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Cell Phone traffiking no problem...
- Thread starter ChunksJR
- Start date
The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) - basically says you can't circumvent "copy protection" or other schemes without the consent of the copyright owner. If you have a phone with a SIM card in it, the phone number can be changed to a local one anywhere in the world just by buying a prepaid sim card... sort of how these phones work. Anyway, everywhere else in the world, phones are sold "unlocked" so they can be moved from network to network. Here, phones are "locked" via software to one particular network. Now, sometimes you can get an unlock code from your provider, sometimes not - but the point is that there are utilities out there that can unlock any phone. The rub comes into play when you realize that phone purchases are subsidized here - they pay the manufacturer some part of the price, and you pay the rest, with the profits coming from when you pay them to use their networks. Think of it as similar to the razors/razor blades model. What these guys have been doing is buying the phones at a deep discount from Wal-Mart, unlocking them, and selling them to cell phone wholesalers for a tidy profit. The phones are still running the Nokia software, and nothing has been physically tampered with, so what's illegal? The DMCA may or may not make unlocking phones illegal, as it has never been tested in court - indeed, this could be a bellwether for other cell-unlocking companies.
See here for a better explanation.
See here for a better explanation.
Whats the point of a copyright then? If you bought a book from a bookstore, copied it and then sold/gave it to your friends, you'd be denying the writer and publisher of the book their due earnings. Some things just have to be legislated.
That's not what's happening here at all... it's like if I bought a book and it had a license that came with it saying that you couldn't scan the pages in your computer and read them there... the scenario you're describing falls under traditional copyright law, which I have no problem with other than the ridiculous extensions it's been getting of late.
I think that this goes back to the whole: "just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's right..." type arguement too...
What's not right about using a phone - that I bought and own - on another network? (note: GSM, the standard that T-Mobile, Cingular and the rest of the world uses, is DESIGNED for such interopability)
The point that you're missing is that the resale of altered equipment under the guise of a proprietary brand name is tantamount to fraud. Reference my earlier cola beverage analogy. If you have a problem with that, then I have a 1970 Plymouth Satellite to sell you with just 5 miles on the odometer - honest.
Brett
The equipment is "altered" in that they've taken the orginal software, freely downloadable from the internet, and put it on the phone in place of the proprietary software. No branding is changed. Nothing is faked. (how could it be? All the tracking of minutes, etc. is done at the network level) It's just an open phone.
You're impossible. Alright, you win - conspiracy to keep the brown man down. Next caller. :icon_roll
Brett
Well how about this then: why in the hell did they drive all the way to Michigan to buy phones? I'm from Ft Worth, and there are a SH!T TON of Wal-Marts all over the DFW Metroplex. And all over TX for that matter. Seems like the profit you'd make on reselling the phones would be negated by the cost of driving that far to get the phones.
Yeah, they clearly should have consulted with Kramer and Newman before doing that.
Brett
Just keep following the story...
also from the article:
So this will largely come down to whether or not the DMCA applies to "locked" phones, and will probably set a precedent. Interesting.
from http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/NEWS05/608170379/1007/NEWS:
also from the article:
So this will largely come down to whether or not the DMCA applies to "locked" phones, and will probably set a precedent. Interesting.