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Can Apple + AT&T Shut Down iPhone Unlockers?
aalobode writes "Do Apple and AT&T have the legal right to stop hackers from selling unlocked iPhones? Under their terms, only AT&T may sell iPhones, and Apple gets a commission. When unlocked iPhones are used on other providers' networks, AT&T and hence Apple get nothing beyond what they earned on the initial sale of the hardware. Can they prohibit unlocking? Reselling? The article in Businessweek gives the for and against arguments, but leans toward the view that the hackers may have the law on their side for once."
Of course you can, but the problem is that that's not what happened.
If you only took the hardware, completely erased all the software (up to OS, bootloader, whatever), and then installed something else from scratch, that'd be fine (at least I think so).
But the guy who hacked it used the existing iPhone OS built in on the device in order to operate the phone. Even if all his modifications were hardware-based, he still uses the OS (which now gets signals from a separate piece of hardware) to make calls, use iPhone features, etc. And I'm pretty damn sure that getting a singal from anyone but AT&T (or, more generally, getting any signal to the OS other than those provided by Apple hardware) violates the software license agreement, so you infringe copyright.
Now, you may have a very good case for an ANTITRUST suit (hardware and software are different domains, so Apple shouldn't be allowed to force people to use one only if they use the other), but that's something that has to be decided in court, and you can't "preemptively" violate copyright just because you think the license agreement violates antitrust law. Besides, OSX being forced upon Macs was around for a while, and nobody could do anything about it.