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Unlocking new smartphone becomes harder Saturday

Heather Kelly, CNN
Want to switch wireless carriers with your existing phone? It's about to get more difficult.
  • Unlocking smartphone bought after Saturday illegal without carrier's permission
  • Unlocking is no longer exempt under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
  • Older phones purchased before this Saturday can still be unlocked anytime

(CNN) -- It's about to get more difficult to move between smartphone carriers and still keep your existing phone.

Smartphones purchased after Saturday can't be legally unlocked without permission from the carrier, according to a recent ruling by the Library of Congress.




One way to get around the requirement is to buy a full-priced unlocked phone that doesn't have a contract, but doing so adds hundreds of dollars to the phone's price tag. Carriers subsidize the costs of smartphones to draw new customers in with contracts, usually for two years, and then make back the money from monthly voice and data bills.

In its latest ruling, the Library of Congress decided the software on a phone is only licensed to the end user, meaning they don't own it, so therefore the software is not covered by fair-use rules.



For example, AT&T will unlock an iPhone for current or past customers as long as all contracts have been fulfilled. And Verizon's iPhone 5 is usable on AT&T's network.

However, it's unclear whether carriers will tighten these rules about unlocked phones in the future.