Ever notice unlocked phones for sale on ebay or in local kiosks with Tmobile, Verizon and other US carrier branding? I've wondered how these phones go up for sale unlocked even after being sold as contract phones.
This article is a good read, an interesting look at the mobile phone industry and unlocking......
http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/20/engadget-primed-phone-unlock/....."A lot of companies have runners, or people that buy devices from different stores or from people on Craigslist, verify the merchandise and then sell it to [that company]," Negri said. "Some of them aren't ethical. They'll go into AT&T, say they have a business account, buy 10 lines and then sell those $199 phones for $450. They don't tell people they got the phones this way. By disallowing these runners to just walk into a store and buy phones [this way], it cleans up the industry. You'll only have ethical people involved. It's a huge issue in our industry -- ethics, period. It's so hard to find honest and trustworthy people to buy and sell to. I believe that having this law will minimize the amount of people getting involved, and will clean it up. It's going to be a good change for the industry, but it'll hurt manufacturers and carriers.".....
"There were organized groups purchasing TracFone devices and then unlocking them and reselling them in Mexico and other countries that use the same frequencies," Altschul said. "It was an arbitrage scheme. You'd buy it in the US and there wasn't a contract, but there was a software lock to keep the device locked to the TracFone prepaid service. The phones would get unlocked and sold outside the US, closer to the retail price than they were being sold at in the US. TracFone was very concerned that this kind of widespread practice was a real threat to their ability to provide discounted handsets and grow their business."
TracFone has fought a seven-year battle against phone traffickers, and copyright protection is one more tool it can add to the toolbox.
This is all part of a battle that TracFone has fought since 2006, filing lawsuits against hundreds of accused phone traffickers in the last seven years. Up until this year, however, the company's only weapon was in the area of trademark law. Now that phone unlocking is no longer exempt from copyright law, TracFone has another tool to fight with....
......Businesses, on the other hand, may feel a little more pressure from carriers to stop their copyright-infringing practices, but only if their activities appear carriers' radars. According to Ochoa, "What's likely to happen is that if the phone carriers find evidence that someone is offering software that unlocks the phone on the internet, they'll send a notice to try to get that software removed. If it looks like a software provider is a repeat player or is making a lot of money, the phone carriers will likely try to sue him."....
