. There is also a White House petition to appoint Susan Crawford as chair of the FCC and she seems to be very in touch with these issues. [1] http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-25/unlocking-phone-to-change-wireless-carrier-curbed-by-u-dot-s-dot http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-25/unlocking-phone-...
talkingtab 14y ago
How do these rules get enacted with no public discussion and no public debate. The effect of this ruling is to make criminals of thousands or tens of thousands of US citizens who purchased a phone. This should not happen without transparency. Here is another petition asking for an investigation. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/investigate-library-congress-decison-remove-unlocking-cell-phones-exception-dmca/05gr5vQK https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/investigate-librar...
saurik 14y ago
I would personally love to hear more about what the conclusion of this situation with Motorola was, and whether it ended up going any further. It honestly sounds from this description like Motorola decided to "reach" with the law, and got stubbed quickly enough that it decided this kind of argument wouldn't work. I say that, because it simply isn't clear that the DMCA actually applies to the case of unlocking cell phones. It wasn't clear six years ago, it wasn't clear three years ago, and it is even less clear now after the exemption for unlocking cell phones has expired. Yet, we have all of this rhetoric about "legal vs. illegal". To be clear, I find the DMCA really bothersome. I also run into it constantly with the things that I do (which all involve jailbroken devices, specifically such as the iPhone). However, I think we all need to be really careful as we approach these matters to not be part of the misinformation about these laws. In this case, what has happened is that after six years of having a specific exemption for unlocking cell phones from the DMCA, the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress did not see it fit to renew the exemption under the rules that were established for them by Congress regarding what should be exempted. Honestly, given those rules (which I, of course, disagree with! ;P), the Library of Congress seems to have made a pretty good argument, and seems to have given the situation a good deal of thought. Yet, there have now been articles blaming, in specific, the guy in charge of the Library of Congress for this, like it is somehow personally his fault. Shameful. Now there's this petition. This petition is asking the White House to force the Library of Congress to do something that they do not have the right to do under the rules given them by Congress. Yes: they can reconsider the matter in another three years, but they cannot just "rescind this decision". Given that this simply isn't going to happen (and it would be a horrible violation of our government's power separation if it somehow did), it then asks for the White House to champion a bill to make unlocking "legal". This is simply not going to help us against the DMCA, and is thereby a waste of time. Why? Because the most efficient and "battle-tested" way of accomplishing that goal is to enact something similar to the Cell Phone Freedom Act that they have in Canada, and the way that is worded is "carriers must unlock devices if asked", not "users are allowed to circumvent digital locks to unlock their own handsets". This will be seen as "the same effect, but less conflict with our beloved DMCA". Thereby, if we actually go down this route, and attempt to get this law, a lot of effort is going to be expended, a lot of lawmakers are going to feel like they satisfied the goals of the people responding to this petition, a lot of news will be printed about how they did just that, and in the end only one use case will benefit. (Ironically, not even the company of the guy who made this petition ;P.) This petition also is based on some wording that has been going around which confuses people about what actually happened: the DMCA exemption actually still applies if you purchased your device before January 26th (or even if you purchase a used device after January 26th that was originally purchased before January 26th); it isn't the act of unlocking that is no longer exempt, it is devices purchased (new) after that date that are not exempt. I want to return, however, for a second to this "does the DMCA even apply in this case" question, as I believe it to be of key important here. Four years ago, when the EFF first attempted to get the exemption on "jailbreaking" (not unlocking) cell phones, the opposition included Apple. Last year, for video game consoles, the opposition included Sony. Seven years ago, when the Wireless Alliance managed to win their requested exemption on unlocking cell phones, there were no companies that had a stake in the matter who bothered to take part. In fact, this was specifically highlighted by the Library of Congress in their finalized recommendation. Motorola? They really just didn't seem to care. > Objections to the proposed exemption were expressed by owners of copyrighted works other than the firmware to which the proponents desired access: The Joint Reply Commenters expressed concern about the potential effect of an exemption on separate copyrighted works that are downloaded and stored on handsets, such as ringtones, games, applications, photos and videos. Yes: the people who actually had a problem with this were concerned with software piracy, not cell phone unlocking at all. These same "Joint Reply Commenters" simply tend to argue against all DMCA exemptions, and thereby their arguments seem to always be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" as to whether their issues even apply in these matters. These Join Reply Commenters did not lead with that argument, though; no: their "killer argument" was that the DMCA didn't apply to these matters, and that while they seemed to even agree that the business models of carriers was troublesome, that the correct forum to address these issues was not the DMCA exemption process, but maybe the FCC. > At the outset, submitters have not demonstrated a causal link between § 1201(a)(1)(A) and the substantial adverse impact on access to copyrighted material which they allege. The threshold question, of course, is whether it would violate that provision for mobile phone users to do what the submitters advocate, and even whether anyone other than themselves has claimed that it is or might be a violation of § 1201(a)(1)(A). A close review of the submission itself does not dispel doubts on this issue, but rather reinforces them. That's right: the only group in opposition of an exemption from the DMCA for the unlocking of cell phones didn't believe that if you attempted to use the DMCA in this matter, you would actually have an argument or be able to make a case. And, in fact, according to the OP, Motorola tried this argument in 2005, and gave up when presented with minimal resistance. Meanwhile, the argument is even less clear today. A couple years ago, there was a case MGE vs. GE (yes, with General Electric as the defendant) wherein GE had come to own a company that had been doing unauthorized field service on a number of backup power units constructed by MGE, and in so doing was bypassing the devices' software protections. This seems to be one of the few really big cases to go remotely high up that actually tests just how much power the DMCA has to keep you from doing things that are quite largely unrelated to copyright, such as unlocking a cell phone, and no less with GE as the defendant on "our side" (yay!). The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology published a digest. > The Fifth Circuit held that the DMCA’s provisions apply to protections designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material and not protection from mere access to that material. > In so holding, the court limits the DMCA to those cases where a defendant circumvents a protection that is designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material. (Note: I have yet to go through all of the actual court opinion from that case; I have it on my todo list, but as I tend to have my hands full with other things, I haven't had the time to do so yet. That is why I am citing the Journal summary, rather than the actual opinion.) Yes: this means that in this court's opinion, the DMCA couldn't actually apply in this situation anyway, not that we really expected it to at this point ;P. (Sadly, it is my understanding that the Fifth Circuit doesn't set a very far-reaching precedent; it is still valuable to at least part of our country, though. I would love to hear more about that from those "in the know".) What I would really love to see, then, is a petition brought forward not by a company (or generally any non-law-trained citizen), and worded in a way that causes more confusion, but one brought forward by a law student, lawyer, etc.. I would love to see this petition ask for something the White House could theoretically do, and which would actually have an effect on the DMCA ;P. However, as it stands, while you are more than welcome to sign this petition, I must maintain that it 1) overstates the facts of the situation, 2) incorrectly states the ramifications of the situation, 3) directly asks the White House to do something it doesn't have the power to do, and 4) falls back to an ask that wouldn't help us if we got it :(. (Also, and really this should just be assumed: I do know that these petitions are mostly for show, and that it is unlikely for these petitions to actually do anything even if they were well done. However, I feel it is appropriate to analyze the potential results of these kinds of things given the assumption "what if they mattered".)

