Petition for Freedom
June 30, 2009
8,200 Consumers Join Electronic Frontier Foundation Campaign to Free Your Phone
“Through our FreeYourPhone.org website, we heard a lot of stories of consumers and developers who want to innovate and create new tools for mobile phones,” said EFF Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “The DMCA shouldn’t be used to prevent advances in cell phone technology. Who knows what exciting new feature you might not ever get to use because of the threat of litigation?”
Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of many producers, carriers and other companies and organizations diligently working to break the restraints of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban on circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM). A recent EFF post relay’s its efforts, including the February 2009 submission of a petition to the U.S. Copyright Office signed by more than 8,200 people demanding more cell phone freedom.
EFF’s aim is to free cell phones from software locks they say stifle competition and cripple consumers. EFF represents The Wireless Alliance, ReCellular and FlipSwap phone recyclers and resellers, all of whom rely on phone unlocking to maintain functional devices in consumer’s hands and out of landfills.
EFF explains that cell phone manufacturers and service providers use software locks on cell phones to prevent customers from connecting to new service providers or running software outside a producers’ or carriers’ offerings. The most restrictive of these products are Apple’s iPhone and T-Mobile’s Android G1. Hundreds of thousands of mobile phone owners currently “jailbreak” and modify their phones in order to choose the carrier and run the applications of their choice. EFF’s proposed exemptions would eliminate the risk of DMCA liability for individuals and companies who “unlock” or “jailbreak” their phones.
“The DMCA is supposed to protect copyrighted works, not reduce competition and consumer choice,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Cell phone users need a clear message from the Copyright Office that modification is protected.”
The World is Waiting
June 30, 2009
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En Guard: The Arguement Against “Jailbreaking”
June 23, 2009
Well equipped with fearsome barks, teeth to bite and standing their ground against the proposed new and renewed exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are companies that enjoy their positions as kings at the head of the wireless industry table, and the United States Copyright Office is listening.
Big dogs like Apple, T-Mobile, CTIA Wireless, and Virgin Mobile are locked to the position that unlocking cell phones causes harm. Their list of grievances include breaking technological protection leaving companies and products vulnerable to copyright infringement, potential device and software damage, and more. The following exerpts are from responses companies have submitted to the United States Copyright Office:
Virgin Mobile USA, L.P. opposes, “Unlocking and reflashing, jailbreaking or otherwise reprogramming a Virgin Mobile handset – a devise that is comprised of copyrightable software, as well as hardware- exposes copyrighted works on the handset to damage and infringing and unlawful use. … Without effective locks, wireless carriers in this market cannot protect their reasonable investment and copyrighted works. … Importantly, the customer is not the one reflashing the handset … carriers are providing the reflashing services as a business strategy … As free-riders, these carriers bear none of the costs associated with the development, manufacture, marketing, distribution or sale of the handset.”
On harm to Virgin Mobile USA, L.P. and consumers, “Virgin Mobile has put extenive time, research, and capital into developing its brand… approximately 35% of Virgin Mobile’s customers are from lower-income households that previously lacked access to an attractive wireless service. … If handset prices increased, many customers would not have access to any wireless service and may then suffer from some of the disadvantages – including [decreased] personal and economic security.”
Apple, Inc. responds, “Although EFF’s proposed exemption is phrased in the obligatory language about a class of works, its arguments really amount to an attack on Apple’s particular business choices … EFF apparently desires to use the rulemaking process to alter Apple’s business practices by negating DMCA protection for technologies that interfere with what EFF seems to assume would be a more socially desirable business model that is more “open.”
Apple, Inc. continues, “After Apple overcame the initial hurdle of successfully launching the iPhone, it turned to third party applications, using an approach to foster the development of third party applications that has also been hailed as revolutionary. … In the first four days after its launch, there were more than 100,000 downloads of the SDK [iPhone Developer Program], a number that ballooned to 250,000 in a little over three months as iPhone application developers proliferated. … The success of the iPhone App Store has been nothing short of stunning. … In just seven months since it was launched, the App Store now contains over 15,000 applications, and consumers have made over 500 million downloads.”
On security, Apple, Inc. explains, “Apple has implemented TPMs [Technological Protection Measures] that help protect the integrity of the OS, and other phone vendors have done the same. … This aids Apple in helping to ensure that its devices work properly in the hands of its customers and that they have a rewarding and high quality experience with its iPhone product line. … the EFF submission admits, “decryption and modification of the iPhone firmware appears to be necessary for any jailbreak technique to succeed on a persistent basis. … Currently, Apple’s support department receives literally millions of reported instances of problems flowing from jailbroken phones. Apple’s support costs would be increased substantially as the exemption encourages thousands of additional users to jailbreak their phones.”
