In a very nicely written article on the importance of one of the Copyright Office's recent DMCA exemptions, Law.com - Copyright Law Gives Mobile Users New Freedom With Legally Unlocked Cell Phones, the authors, Timothy Meece and Aseet Patel, do a fine job of explaining why the Copyright Office was persuaded to allow users to circumvent the DMCA to unlock their cell phones to connect to a rival's network. But the article seems to me to be missing its last paragraph...
It fails to point out that while it may now be legal to circumvent this particular technological lock (for the next 2 years and 9 or so months), it is still illegal to make or distribute the means of doing so. So, unless the cell phone user knows how to unlock his or her phone without resort to third party tools, the ability to circumvent would seem to be a bit hollow, sort of like an empty promise (which leads one to question the whole exemption process, but that's another story).
The authors should have made at least some mention of this serious problem with the way the law works, or explained why continuing liability for making and distributing devices to exercise this right would not be a problem in this case. I'm certainly wondering how to unlock my phone without anyone else's help. Is this something everyone (but me) knows how to do?
