The House's cellphone unlocking bill: Thanks but no thanks

[Commentary] A House bill was supposed to clear the way for consumers to unlock the phones they buy from wireless companies after they've fulfilled their contracts. But the measure, which was modest to begin with, has been rendered irrelevant by voluntary agreements on unlocking that the Federal Communications Commission obtained from the wireless companies. The bill was also changed at the last minute in a way that arguably weakens consumers' ownership rights, prompting some consumer advocates and Democrats to withdraw their support.

The current version is so bad, consumers would be better off if Congress did nothing at all. At issue is a dubious interpretation of copyright law that deters people from moving their phones from one network to another. Each mobile carrier typically sells phones with electronic locks that prevent them from being reprogrammed to work on rival carriers' networks. The US Copyright Office, acting through the Librarian of Congress, ruled in 2012 that removing the locks violated the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids the circumvention of technologies that protect copyrighted works. The ruling was bizarre, considering that the locks inside phones don't protect against software piracy; their only real purpose is to protect the mobile carriers' business model.