213 points by sinak 14y ago

For what it's worth, the DMCA was definitely intended to include circumvention protections well beyond what was needed for copyright protection. It was commonly understood to extend into device locking, commsec and nontraditional drm - this is why you have exceptions to the anti-circumvention elements for security researchers for example. This doesn't make it right at all - but in no way was motorola "misusing" the DMCA as far as the drafters (lobbyists) were concerned.

kunai 14y ago
Motorola may not have been misusing the DMCA, but the DMCA is a misuse of the law and a bloody embarrassment to the tech enthusiasts, programmers, and power users of the United States. Remember that. The DMCA should be rewritten from the ground up, with new, innovative laws that effectively combat piracy without restricting freedom. And as far as I know, the only group qualified to do that, and who have the proper knowledge to do that, are us. All of us, in this forum. We know technology. And we know how to revise it. Not some old Librarian of Congress. You know, I go onto any specialized forum for hobbying: car forums, technology forums, sports forums, to name a few, and I invariably, ALWAYS see at least one post about how the government is trying to prevent them from doing what they enjoy. It's not right. And we shouldn't let law get abused by other laws, that get abused by other people.
- dublinben 14y ago
  It's not the federal government's job to "effectively combat piracy." Private companies should not be able to outsource the protection of their archaic business model to the government.

