Law backs Iphone hackers

According to Business Week, AT&T and Apple may face an uphill battle prosecuting hackers who unlock the iPhone from AT&T's service.

Legal eagles approached by Business Week seem to think that individuals are allowed to unlock their own phones under an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The exemption, in force for three years, applies to "computer programs…that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

Jonathan Kramer, founder of Kramer Telecom Law Firm in Los Angeles said that it was less clear whether companies and hackers can legally unlock the phones and then sell them to others, or sell unlocking software.

AT&T and Apple are likely to use DMCA's section 1201, stating that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

However Jane Ginsburg, professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School said the lock only protects access to a carrier's communications network. Communications services can't be copyrighted.

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