Guest spacemonkey Posted March 7, 2003 Report Posted March 7, 2003 I am not a lawyer but... I can't see how it can be. It is your phone and fair use says you can do anything you like with it. You are not reverse engineering or in anyway hacking their copy protection mechanisms, you are merely copying a standard legitimately formatted file to your phone at a specific time. Also, many people on this board have done it and publicly stated that they have done it. I imagine Paul has done it and he's been talking directly with M$ and Orange people (I believe). Be interested in a real lawyers opinion... or a statement on what Orange or M$ think of the legalities of this :)
Guest Will Posted March 7, 2003 Report Posted March 7, 2003 people have been unlocking phones since companies started locking them, and advertise very openly. The only thing which I know to be Illegal, is to change a phones IMEI. And who would do that unless you know a bloke in a van near Heathrow. Will
Guest Zorglub Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 Actually under the controversial DMCA it is probably illegal to decert a phone. The same way courts have found that modchips for the xbox are illegal even if you bought the it and you own it. You just cant modify it.
Guest spacemonkey Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 Well, yes... in America... although to be susceptable to the DMCA they would have to show that decertification is a tool to breach copyright. Additionally, there is no hacking of system functions or modifications to the system, all users are doing is copying a legitimate file to their phones... It might still be subject to DMCA but I think it would be a vary borderline case. Modchips ARE for copying games (or running linux but that's a very small community), so far I don't think the warez community is even slightly interested in smartphone 2002, and decerting can clearly be shown to be about providing aditional legal applications.
Guest DJHope Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 But piracy can occur with or without cert it makes absolutly no difference. Ive no idea how the DMCA could make decert illlegal its not a technology designed to stop piracy orange and microsoft full-heartly admit that, its for secuirty. Also their are NO COMMERCIAL DECERT APPS (as yet) so how on earth does that work, decert you phone to increase piracy the logic is terrible! DJ Hope
Guest PhilA Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 The DMCA is so badly drawn up and broad ranging that it could be applied to almost anything. For example, Section 1201, (a) (1) (A) states: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. " Now, enforcing the certificate requirement is a technological measure to restrict access to the phone, effectively limiting the use of third party software. So, under that interpretation, then it could be deemed that de-certing your phone was a breach of the DMCA. Fortunately for us non-Americans, the DMCA doesn't apply in Europe, and I'm not aware of any current similar legislation in the UK at least, so, I would say that it's not illegal in the UK, but might be a bit borderline in the US
Guest spacemonkey Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 Certainly you can't apply logic to teh application of the DMCA, A good example is printers... come printer company (lexmark? I can't remember) specifically added a chip to their toner cartridges so that the printer could identify "official" cartridges and stop competing toner manufacturers from providing cartridges for their printers. The competing manufacturers reverse engineered the chip and built it into their own cartridges. They are being (so far successfully) sued under DMCA rules for hacking the copyright protection measures in these toner cartridges. No one could possibly say that this is about copyright issues, but it's still happening.
Guest Firaas Posted March 8, 2003 Report Posted March 8, 2003 so is The SIMUNLOCK prog illegal Nope. Nothing promoted/encouraged on these boards is illegal :)
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