Petition: Starting 1/26/2013 Unlocking Your Phone Will Be Illegal - HTC Rezound

This should be pinned to every general section in this on this site.
Sign this petition to keep unlocking legal. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414699,00.asp
Starting Saturday, it will be illegal for you to unlock your phone without permission from your wireless carrier.
The rule change dates back to an October decision from the Library of Congress's Copyright Office, which gave consumers a 90-day window to unlock their phones without carrier permission. That 90-day period, however, ends this weekend.
The Copyright Office reviews the rules on unlocking (and jailbreaking) every three years, as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This time around, regulators found that "there are ample alternatives to circumvention. That is, the marketplace has evolved such that there is now a wide array of unlocked phone options available to consumers."
Some groups, however, had requested an exemption that would allow people to unlock their phones at will "because some devices sold by carriers are permanently locked and because unlocking policies contain restrictions and may not apply to all of a carrier's devices."
The Copyright Office, however, determined that "with respect to newly purchased phones, proponents had not satisfied their burden of showing adverse effects related to a technological protection measure."
That's likely because there are currently a variety of options when it comes to unlocking your phone. Verizon CDMA phones, for example, have unlocked SIM card slots. The 4G LTE Verizon iPhone 5 also includes an unlocked SIM. Last year, AT&T started allowing non-contract iPhone users to unlock their devices for use on other GSM networks. You can also opt to buy unlocked phones for a higher price.
Still, the Copyright Office recognized that it's not as easy to unlock an older phone as it is a newer one - "in part because an older or expired contract might not require the carrier to cooperate."
As a result, regulators gave consumers that 90-day window, starting Oct. 28, to unlock their phone without carrier permission. The move "is both warranted and unlikely to harm the market," the office concluded.
The unlocking issue differs from jailbreaking. In its same October ruling, regulators upheld rules that allow for jailbreaking, which allows you to run unapproved applications. Jailbreaking is most often mentioned in conjunction with the iPhone because Apple has strict control over which apps it allows into its App Store. If you jailbreak your device, you could run an app not available in the App Store on your iPhone, but the very act of jailbreaking voids your warranty, so you better know what you're doing.
The Copyright Office, however, declined to extend its jailbreaking rules to tablets because it found that the proposed definition of the device was too broad.

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Wow. What has this world come to. That's a communist way of looking at electronics. I wish we knew more about what will happen if you have your carriers permission to unlock.
On a second reading, it looks like this only applies to unlocking the sim. It doesn't say bootloader...
Maybe we'll still be able to dev for these amazing devices
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app

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yeah its sim unlock only, so you cant run it on another network, which is still absolute BS.

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Signed. Freedom after purchase is a very big part of living in a free society. If you can't do what you want with your property what's the point in calling it yours
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2

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This is the Rezound forum. The Rezound is only sold through Verizon Wireless. VZW has never locked their phones to work only on their network.

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mike.s said:
This is the Rezound forum. The Rezound is only sold through Verizon Wireless. VZW has never locked their phones to work only on their network.
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Someone obviously missed the point...
Edit: signed

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this does not matter just purchase an unlocked phone like i did the htc rezound and besides all lte phone must be unlocked according to fcc rules. for the rules.

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rezoundness said:
this does not matter just purchase an unlocked phone like i did the htc rezound and besides all lte phone must be unlocked according to fcc rules. for the rules.
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Bootloader must be unlockable yes, but sim cards no. They will have control over your ability to use a phone on a network of your choosing
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As if this will stop anyone. Just like how gun laws prevent shootings...

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socal87 said:
As if this will stop anyone. Just like how gun laws prevent shootings...
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You may own the phone, but your service provider can cut you off it you violate their rules. They'll tell you too bad.. Go try the next provider your just a number
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But wait a sec,
If you buy the phone on contract for the lowered price then technically you don't own the phone right? So the carrier would decide?

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Don't forget to sign the death star petition as well. If ur not familiar with that petition then shame on u.
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saintsfan09 said:
Don't forget to sign the death star petition as well. If ur not familiar with that petition then shame on u.
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Didn't that one end? They responded to it and it was amazing...let me see if I can find it
edit: here https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking

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heyis4horses said:
Didn't that one end? They responded to it and it was amazing...let me see if I can find it
edit: here https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking
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How sad. I didn't know it ended already. I really thought this petition would be successful. Shows u how messed up this countries priorities r when we can't even get the government to commit necessary resources to building a death star. My generation will get this done. Guaranteed. Clever response from the White House though. I will concede that much
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saintsfan09 said:
How sad. I didn't know it ended already. I really thought this petition would be successful. Shows u how messed up this countries priorities r when we can't even get the government to commit necessary resources to building a death star. My generation will get this done. Guaranteed. Clever response from the White House though. I will concede that much
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I could not be happier with their response unless it was a picture of a death star in construction

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When I'm President, my first move in office will to order funds for R&D into the creation of a Deathstar. I hope to vaporize those damn Martians by my 2nd term...
Sent from my EVO using xda app-developers app

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Your info isn't entirely true. This law only pertains to phones purchased when the law goes in to effect. Any phones purchased before the law going in to effect is exempted.
Personally I would just buy a nexus 4 if I was going to carrier hop and know everything will work right. I do agree its stupid as if you own your phone outright you should be able to use it as you see fit. After all you can modify your car any way you want so why cant phpnes be the same way?
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---------- Post added at 09:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------
heyis4horses said:
Didn't that one end? They responded to it and it was amazing...let me see if I can find it
edit: here https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking
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They are the government as they don't know a parsec is a measurement in distance and not time lol.
I really thought they would go for the ideal of building a death star. I mean come on it wastes money like the government seems to love to do. Plus all Americans could move in to it and then they could blow the earth up and take care of that pesky illegal immigration problem in one shot. Then we could be the ultimate power in the universe lol.
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So, I've been doing some research on this, and there are a lot of misconceptions about this that need to be cleared up.
First, this seems to only apply to new phones sold after the effective date. Second, this by itself does not make unlocking a phone illegal. This decision simply states that the DMCA doesn't grant an automatic exemption to unlocking according to the interpretation of the Library of Congress, not that it's illegal. That means that the carriers can sue people for unlocking if they choose to do so, and it would then be up to the court to decide whether or not it's legal.
What would happen if it did go to court? The EFF would likely step forward to help the defense of the first defendant. Possibly other groups as well. The carriers and their industry groups would fund the prosecution. In the current legal landscape, it would likely be decided favor of the carriers, however, despite what you're reading, that hasn't actually been decided yet.
https://www.eff.org/is-it-illegal-to-unlock-a-phone

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Yes Verizon has had phones that only work on their network... My HTC Eris didn't have a removable sim card.
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justjayhere said:
Yes Verizon has had phones that only work on their network... My HTC Eris didn't have a removable sim card.
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Because it's a CDMA phone, they don't use sim cards.
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