George Hotz, a 17 years old hacker talks about an iPhone that he has unlocked and is using on T-Mobile’s network, in August 24, 2007 file photo in New York, US. Hackers have figured out how to unleash Apple’s vaunted iPhone trickily from the AT&T network. However, the experts say that people hoping so much to make money out of the procedure may face legal problems. (Snapshot is taken by Jeff Christensen). People are being more exited about this announcement; the company that is trying to make cash by unlocking iPhone has being called by phone’s lawyers.

Unlocking the smart phone for one’s own use, for instant to place calls with a different carrier is appears to be legal. However, if it has done for financial purpose, then it might have broken the laws.

According to Bart Showalter, the chairperson of the Intellectual Property practice group at law firm Baker Botts in Dallas, people can make profits from software that hacks the iPhone is depending on how much he or she exactly has done to develop that software and what does that software do.

Uniquephones.com, a company that based in Northern Ireland, is one of the companies that have prepared the unlocking software for iPhone. However, the company is still unsure whether this is a legal solution. The company had been contacted by lawyers of O’Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm representing AT&T, who inform the company that the software contained material copyrighted by Apple Inc. On the other hand, Mark Siegel, AT&T spokesperson has said that the company had no comment on the case.

Uniquephones.com had planned to distribute the software via iphoneunlocking.com; it will cost US$ 25/iPhone, and according to John McLaughlin of Uniquephones.com, the company has just less than half a million of people mailing list addresses in its directories.

iPhone only Available within US

iPhone is sold only in the US, and only for use on the AT&T network. However, it is compatible with nowadays cell phone technology, which is used around the world. This means that unlocking the cell phone can make it available to be used by overseas people.

In the US, T-Mobile is the only of other major carrier that compatible with the iPhone; Sprint and Verizon Wireless use different network technologies.

Unfortunately, in the US, the carrier subsidizes the cost of the phone, so most of US’s phones are locked to their carrier when sold. However, the iPhone is apparently not subsidized by AT&T. Luckily, some carriers provide the unlock codes on request when a subscriber’s contract has expired. However, it does not apply to the iPhone and in any case, the product just went on sale two months ago and the minimum contract length is two years.

Although the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress has issued a statement last year, the statement is about unlocking cell phones was not a violation of copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but that law has been used to go after software that copies DVDs. Tracfone Wireless LCC, a Florida-based company, sells phones that use prepaid plans, has won an injunction in February against a couple who bought its phones in large numbers and resold them unlocked.

On the other hand, US District Court in Orlando has found that the DMCA exception did not apply to those unlocking a phone with the purpose to resell it. Moreover, Bruce Sunstein, a Boston- based Bromberg & Sunstein’s patent lawyer, said that unlocking software could face a legal challenge.

George Hotz sold his iPhone

George Hotz, a 17-year-old in New Jersey who managed to unlock his iPhone last week, from his blog, he told that he plans to sell the phone to the highest bid on eBay. However, he got problems because of fake bids. Moreover, he was forced to end the listing early due to a total lack of cooperation from eBay. He hopes to buy a car with the money. Finally, he sold the phone to Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, a cell phone repair company in Louisville, Kentucky. George traded the phone for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones.