Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple, iPhone
Is it legal to unlock your iPhone?
Just in case you missed it, Engadget did a nice little analysis of whether it's legal to unlock your iPhone or not-- a more and more pertinent question as we get closer and closer to having unlocking solutions become available. In short, it is legal... mostly.The main questions of legality lie around an exception to the DMCA, which allows you to unlock your cell phone "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network." Under that law and that exception, it's perfectly legal to use an iPhone on T-mobile, Verizon, or any other provider that you can get it to work with. Things really only get prickly when you start selling those unlocked phones, or somehow profit off of selling unlocked phones. Then, Apple and AT&T start to have a case against you for honing in on their business.
Oh, and the other fun part is that the DMCA exemption that gives you an out on this one actually expires in November of 2009. So if nothing is done on that front, unlocking phones will be illegal within a few years. Still, Engadget makes the same conclusion that I would-- unlocking your iPhone for personal use on another network very likely won't bring AT&T's legal goons to your doors. It likely will void your warranty, and while some unlocks brag that they'll stay after updates, a future update may undo the unlock.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ondra Soukup said 4:29PM on 8-26-2007
Maybe it's legal to use iPhone on Verizon but it's technically impossible :D
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asdf said 5:04PM on 8-26-2007
Yes, its now legal to unlock your phone from any carrier to any carrier.
Apple locked its phone to only AT&T, as with most other phone that gets locked to whatever cellular service its contracted to.
But there is no law that prohibit you to unlock it. There is a law ALLOWING you to unlock it.
This is beneficial to Apple as more potential customer can use it, but AT&T will loose exclusive to the phone, so people can use other providers instead. That's why AT&T had their lawyers threatening to sue "hackers", but really they can't do anything.
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artman1033 said 5:48PM on 8-26-2007
Thank YOU for the clarification.....My aapl stock price will remain ROBUST and growing.
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koreyel said 6:14PM on 8-26-2007
ATT's legal goons ?!?!?!
Congratulations!
You are the first fully certified Apple Blogcaster to say something naughty about ATT!
I've been in an absolute angry miff at the Apple Community's sit down and shut up attitude concerning ATT.
What a bunch of sissys!
From John (IsuckAppleAss) Gruber to TUAW... none of you punks has dared to write about ATT's political agenda.
Suggestion:
1) You have a political and moral responsibility to evaluate products in their political and moral contexts.
2) FACT: ATT's CEO is an enemy of net neutrality!
3) FACT: ATT recently censored the lyrics of a rock band.
4) FACT: ATT is a corporate supporter of Bush/Cheney.
I want an iPhone as bad as anyone.
But I won't buy one until I know I DON'T give a A SINGLE PENNY to ATT.
Where does the apple community stand on this one?
They are mum.
Silent.
Indifferent.
Cowards!
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Eideard said 7:07PM on 8-26-2007
Aside from the troll immediately ahead of me in this queue - I have to chuckle of your concern about the "allowing" portion of the DMCA expiring in November 2009. Uh, your personal iPhone contract with AT&T should be expired by then, as well.
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Mars said 7:32PM on 8-26-2007
As someone who has used and hacked Windows Mobile devices and a handful of Motorolas it appears that most device manufacturers have the device firmware separated from the SIM locks. I can take the firmware from a sim locked HTC Wizard and load it on my unlocked Wizard and my Wizard stays sim lock free. The same goes for my Moto KRZR.
From a distance it appears as though Apple has followed this trend. If the firmware of the current Apple iPhones was written to only work on AT&T networks, than those network selection and EDGE preference panes would not have appeared once the SIM was unlocked. As Apple would have had no need to code them Their very existence points to the fact that the iPhone operating system is designed to work independently of any SIM locks.
So from past experience with other devices and preliminary signs from this one I'd say that SIM unlockers should be in the clear... let's hope so anyway, I just bet $499 on it ;-)
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required said 7:37PM on 8-26-2007
I agree koreyel
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aph3x said 8:19PM on 8-26-2007
I'll put money on that as soon as someone releases the software to unlock the iPhone - Apple will come out with an update that not only prevents it but also adds all those features people have been requesting just to give an incentive for people to update. Similar to what Sony did with the PSP.
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aph3x said 8:25PM on 8-26-2007
Also - one more thing - when people question the legality of unlocking the iphone they bring up that unlocking itself should be legal. What about reverse engineering? Doesn't the DMCA say something about reverse engineering and circumvention?
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JeffDM said 10:20PM on 8-26-2007
I think the current DMCA exemption for locked phones covers all aspects of the unlocking, reverse engineering, circumvention, installation, etc. That exemption only lasts for so long, and then it will be reviewed for renewal or dismissal.
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VanillaSpice said 11:03PM on 8-26-2007
My understanding of the DMCA is that the exemption is granted to computer programmes only (i.e. firmwares and software updates, not physical or solder hacks), and it grants exemption from the prohibition against access control circumvention, so Jeff is correct in saying that the reverse engineering is exempted as a part of developing the access control circumvention.
But it is only exempted from the DMCA (and only from the access control circumvention prohibition specifically, the DMCA covers other areas too), and it is feasible that you could break IP, privacy and other laws in attempting to reverse engineer, and they would not be exempted.
