Starting Today, It's Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone

[emptystep]

It's Now Illegal to Unlock Your Cellphone - ABC News

Why now? Starting today, the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress are no longer allowing phone unlocking as an exemption under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

You can read the full docket here but, in short, it is illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier's permission to do so. If you're wondering what this has to do with copyright, it turns out not much.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to want to unlock ones phone, like installing Linux, that requires unlocking the phone and has nothing to do with changing carriers. If they want to address this issue they should update the way phones are made not just pass a law controlling personal property.