The iPhone is locked so that it has to be used with AT&T’s cellphone network. This article about software that allows users to unlock the phones asks "Would computer owners pick up an iMac that only worked with AT&T’s DSL service?"
- Unlocked iPhones highlight DMCA absurdities, By Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica (August 28, 2007)
While cell phone unlocking is now legal under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) because of a decision last year by the Library of Congress, this article speculates that AT&T will attempt to block sale of software allowing users to do so.
Allowing consumers to unlock their own property but not allowing them to purchase the tools to do so is the sort of situation that belongs only in Kafka, not in modern rulemaking.
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