THE FIGHT FOR MOBILE FREEDOM- THE DMCA CONUNDRUM.
Recently in the US, it became illegal for you to unlock your device outside the channels provided by your service provider. The exception from DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) granted by the Librarian of Congress regarding cellphone unlocking expired on January 26, 2013. So starting that day, anybody selling cellphone unlocking services can be subject to litigation under DMCA. How did this happen? If you look at the origin of DMCA, it was not even meant to regulate cellphone unlocking, it was mainly for protecting digital copyrights. However it has morphed into a tool for circumventing true mobile freedom. DMCA sets protection of copyrighted digital materials by criminalizing the circumvention of access control softwares and Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools. The key here is access control software- this is where cellphone unlock comes into the picture. Originally, access control softwares and DRMS were used to make sure nobody is able to gain ac...