CTIA – The Wireless Association answers, “The wireless marketplace has developed into a vibrant, competitive one, offering consumers extensive choice in service and devices … One feature of the marketplace … is the ability of carriers to subsidize handsets and to offer those handsets…to consumers at prices well below the prices that otherwise would be charged. Those subsidies depend on ensuring that the handset will be used, as contemplated, on the carrier’s service… CTIA would not oppose an exemption that is narrowly tailored to allow bona fide individual customers to circumvent in order only to use their own phones on a different network, and that makes clear that it does not condone commercial circumvention.”
Find Companies in Your Ideal Market
June 23, 2009
Wireless Association Online Membership Directory
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Set Us Free: The Arguement For Cell Phone Unlocking
June 23, 2009
EFF is for “jailbreaking,” mobile phones that is. Every three years the United States Copyright Office asks for proposed exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and in 2009 Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken up the batton.
EFF’s position is that unlocking cell phones can only lead to more competition, invention and innovation. Who’s behind EFF’s position for new and renewed 2006 DMCA exemptions? For starters the list of responents includes players large and small the likes of Skype Communications, E-Bay, Metro PCS, Mozilla, Pocket Communications and Encore Cellular. The following exerpts are from responses companies have submitted to the United States Copyright Office:
Pocket Communications “rejects the notion that carrier locks are needed to help protect margins in the mobile handset services market. Just the opposite, by allowing customers to find ways of properly unlocking their handsets (as permitted with the 2006 exemption and the expanded exemption proposed here), barriers to competition come down, innovative start-up carriers are able to enter the market, and free market factors start allowing customers cost savings as well as choice. Now, with the ability to unlock their own handsets, consumers are able to choose amongst numerous competing carriers whether to go for more features and service or whether to go for a discount option in order to save money and minimize waste. The result democratizes the wireless landscape and allows expansion of service to consumers at all income levels. … Without realistic options for switching carriers, carrier locks leave captive customers with fewer options and ultimately having to pay higher prices from the sole source of supply that they are tied to.”
MetroPCS Communications, Inc. explains, “software locks on wireless devices are unnecessary for the protection of copyrighted works…“[s]uch locks are used exclusively to bind handsets to specific carriers and consequently block consumers’ freedom of choice for wireless service.” MetroPCS goes on to support carriers’ and manufacturers’ copyrights stating that the term “lawfully” should remain part of the exemption and that unlocking should be lawful meaning “users [should] not be able to circumvent computer programs with locking technology in order to hack into a network to steal airtime, or… to connect to a wireless communications network without paying fees to the ultimate network provider.”
EncoreCellular, Inc. responds, “There is no technological reason that handsets can not be used on compatible networks, and many networks are compatible. Metro PCS leases it’s air time from Sprint. So, there is no reason I should not be able to take my Sprint handset with me to Metro PCS. Until Verizon bought Alltel, they used compatible phones and there was no reason that Verizon customers should not be able to take the handsets that they own with them to Alltel.”
EncoreCellular continues “[h]owever, providers have a huge financial incentive to force customers to unnecessarily buy new phones. The major cellular providers get incentives from the manufacturers to sell new handsets in the form of volume-based discounts. So, if consumers have to buy a new phone when they change providers the companies sell more phones. The major providers create many false reasons for permanently deactivating a phone from their network. If the customer owes money and his service gets cancelled, the provider “marks the phone out” and it can NEVER be used again. Both Sprint and Verizon have multiple data bases that a clerk must check to determine if a phone can be activated. The reps are judged based on the volume of calls that they answer each night. If the clerk types the ESN in wrong or forgets to check which equipment is actually still active on the account then my customer is told that the phone can NEVER be used again. If a perfectly working phone had a past due bill, it can NEVER be used again and must be recycled or broken up for parts.”
EFF outlines, “arbitrary, anti-competitive restrictions companies like Apple assert on independent iPhone developers. Apple has blocked several applications (including Podcaster and Mail Wrangler) for “duplicating functionality” offered by Apple’s own software. In the case of Podcaster, Apple later deployed identical functionality in iTunes demonstrating its anti-competitve nature.” Additionally, “Apple recently approved web browsers other than its own, but still leave iPhone owners without access to competitors like Mozilla’s Firefox. Apple has banned several ebooks from the App store that Apple deemed “objectionable” only allowing some titles to be restored after the author removed “dirty words.”
From blocking market innovation and consumer freedom to nearly anti-green legislation and book-banning, the arguements for the proposed new and renewed exemptions to DMCA 1201 scream for attention. Next week Wireless Association will bring you the other side of the story from respondents Apple, Inc., Virgin Mobile USA, CTIA and Virgin Mobile. Stay tuned.
