I was checking my news feeds on Technorati and came across an article¹ on Wired, I was amazed that "... cellphone owners [are allowed] to hack software designed to prevent them from using their phones on competing carriers." With all the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) irritations that have been coming from across the Atlantic, and the way it spread into the European Parliament I just couldn't believe it.

The Yahoo! News' article² on which the blog was based explains that "... in granting the exemption for cell phone users, the Copyright Office determined that consumers aren't able to enjoy full legal use of their handsets because of software locks that wireless providers have been placing to control access to phones' underlying programs."

Finally the U.S. Copyright Office has an article³ which actually clearly states that "...persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls ... during the next three years."

technorati tags: wired, yahoo, copyright, dmca, circumvent, technology, drm