There is also a contractual issue - did any iPhone buyers, when they agreed to AT&T and Apple's Terms and Conditions documents, happen to agree to use their iPhone only on AT&T? If they did, then the fact that it is legal to unlock your cellphone doesn't mean it is legal for you to break a contract you've agreed to, they are two distinct legal questions. (I don't know, I've never seen the iPhone T&C).
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Maurice said 11:10PM on 8-26-2007
Has anyone actually just called AT&T and asked to unlock their iPhone?
Before you laugh too hard, think about this: I've gotten other phones unlocked within days of purchase with a phone call to CS. Any pre-paid iPhone users want to give it a try since you're not under contract?
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JeffDM said 11:39PM on 8-26-2007
Yes, I should have mentioned the firmware hack is currently protected, the physical attack portion of the first known unlocking might not be, that's an open question. I really don't think that a couple soldered wires and breaking a single trace really counts as bypassing copy protection measures. That's a personal opinion, not one that's been vetted by a judicial ruling, sometimes wacky simple stuff like that might count, depending on interpretation.
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asdf said 1:41AM on 8-27-2007
@9
If "reverse engineering" you mean by unlocking, then the DMCA is allowing us to do so.
Yes, you are reversing what it was programmed to do (which is locked into a particular provider).
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nv208 said 5:39AM on 8-27-2007
See http://blog.iphoneunlocking.com/ they have been threatened with legal action already from ATT
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Donald said 11:54AM on 8-27-2007
"Has anyone actually just called AT&T and asked to unlock their iPhone?"
I took a few of those calls. There's no provision for unlocking the iPhone. Slapping the IMEI into the lookup tool brings up "Not available".
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gopi said 12:03PM on 8-27-2007
This recently formed meme of "profiting off an unlock isn't legal" is highly suspect.
The exemption says,
"when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."
A commercial unlocker would bypass a circumvention device to lawfully connect to a wireless telephone network, and *then* sell the phone.
I think it's an incredible stretch to suggest that "sole purpose" stretches beyond the technical and to the economic, political, or philosophical. If you interpret the rule so narrowly, I guess your sole purpose must only be to *connect*, and not to *make phone calls* or *talk to somebody*.
The "sole purpose" language clearly is intended to not allow you to anything else with the phone's firmware. In fact, if you were to read through the Register of Copyrights recommendation, page 53 has a discussion of the issue of locks protecting access to other copyrighted material such as media or ring tones.
The discussion on page 53 clarifies that the "sole purpose" language is intended as merely a limit on the technical behaviour that is permitted. If you bypass an access control measure to allow the extraction of ring tones in a phone, the 1201(a)(1(C) exemption will not apply.
Many parts of copyright law include explicit rules about activities that are done for-profit or not for-profit. Adding a non-profit only stipulation where there isn't one implied is something that would only be done by an attorney who was throwing everything they could out just in case they got lucky.
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VanillaSpice said 9:54PM on 8-27-2007
Jeff, I cannot see a reason why breaking a solder trace wouldn't count under §1201(a)(1)(A) if that bypasses access control on a protected work. There are no exceptions in the act or in established precedent that suggest a simple or easy-to-achieve breach is not a breach.
gopi, it isn't the 'sole purpose' language that is the problem for commercial exploitation. The problem is that the DMCA not only criminalises access control circumvention (ACC) in 1201(a)(1) but also separately criminalises the production and dissemination of services and devices that achieve ACC in 1201(a)(2), and it is that provision which is the problem for sellers.
Importantly, the 3-year exemptions are only ever granted to the act of ACC itself, they do not apply to the production and selling of devices that achieve ACC, as outlined in 1201(a)(1)(E). So even if it were legal for you to use a certain ACC device or technique, the act of selling or supplying that device (or publishing the technique) would remain illegal.
The key question, however, remains exactly what the device or technique is. If it, in itself, doesn't involve bypassing restrictions on accessing a protected work, then the DMCA doesn't apply to it, even if exempted DMCA violations occurred in the design of that device or technique.
But I am assuming that the iPhone software does have controlled access, and therefore any unlock technique will unavoidably need to circumvent that control, and will therefore unavoidably come under the purview of the DMCA, and as I said, there are no exemptions for violations under 1201(a)(2), so publishing an unlock technique or selling or manufacturing an unlock device would remain illegal.
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John Rettie said 2:31PM on 9-03-2007
I want to buy an iPhone, but I will not until I can legally unlock it. I am a happy AT&T subscriber and have been for seven years. But, when I spend more than a few days overseas I like to use a local SIM card so locals do not have to make an overseas call to contact me. It was because of this versatility that I signed up with Cingular in the first place -- now they've taken away this significant advantage of signing up with a GSM service.
I have been using a Virgin Mobile SIM card in the UK for eight years. I got my current "Cingular" Treo 650 unlocked three days after buying it. Initially the Cingular rep said it could not be done. When I insisted and he checked he "was surprised" to find it could be -- then it took only a couple of minutes to get an unlock code.
Apple should put two SIM card slots in the iPhone. Then you could be "locked" to AT&T on one and the other could be unlocked for use with another service when overseas for local calls. Think how wonderful that would be!
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