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We Should Be Allowed To Unlock Everything We Own
An anonymous reader writes "When cell phone unlocking became illegal last month, it set off a firestorm of debate over what rights people should have for phones they have legally purchased. But this is really just one facet of a much larger problem with property rights in general. 'Silicon permeates and powers almost everything we own. This is a property rights issue, and current copyright law gets it backwards, turning regular people — like students, researchers, and small business owners — into criminals. Fortune 500 telecom manufacturer Avaya, for example, is known for suing service companies, accusing them of violating copyright for simply using a password to log in to their phone systems. That's right: typing in a password is considered "reproducing copyrighted material." Manufacturers have systematically used copyright in this manner over the past 20 years to limit our access to information. Technology has moved too fast for copyright laws to keep pace, so corporations have been exploiting the lag to create information monopolies at our expense and for their profit. After years of extensions and so-called improvements, copyright has turned Mickey Mouse into a monster who can never die.' We need to win the fight for unlocking phones, and then keep pushing until we actually own the objects we own again."
You are actually not free to do with your phone as you like after the contract runs out in th US, it is still a violation to unlock your phone yourself. You need the carrier to do it for you.
Any EULA must be enforceable. Just because it is written down doesn't make it so. For example, the EULA can't say that the buyer must provide a webcam feed from their bedroom, or is required to deliver up their firstborn son on demand.
And that's what this is all about. What is valid and enforceable in a EULA and what is not. Hopefully the pendulum is swinging back to a common law conception of ownership, and damn all the restrictive EULAs. And if Apple or Microsoft or anyone else with restrictive EULAs wants to bow out of the marketplace because they can't fathom how to make a phone or a videogame console without restrictive EULAs, I say let them take their toys and go home. Their market shares will be taken up in a microsecond by plenty of companies willing to make a buck actually **selling** such things.
I agree with your position on allowing unlocking. But your arguments are so wrong in so many ways that you'd really do better to shut up. "Our side" does not need such ignorant easily disproven drivel clouding the issue.
You OWN your home, even though its mortgaged. You are not leasing it. You are not renting it. It is yours to do with ANYTHING you please. The bank has a lien on your home if your are mortgaged. They do not own it, nor can they tell you in any way what to do with it. You can sell it for any price you wish or burn it down...
So, you've never actually read a mortgage and are completely unfamiliar with the laws pertaining to them...
Likewise, when I purchase a phone + contract, I own the phone immediately. The phone company counts it as an immediate sell on their books and all other accounting...
No, they do not--they recognize the revenue on the subsidized part of the phone as they receive it.
...which is why you pay taxes for it immediately rather than over time.
No, you do not. You pay taxes on the part you pay, not the part that is deferred.
If it was a lease, you would be required to buy it at the end of your contract ...
No, you would not--in fact you've got this one exactly backwards. A lease means you return the item (in good condition) without further obligation at the end of the contract.
...that is a LEGAL requirement for leases, they can't automatically be 'given' at the end.
It is a legal requirement in order to be able to deduct certain leases as business expenses that there be no pre-negotiated sales price at the end of the contract, that you pay fair market value at that time, that you receive no special consideration as the former lessee. Now you are right that if you get the item for free at the end, it's not a lease--because that's the very definition of a lease, that you don't take ownership. But getting this point only partly wrong still leaves your argument resoundlngly muddled.
They have early termination charges attached as an agreed on termination cost.
Yes, and that should be enough.
Not allowing your phone to not work on another provider ISN'T IN THE CONTRACT AT ALL, so its not something you agreed on ever.
Of course it is in the contract--the questions are: 1) whether or not such a term should be enforceable at all, and 2) if it should be enforceable, should it be a criminal act to unlock, or a civil issue between you and the carrier in the event you do not pay the early termination fee.
Therefore you don't really own it, but rent it from the state.
Not really true. Just because the government can take something of mine if I don't pay a fee, that doesn't mean that I don't really own it. Any of my posessions can be confiscated by the government if it's used to commit a crime.
If you don't pay your license fee, you are no longer allowed to drive it.
Also not true. If you don't pay the fee, you are not allowed to drive it on public roads. I can buy a car and drive it on my private property without paying any fees, without needing a driver's license, and even without paying some taxes on fuel.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
This is only because we the citizens of the United States have allowed it to become so. Write and call your reps in Congress. Tell them how you feel. Get all your friends and family to do it. Get them to get all their friends and family's to do it. I can almost guarantee that if over 100 million emails are sent tomorrow to Congress saying we want to own our devices fully. A bill will be introduced and most likely will be passed within a week.
The public of the United States is the largest lobbyist group in the United States. See my latest blog post in my sig.
21st Century Renaissance Man