sdoering 14y ago

I really find the idea of our hardware not belonging to us to the fullest extent somewhat revolting. And not only hardware, but a lot of other things as well (looking at Monsanto for example). Sorry, to say that, but imagine your car-maker of choice. Imagine during the last 50 or more years nobody would have been allowed to tune, to bodykit, to play with the car. What a interesting culture we would have lost. Or imagine two guys named Steve would not have been allowed to tinker with hardware in 1976 (because the makers of the parts would not allow "unlocking" the hardware). Where will we be, if our younglings will only see something with a display as a device for consuming, not for creating? What would a world look like, if it is ruled by "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses/games) like in ancient rome? Is this really a world, to be a maker? Do we really wanna give our basic rights of possession and control (be it hardware or food) to some companies?

gilgoomesh 14y ago
> Or imagine two guys named Steve would not have been allowed to tinker with hardware in 1976 (because the makers of the parts would not allow "unlocking" the hardware). This example kinda goes against your argument since the Steves faced exactly the situation you're claiming might have stopped them. The Steves who later founded Apple got their start with phone phreaking which was illegal at the time, despite being something you do with your own phone. But making it illegal didn't stop them -- it was more of a motivating factor. http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2010/09/jobs-and-woz-were-phreaks/ http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2010/09/jobs-and-woz-were-p... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box
- sdoering 14y ago
  Thanks a lot for the clarification. Did not know that. Then it is so much more interesting, to ask, why did apple is going down the path of making jailbreaking illegal. OK: one might say, that the want to motivate the next generation of Steves...
- DanBC 14y ago
  > phone phreaking which was illegal at the time, despite being something you do with your own phone No. The important part of phone phreaking is the public telephone network. (Although modifying a phone was probably not legal at that time).
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  We should emphasize that he essentially got away with the hacking, too. Incomplete coverage in the enforcement of a law bears no relation to the quality of that law.
vijayr 14y ago
Is it right to say that today's laws are far more scarier than 30-40 years ago? I mean, 5 years in prison for unlocking a phone, that a person paid money for and bought it? Making it a crime itself is absurd, and a full five years in prison for this?

sinak 14y ago

Hey everyone, author here. The petition to the White House still needs 40k more signatures to get a response. If you haven't done so, please sign it: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel...

homosaur 14y ago
Great, only 40K more until they can ignore another petition! I'm guessing if 40 of Obama's corporate owners filed a petition the results would be slightly different.
- meaty 14y ago
  Yes we've had online petitions in the UK for years of this kind and absolutely nothing at all gets done. Its the equivalent of sitting down and doing fuck all and making you feel happy doing it. Its another form of quelling dissidence from the lazy portion of the population. Direct activism and martyrdom is about the only way to get a result unfortunately. And don't go on about a vote - the population is by majority moronic dross unfit for breathing let alone voting. Don't expect miracles from monkeys. Perhaps a natural disaster may redress the balance.
Hawkee 14y ago
Just registered and signed it. This is my first White House signature.
- sinak 14y ago
  Awesome - thank you Hawkee. I think the biggest barrier to signing is probably registering, thank you for taking the time to do that.
  - gknoy 14y ago
    The biggest barrier for me is that I am fearful of the executive branch of the government having my directly-given opinions about subjects which may be controversial. How long before some analyst starts saying, "I bet people that care deeply about closing Gitmo, legalizing X, and dismantling Y are more likely to be domestic terrorists!" -- and then I end up on a no-fly list or something.

belorn 14y ago

Today, now more than before, it is illegal to modify a device you have bought with your own money. Worse, even if you find a fault in your device that threatens your personal safety, your are still not allowed to fix that fault. On top of that and thus even worse, if that fault actually causes a problem, the entity that is active preventing your from fixing the problem is still not liable for any damages caused by that fault. All risk is on the consumer who owns the device, while all rights belonging to the company. The owner of the device is left with no rights, and has no effective power over the device. Its absurd.

