Unlocking Cell Phones Becomes Illegal , Bad News For Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, Nokia Lumia 920 Users (VIDEO)

(Photo : Reuters ) A customer holds up an Apple iPhone 5
 and iPhone 4s during an exclusive sale in Belgium.

Jan 26, 2013   | Matt Mercuro

The U.S. Copyright Office and Library will reportedly no longer allow people to unlock their cellphones starting Jan. 26 according to a report by The New York Times.

What the act essentially says is that it will be illegal to unlock a phone from a specific carrier unless you have received the carrier's permission to do so.

"It wasn't a good ruling," Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told ABC News. "You should be able to unlock your phone. This law was meant to combat copyright infringement, not to prevent people to do what they want to do with the device they bought."

If you have already unlocked your phone by that date, then you have no need to worry. Doing so after however could get you either an individual or civil offense. The fine could reach up to $2,500. If you're planning on unlocking your cellphone to make a profit, the fine could reach $500,000 and prison time according to ABC News.

The new law will ban the practice of unlocking phones based on copyright infringement. Groups against the new order question the "validity of the law and may challenge it in court" according to WGNTV.com.

"As with any of these copyright things, it's a club for threatening people," said Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge, according to The New York Times. "The law is very broad, and if you want to go after somebody, it's one of these where there are a lot of ways in which this could play out."

Unlocking a cellphone means to remove the security feature that blocks the phone from being used on more than one carrier network. Essentially once you unlock your cellphone, you can do whatever you want to it or when you upgrade or feel like getting a new phone, you can sell it to someone else who doesn't necessarily have the same network as you.

Before the new law, people could use AT&T iPhones on T-Mobile for example. Now that process will be illegal, as will accessing anything that your specific carrier doesn't want you to.

"This probably is going to cause a lot more phones to end up in landfills," said Mitch Stoltz, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to The New York Times. "If it's locked, it's pretty difficult to even resell a handset."

Of course there will be temporary solutions to avoid this, one being just buy a phone that's already been unlocked, but it won't be so easy to find one in say a year from now. Another option is to pay the full cost of your phone over a two-year contract with AT&T. Afterword, they'll apparently unlock your device for you according to The New York Times.

In 2015, another rule questioning the legality or illegality of unlocking a phone will be looked at again according to CBS.

Source autoworldnews.com