You Do Not Really Own your Phone

     Recently, it became illegal to unlock your phone in the United States.This happened recently because of an exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This now means if you unlock your phone, you can have a $500,000 fine and five years in jail. That's pretty extreme for a crime with no real victim.

     For a long time unlocking your phone was legal because of an exemption in the DMCA. As of earlier this year, its exemption was ended due to a decision from James H. Billington, who is 83 years old. James H. Billington is the Librarian of Congress, he runs the Library of Congress. While Mr. Billington may be a great librarian, he probably is not too up to date on law in technology.

     The idea that someone who has no background in technology is able to make the law. The main reason it's illegal is because, when you buy a phone your carrier subdizes the cost of the phone when you promise to have a contract with them. If that were always the case it wouldn't be as bad ($500,000 is still outrageous). Even if you buy the phone for its full retail price, without a contract, it is still illegal to unlock it.

     If decisions like this are continued to make, it looks like a very bleak future for owning your own devices. If you are not allowed to change the device you purchased, is it really yours? Currently you can purchase a television and take it apart, and do whatever you want to it, you can even go to any cable provider! With cell phones you do not have that option, and might never. For programmers (such as me) this is an even bigger problem, because what if one day you are unable to alter the software on your computer? That would cause a lot of backlash.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/technology/fcc-urges-a-right-to-unlock-cellphones.html