homosaur 14y ago
At the risk of getting downvoted, this scenario was exactly the thing that Stallman and co were freaking out about for 20 years.
- ajross 14y ago
  Certainly no downvotes from me. I spent more than a decade on the "RMS is a dirty f'ing hippie who will bring down the wonderful open source movement with his intemperate antics." side of the argument too (though to be fair: I never bought into the "Copyleft is an unreasonable infringement on freedom" nonsense that some of my compatriots did). The guy was right about basically everything. The anti-tivoization provisions that the FSF was talking about more than a decade ago, and that appeared in a usable license almost 6 tears ago, would absolutely have had a place in preventing this nonsense. Yet no one uses it, because RMS is a dirty f'ing hippie. (And yes, I know the real world is complicated, and that corporate sponsors of copyleft development "refuse" to use the GPLv3 and cannot be convinced. The same thing was said about copyleft itself 15 years ago. The commercial world adapted. They'll figure this out too if we demand it.)
  - homosaur 14y ago
    It's probably RMS's single mindedness and inflexibility that allowed the FSF to see this coming down the pipe. I now feel naive that I thought this was Chicken Little stuff and irrelevant to most users.

zee007 14y ago

I have DMCA, record companies and movie studios that make me feel like a criminal despite having paid full price. I hate them with a passion. HATE THEM! However, in this case I can totally see Motorola's argument. Not sure in your case, but most people don't pay full price for their phones, they buy it subsidized. The reason you're locked on AT&T (in your example) is that you buy a highly subsidized device in exchange for staying with them for x years. That's precisely why I buy unlocked phones and never sign contracts. But if you signed a contract then you should honour that contract.

ceejayoz 14y ago
Unlocking a phone doesn't end your cell phone contract, and subsidized phones come with an early termination fee if you choose to end your contract early.
homosaur 14y ago
Irrelevant, the phone should not be in question. If you break the contract, you will pay the contract breakage fee, the phone is not even considered. It doesn't have anything to do with the contract, it's just yet another way for the company to lock down the slaves.
kunai 14y ago
I accidentally upvoted you without reading your entire post. Here's an honorary downvote: -1 Anyway, your argument is again moot, because it doesn't matter if the phone is subsidized. You signed a contract to pay off the phone over the course of 2 years through the carrier. When you buy a car, financed, does the dealer say "We're not going to let you change the timing of the engine! You didn't pay us in full, so you can't do what you want to!" No, they DO let you do what you want to, because that is your car. Not theirs. It's off their hands. Why should it be any different for mobile devices? Also, say you buy a locked phone off-contract, full price -- but it's still locked to AT&T, and you do use AT&T for one year, but then want to switch to T-Mobile. You've paid off the phone. AT&T agrees, and they don't charge you any early termination fees. Then, you want to unlock it to use it on T-Mobile, but wait! You can't, because the DMCA doesn't let you. Don't you see how unjust this is?

spwestwood 14y ago

If you are reading this and haven't signed the petition yet please do so: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cel... At the current rate of signatures it's going to just fail to get to the 100k. It's a really great petition because it's both popular with the public, as well as being an easy thing for the administration to change. Has there ever been a Whitehouse petition that was successful? Perhaps this could be the first.

flyinRyan 14y ago
So one the one side we have a bunch of people willing to... click a button on a web site. On the other we have companies willing to spend millions of dollars. Hard to decide who we should be listening to.
- Retric 14y ago
  Assuming 100,000 signatures represents even 5,000 votes it's is not an obvious choice.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    I think we have enough evidence at this point to conclude that simply spending lots of money will produce an outcome. There's no need to really worry about the small minority who will actually be clued in and care about the issue because they won't be enough to overcome everyone else who will simply do what the ads tell them to.
    - Retric 14y ago
      Money helps, but you hit diminishing returns so votes become really expensive as in 100-1000+$ per vote.

