Laywers of Amerca, unite! Or, … don’t. It seems that our faithful batch of ever-present lawyers, in this case DMCA lawyers, can’t agree on what to make of the latest iPhone unlocking.
In the complete interest of being derivative, I’d like to let you know that MacWorld has posted an article online where they seem to have spoken directly to many of said legal experts and have gotten responses running the gamut. Some “experts” claim that there’s nothing Apple or AT&T can do about people unlocking the iPhone. They cite an exception clause in the DMCA that basically allows end-users to unlock phones so long as it’s “for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.”
Most lawyers say that’s true, but if someone tries to profit off of the unlocking techniques (i.e. software, instructions posted to a blog, etc), then Apple or AT&T will have a more solid case.
The interesting thing to me is this exclusion clause and the ensuing dance it’s creating between potential plantiff and defendant. Most interesting is the notion brought up in the article by a lawyer by the name of Bart Showalter, from the Dallas law firm of Baker Botts LLP. With successful copyright lawsuits filed by movie studios against website operators over the publication and distribution of the DeCSS DVD-copying code, Showalter thinks Apple or AT&T might try to go that route to protect their property. And trying to use copyright laws to protect against something like this would to me be extremely, as Showalter puts it, “interesting … to watch.”
