While the bill has not become law yet, its very introduction is a testament to the power of social activism. An online petition, available on the White House website, against the de-legalization of cellphone unlocking has been collecting signatures ever since the change and is now up to over 114,000 signatories. Indeed, the petition has been up even before the exemption phaseout took effect. Responding to the staggering number of petitioners, the White House seemed to unequivocally agree with them, adding that the Administration “would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue, including narrow legislative fixes in the telecommunications space that make it clear: neither criminal law nor technological locks should prevent consumers from switching carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement or other obligation.”

On March 4, the FCC echoed the Administration’s sentiment, issuing a statement of its own in support of the petitioners’ position. A response to the petition and the White House statement from the Library of Congress was issued that same day arguing that while the Copyright Office is open to re-visiting its decision on the matter, it may not propel a permanent exemption to the DMCA.

The Wireless Device Independence Act bill was introduced a couple of days after the White House articulated its support for the petitioners. Read a detailed discussion of the controversy here.

The Copyright Office had included the cellphone unlocking technology in its triennial list of exemptions twice – in 2006 and in 2010. The exemption defines the circumventing technology as “computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.”

The Copyright Office’s reasoning behind adopting this exemption was that the phone locking technologies “do not appear to actually be deployed in order to protect the interests of the copyright owner or the value or integrity of the copyrighted work; rather, they are used by wireless carriers to limit the ability of subscribers to switch to other carriers, a business decision that has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests protected by copyright.” In other words, the DMCA would have an undesirable effect if applied without the exemption because it would punish behavior which does not harm the owners’ copyright interests, but rather, their business interests, which is beyond the scope of the DMCA.

Prepaid cellphone companies have been in the front trenches of the battle against this exemption and have been litigating against it ever since it was put in place. Their main argument was that their business model of providing sharply discounted cellphones in exchange for locking down customers to a particular wireless network was being harmed by consumers who do not remain subscribers for long enough to justify the discount and by the emergence of an industry centered around exporting unlocked cellphones.

In its last DMCA exemption installment, the Copyright Office took under consideration what is still mainly a business harm resulting from cellphone unlocking and weighed it against the availability of unlocked phones and the changing market place. In the end, the harm suffered by the prepaid phone industry carried the day and the exemption was retired. The Copyright Office’s explanation of this decision is that “with respect to new wireless handsets, there are ample alternatives to circumvention. That is, the marketplace has evolved such that there is now a wide array of unlocked phone options available to consumers.”

Cellphone owners who purchased their phones prior to January 20, 2013 are still protected by the exemption, but unlocking of cellphones purchased after that could be prosecuted under the DMCA.