MechaJDI 14y ago

While I agree that OWNERS of the hardware shouldn't be bound by arbitrary rules laid out by the service providers, you can still get your phone unlocked, but only from the carrier...At least with T-Mobile, it's free (to my knowledge) as long as your account is in good standing. The law still sucks though...

ceejayoz 14y ago
I don't believe carriers are in any way required to do that. They could stop doing it at any point.
- MechaJDI 14y ago
  True, but the opportunity still exists at this point.

musashibaka 14y ago

Another way people can fight this is to not buy locked phones with such restrictions placed on them.

meaty 14y ago
I was recently informed that it's not that easy to do this in the US.
- dublinben 14y ago
  It's not easy, nor does it make financial sense. Only one 'major' carrier (T-Mobile, at less than 10% of the market) offers a discount on monthly contracts when you decline the subsidized phone. On AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, you are throwing away a $300-400 discount that you're paying for anyway. Only very recently, with Google's $300 Nexus 4 and improving prepaid GSM data plans has it even been feasible to avoid the lock-in when shopping for a smartphone. Europe, Asia, and the developing world are far ahead of the US in terms of wireless competition.
- dubcanada 14y ago
  Funny, it's extremely easy to do outside of US. I can walk into most cell companies up here get a 3 year contract with a new phone, pay some fee ($10-75 or so depending on the carrier) and walk out with a fully unlocked phone on a 3 year contract.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Similar here in the UK. I bought an unlocked Nokia Lumia 710 for £99 new and am on a £20 a month giffgaff pay as you go service. 800 mins to any number, free calls to other giffgaff users, free texts to any network and unlimited data.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

This isn't the first time we've had this debate. In the 20th century, automakers tried to make it illegal for people to service their own cars (or hire third party mechanics to do it). The "right to repair" movement had to fight to have that right of ownership enshrined in law. This time around, citizens/consumers are losing the computing device edition of the right to repair campaign.

sdoering 14y ago
Do you (or anyone else) have any links for me, as this might just be one more egg in my argumentative basket? Thanks a lot in advance...
- dhimes 14y ago
  Going through something like it in MA now. Car dealers are locking out third party repairs by obfuscating the diagnostics. People are attempting to make them share. I hope you guys can see this- not sure how the Boston Globe's paywall works http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/07/voters-leaning-toward-passing-right-repair-ballot-question/MnQvUcjV5zgJ71AxGdZnZK/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/07/voters-leaning-t...
  - youngerdryas 14y ago
    >Massachusetts voters resoundingly passed the “Right to Repair” ballot question, meaning the new law requiring automakers to provide independent repair shops as well as dealers with easy access to the computer codes needed to diagnose complex car problems will need to be reconciled with compromise legislation passed after the ballots were approved. Legislators could also decide to reapprove the compromise. The regulations are the first of their kind in the nation. Under the ballot legislation, automakers are required to make diagnostic and repair information available to independent shops and dealers through a universal system by 2015. The compromise legislation, passed in July, gives automakers until 2018 to comply with new regulations. Following that compromise, voters were initially urged to skip Question 1. But in recent weeks, AAA of Southern New England and other supporters began encouraging residents to cast a yes vote to ensure that Massachusetts consumers would have more choice when choosing who repairs their cars. “We considered telling people to skip the question,” said Arthur Kinsman, a spokesman for the Right to Repair Committee, which backed the original effort to get the issue on Tuesday’s ballot. “The resounding response we got was that people still wanted to vote for this.” ‘’ Still, he recognized that passage of the ballot question creates issues, including what types of vehicles will be regulated by the law, what kind of penalties manufacturers will face if they do not comply, and what the deadline will be. “We promised the Legislature we would work with them on any reconciliation that may take place,” Kinsman said. Still he said, the margin of victory proves similar bills should be passed in other states. Opponents of the “Right to Repair” ballot question decried passage of the issue, saying it “creates confusion and uncertainty for automakers, repairers, and consumers.” They say that complying with the new regulation by 2015 would be too onerous for most manufacturers and would probably result in higher sticker prices for cars. On Tuesday night, Daniel Gage, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, one of the industry groups opposing the original Right to Repair bill, said they would ask legislators to reapprove the compromise. “Automakers continue to support the negotiated Right to Repair compromise — previously agreed to by all parties — that became law prior to the election,” Gage said in a statement.

jackalope 14y ago

...a crime that’s punishable by up to 5 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines per incident. It's time for some common sense sentencing caps if this is a possibility for merely tampering with an inanimate object. If it can't be proven that you actually harmed someone (and physical harm should carry far more weight than financial harm), the threat of any jail time at all should be easy to laugh off. Laws with such harsh potential sentences indicate an abuse of power by a privileged class.