400% Online Traffic Increase!
June 23, 2009
Wireless Association Trading Floor
Considering the erratic economic weather, it’s rare to read stories not featuring a sad multitude of layoffs and drastic revenue drops, and we surely haven’t seen the end. We here at Wireless Association are ecstatic to report a 400% increase in online traffic since Q1 of 2009! More traffic for us means an important thing for you: A greater audience to market your products and services!
Wireless Association’s Trading Floor is an ideal platform to buy and sell cellular products, components and accessories on the simplest trading floor in the industry. Companies, worldwide and locally, market products to a global audience.
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Search for top industry products or post your inventory to the Wireless Association Trading Floor, your gateway to the global market. Visit us at wassociation.com.
Cellular Wholesalers On Alert to the DMCA Section 1201 Copyright Act Renewal
June 23, 2009
Who cares about the DMCA Exemption Renewals decided in 2009? Cellular Wholesalers better. Many may discover their silence will be the difference between a cellular market open and ready for opportunity or further restriction, protection and even hoarding of the industry’s top cellular products and technology. Apple, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and other high-profile wireless companies are speaking out against new and renewed 2006 exeptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, and the United States Copyright Office is listening.
A short introduction, Wikipedia describes the DMCA as a “copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization that criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services that control access to copyrighted works.” It further “criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control.” The DMCA Section 1201 Copyright Act covers a myriad of subjects, but dig down to exemptions 5A, 5B, 5C, and 5D, you’ll find where cellular wholesalers’ hearts lie: Cellphone Unlocking.
At first glance, wholesalers may find themselves advocates of the exemptions, straining at the leash at the opportunity to access some of the industry’s top cellular products and technology. No longer would consumers find themselves, at the end of the usual 2-year contract, at the crossroads choice of purchasing a new unit and moving to a different service or remain chained to their current carrier. The ability to unlock cell phones would allow customers at the end of their contract, and wholesalers selling products in bulk, to freely move that hot product to a carrier of their choice. This also could mean a whole new revenue world for mass cell phone recyclers forced to move to international markets when U.S. products can not be reused locally.
The downside? Opponents’ lists are long. Everything from operating system and application copyright infringement to possible unit damage due to downloads of applications that would conflict with operating systems to the cost effects consumers would suffer at the hands of service providers and producers if exclusive products would come to market are being covered. In the current ecomonic downturn a drastic upswing in product price could bring radical change in consumer demand and purchases.
Over the next weeks and months look to Wireless Association to follow this important decision and bring you the arguements for and against the exemption renewals from the responses of industry heavy-hitters including: Metro PCS Communications, CTIA Wireless, E-Bay, Cricket, Apple, Mozilla, Virgin Mobile and more. The Copyright Office will hold public hearings on the DMCA exemption requests in Washington, D.C. and California this spring with a final rulemaking order issued in October of 2009.
Who Are You Trading With?
June 23, 2009
Wireless Association Research Center
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Features include:
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phone brand, verified status, or feedback rating
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– Access to Reliable Worldwide Research Agencies
Coming Attractions: Motorola Announces Android Devices Coming Q4 of 2009
June 8, 2009
Spring is newly sprung in the northern hemisphere, but Phone Scoop already has a forecast for 2009’s Holiday Season. Motorola’s co-CEO, Sanjay Jha, announced in a recent press release that Motorola is pushing to present “differentiated Android-based deviced in stores in time for the fourth-quarter holiday season.”
The Boy Genius Report rumors on a recent post that a smartphone called the Calgary will be Moto’s first offering. With its QWERTY-sliding keyboard, slick design and popular rumored carrier Verizon, the Calgary could be Motorola’s second wind.
The Boy Genius Report also had the down-low on another undercover Moto project, the Rolex. Boy Genius didn’t have much, but gave the following clues: handset, made entirely of hardened glass, and the Rolex will showcase a display similar to the Aura. Nice.
1 Million and Counting: T-Mobile Celebrates Selling 1 Million G1 Android Phones
June 8, 2009
Though Apple did it in 2 months with the original iPhone, then in a single weekend with the iPhone G3, a recent C-Net post revealed that Google’s and T-Mobiles’ sweat, blood and tears did not go unrewarded. Six months after its launch, T-Mobile USA is reporting it has indeed sold 1 Million G1 Android phones.
C-Net calls the achievement an important milestone for both companies. Android phones are successful around the world, but moving them in the U.S. has been made harder by the success of Apple’s iPhone. An accompanying pie graph by AdMob reveals the work Apple’s competition still has before them. One half is soaked in Apple juice. The other 50% is where everyone else is living, and the Android owns a respectable 6% of that territory. Fourth place is probably feeling pretty good to T-Mobile right about now.
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