It's Now Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone

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E_SolSi

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It's Now Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone



It's Now Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone - Yahoo! News




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If your phone has already been unlocked, you are grandfathered in and won't face any legal issues. But what could happen if you unlocked your phone now that it's illegal?



"Violations of the DMCA [unlocking your phone] may be punished with a civil suit or, if the violation was done for commercial gain, it may be prosecuted as a criminal act," Brad Shear, a Washington, D.C.-area attorney and blogger who is an expert on social media and technology law, told ABC News. "A carrier may sue for actual damages or for statutory damages."



The worst-case scenario for an individual or civil offense could be as much as a $2,500 fine. As for those planning to profit off of the act or a criminal offense -- such as a cellphone reseller -- the fine could be as high as $500,000 and include prison time.


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:disgust1:
 
Everything is illegal, everyone is a criminal. You can commit multiple felonies just minding your own business.
 
So how will carriers find out if your phone is unlocked?

When you buy a smartphone, they sell you the phone at a slightly discounted price and force you to buy their smartphone plan. This plan not only amortizes the remaining cost of the phone but also nets them a tidy profit compared to an unlimited data plan on a feature phone. What savvy consumers do is purchase an unlocked smartphone or unlock it themselves, then get a feature phone plan with unlimited data and pop that sim card in their unlocked smartphone. The subsequent loss of revenue was significant enough that the corporate policy used to gouge customers is now the law of the land.
To answer your question, I believe when your phone connects with the towers, there's an identifier code that tells the network the type of phone. Comparing that to the type of plan you're on is easy. The jailbreakers, rooters and unlockers will probably develop a way to circumvent this. It's like torrenting, it's not hard to stay one step ahead making their bullshit laws unenforceable.
 
Its weird because at some point, someone paid for a discounted phone and fulfilled the contract or they broke the contract and paid the fee, or they paid $600.00-$800.00 for their phone.

At some point, the phone was paid for in a legit way. This is like buying a brand new car and making it illegal for you to resell it in the hopes of making more people buy new cars since the used car market is no mas.

I understand what they're trying to do, it just blows my mind that they're going after this when chances are 2-3% of their users might be doing this, hell, it might be less than 1%
 
what people are doing is buying the latest/greatest when their contract is up, and then re-selling it for massive profit, and continue to use their old phones. That's basically how i got mine.
 
what people are doing is buying the latest/greatest when their contract is up, and then re-selling it for massive profit, and continue to use their old phones. That's basically how i got mine.

What's the problem? They are fulfilling the contract either way.
 
Right, I agree. but it's basically a loophole that they are trying to close to enforece the re-newal of contracts.
 
Sure hope there is a grandfather clause, otherwise, I'm now officially a criminal.
 
Right, I agree. but it's basically a loophole that they are trying to close to enforece the re-newal of contracts.

But they got the renewal of that contract, someone went to Verizon/ATT and paid $200.00 for an Iphone 5 and agreed to keep their contract for 2 years. Now they are selling that phone to another person who never was and never will be a Verizon/ATT user.

Only issue I see is they want people to resell their phones to other users of the same carrier so that they can pick up a non contract month to month user. Regardless, that's telling someone they can only either stop using their phone or selling it as it is, as if they dont OWN the phone after the contract is fulfilled.
 
that's technically transferring the spoils of a contract to a 3rd party which violates the new contract.

it's all legla bs.

they fuck you they fuck you they fuck you with the cell phones.
 
So how does T-mobiles new(er) offer, to bring in an unlocked AT&T smart phone in and recieve a discount, fit in with this?
 
its only illegal if the carrier presses charges,
tmobile will probably keep doing their offer, and just not pushing the issue.
they will gain market control by being the only carrier that allows you to use unlocked cell phones.

then, everybody is a criminal, they will raise the prices like crazy, and you will be stuck. bc your phone is unlocked. and if you try to transfer carriers, you will be sued.
 
I was thinkin about AT&T though. Wont they know when someone takes one of their phones for this deal?

I mean if a phone in their network falls off the grid, wont they at least find out why?
 
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