The US House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill called S517 that will make it legal to unlock one's cell phone in order to switch service providers.
The House passed the Senate version of the bill without making any changes to it. That means that the controversial language banning "bulk" unlocking won't be in the final version of the bill. If that language had stayed in, the bill would have protected consumers while leaving phone resellers and recyclers open to copyright claims.
"This is something that Americans have been asking for and I am pleased that we were able to work together to ensure the swift passage of legislation restoring the exemption that allowed consumers to unlock their cell phones," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement published by National Journal.
Unlocking one's cell phone became illegal when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) passed in 1998 as that law banned the "circumvention" of any copy protection mechanisms. Unlocking became legal from 2006 until 2012 when the US Librarian of Congress granted an exemption, but it went back to being illegal in 2013.
That change spurred more than 19 months of activism over the issue, including a petition to President Obama. The bill will now proceed to the White House, where President Obama welcomed its passage. "The bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget," the president said in a statement. "I commend Chairmen Leahy and Goodlatte, and Ranking Members Grassley and Conyers for their leadership on this important consumer issue and look forward to signing this bill into law."
The activism around this issue also led to the FCC putting pressure on cell phone carriers to allow unlocking. They agreed to enact policies allowing unlocking by February 2015, making today's bill somewhat superfluous.
Sina Khanifar, who wrote the original petition to Obama about this issue, said in an e-mailed statement that he's looking forward to this bill becoming law after "a long road against powerful, entrenched interests." He also noted that the fix only lasts until 2015 and that the DMCA as a whole "is in dire need of an update."
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