KMag 14y ago

Is it the "Don't Be Evil" Google that now owns Motorola Mobility, or am I thinking of the wrong Google?

Kerrick 14y ago
This was before Google bought them.

at-fates-hands 14y ago

Pretty sure the only real solution to this is going to be getting a congressman to support an amendment to the bill which would allow for cases where people would have the option of unlocking their phone. The other huge hurdle would be to have the carriers on board so they would be responsible for unlocking the phone.

joelhaus 14y ago

No doubt that carriers are behind Motorola's actions, even going back to 2005. It is easy to imagine AT&T requiring that manufacturers prosecute end-users who unlock phones to the full extent of the law, as a condition for certifying a device on their network. This new dictum from the Library of Congress[1] actually extends the law and most likely the obligations of device manufacturers. During the days of the Bell monopoly, consumers faced similar restrictions on what they could connect to the network... I'm not that old, but I remember being stunned as a kid when I saw what could be accomplished simply by connecting my computer to the phone network. At a time when the nation needs new engines of economic growth, it's a real shame to see communications policy that continues to protect the entrenched incumbents while shying away from promoting innovation. P.S. There is also a White House petition to appoint Susan Crawford as chair of the FCC and she seems to be very in touch with these issues. [1] http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-25/unlocking-phone-to-change-wireless-carrier-curbed-by-u-dot-s-dot http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-25/unlocking-phone-...

talkingtab 14y ago

How do these rules get enacted with no public discussion and no public debate. The effect of this ruling is to make criminals of thousands or tens of thousands of US citizens who purchased a phone. This should not happen without transparency. Here is another petition asking for an investigation. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/investigate-library-congress-decison-remove-unlocking-cell-phones-exception-dmca/05gr5vQK https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/investigate-librar...

saurik 14y ago

I would personally love to hear more about what the conclusion of this situation with Motorola was, and whether it ended up going any further. It honestly sounds from this description like Motorola decided to "reach" with the law, and got stubbed quickly enough that it decided this kind of argument wouldn't work. I say that, because it simply isn't clear that the DMCA actually applies to the case of unlocking cell phones. It wasn't clear six years ago, it wasn't clear three years ago, and it is even less clear now after the exemption for unlocking cell phones has expired. Yet, we have all of this rhetoric about "legal vs. illegal". To be clear, I find the DMCA really bothersome. I also run into it constantly with the things that I do (which all involve jailbroken devices, specifically such as the iPhone). However, I think we all need to be really careful as we approach these matters to not be part of the misinformation about these laws. In this case, what has happened is that after six years of having a specific exemption for unlocking cell phones from the DMCA, the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress did not see it fit to renew the exemption under the rules that were established for them by Congress regarding what should be exempted. Honestly, given those rules (which I, of course, disagree with! ;P), the Library of Congress seems to have made a pretty good argument, and seems to have given the situation a good deal of thought. Yet, there have now been articles blaming, in specific, the guy in charge of the Library of Congress for this, like it is somehow personally his fault. Shameful. Now there's this petition. This petition is asking the White House to force the Library of Congress to do something that they do not have the right to do under the rules given them by Congress. Yes: they can reconsider the matter in another three years, but they cannot just "rescind this decision". Given that this simply isn't going to happen (and it would be a horrible violation of our government's power separation if it somehow did), it then asks for the White House to champion a bill to make unlocking "legal". This is simply not going to help us against the DMCA, and is thereby a waste of time. Why? Because the most efficient and "battle-tested" way of accomplishing that goal is to enact something similar to the Cell Phone Freedom Act that they have in Canada, and the way that is worded is "carriers must unlock devices if asked", not "users are allowed to circumvent digital locks to unlock their own handsets". This will be seen as "the same effect, but less conflict with our beloved DMCA". Thereby, if we actually go down this route, and attempt to get this law, a lot of effort is going to be expended, a lot of lawmakers are going to feel like they satisfied the goals of the people responding to this petition, a lot of news will be printed about how they did just that, and in the end only one use case will benefit. (Ironically, not even the company of the guy who made this petition ;P.) This petition also is based on some wording that has been going around which confuses people about what actually happened: the DMCA exemption actually still applies if you purchased your device before January 26th (or even if you purchase a used device after January 26th that was originally purchased before January 26th); it isn't the act of unlocking that is no longer exempt, it is devices purchased (new) after that date that are not exempt. I want to return, however, for a second to this "does the DMCA even apply in this case" question, as I believe it to be of key important here. Four years ago, when the EFF first attempted to get the exemption on "jailbreaking" (not unlocking) cell phones, the opposition included Apple. Last year, for video game consoles, the opposition included Sony. Seven years ago, when the Wireless Alliance managed to win their requested exemption on unlocking cell phones, there were no companies that had a stake in the matter who bothered to take part. In fact, this was specifically highlighted by the Library of Congress in their finalized recommendation. Motorola? They really just didn't seem to care. > Objections to the proposed exemption were expressed by owners of copyrighted works other than the firmware to which the proponents desired access: The Joint Reply Commenters expressed concern about the potential effect of an exemption on separate copyrighted works that are downloaded and stored on handsets, such as ringtones, games, applications, photos and videos. Yes: the people who actually had a problem with this were concerned with software piracy, not cell phone unlocking at all. These same "Joint Reply Commenters" simply tend to argue against all DMCA exemptions, and thereby their arguments seem to always be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" as to whether their issues even apply in these matters. These Join Reply Commenters did not lead with that argument, though; no: their "killer argument" was that the DMCA didn't apply to these matters, and that while they seemed to even agree that the business models of carriers was troublesome, that the correct forum to address these issues was not the DMCA exemption process, but maybe the FCC. > At the outset, submitters have not demonstrated a causal link between § 1201(a)(1)(A) and the substantial adverse impact on access to copyrighted material which they allege. The threshold question, of course, is whether it would violate that provision for mobile phone users to do what the submitters advocate, and even whether anyone other than themselves has claimed that it is or might be a violation of § 1201(a)(1)(A). A close review of the submission itself does not dispel doubts on this issue, but rather reinforces them. That's right: the only group in opposition of an exemption from the DMCA for the unlocking of cell phones didn't believe that if you attempted to use the DMCA in this matter, you would actually have an argument or be able to make a case. And, in fact, according to the OP, Motorola tried this argument in 2005, and gave up when presented with minimal resistance. Meanwhile, the argument is even less clear today. A couple years ago, there was a case MGE vs. GE (yes, with General Electric as the defendant) wherein GE had come to own a company that had been doing unauthorized field service on a number of backup power units constructed by MGE, and in so doing was bypassing the devices' software protections. This seems to be one of the few really big cases to go remotely high up that actually tests just how much power the DMCA has to keep you from doing things that are quite largely unrelated to copyright, such as unlocking a cell phone, and no less with GE as the defendant on "our side" (yay!). The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology published a digest. > The Fifth Circuit held that the DMCA’s provisions apply to protections designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material and not protection from mere access to that material. > In so holding, the court limits the DMCA to those cases where a defendant circumvents a protection that is designed to prevent infringement of copyrighted material. (Note: I have yet to go through all of the actual court opinion from that case; I have it on my todo list, but as I tend to have my hands full with other things, I haven't had the time to do so yet. That is why I am citing the Journal summary, rather than the actual opinion.) Yes: this means that in this court's opinion, the DMCA couldn't actually apply in this situation anyway, not that we really expected it to at this point ;P. (Sadly, it is my understanding that the Fifth Circuit doesn't set a very far-reaching precedent; it is still valuable to at least part of our country, though. I would love to hear more about that from those "in the know".) What I would really love to see, then, is a petition brought forward not by a company (or generally any non-law-trained citizen), and worded in a way that causes more confusion, but one brought forward by a law student, lawyer, etc.. I would love to see this petition ask for something the White House could theoretically do, and which would actually have an effect on the DMCA ;P. However, as it stands, while you are more than welcome to sign this petition, I must maintain that it 1) overstates the facts of the situation, 2) incorrectly states the ramifications of the situation, 3) directly asks the White House to do something it doesn't have the power to do, and 4) falls back to an ask that wouldn't help us if we got it :(. (Also, and really this should just be assumed: I do know that these petitions are mostly for show, and that it is unlikely for these petitions to actually do anything even if they were well done. However, I feel it is appropriate to analyze the potential results of these kinds of things given the assumption "what if they mattered".)