TracFone wins a cool million in unlocking lawsuit
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Mar 11th 2008 at 3:58PM
Mass unlocking and reselling of prepaid phones has been a pretty hot topic as of late, with AT&T taking its high-power legal team out of its holster recently and TracFone famously pursuing unlockers for some time now. In fact, according to the latest press release, TracFone has now filed a bewildering 28 lawsuits against a grand total of 80 defendants (including one disconcertingly called "Skynet"), all in an effort to stamp out the so-called "theft of subsidy" concept that rips off TracFone when its ultra-cheap phones are worked over and sold elsewhere. The legal angle seems to be working, too, with a $1 million judgment being handed down this week against a guy (who goes by no fewer than three names, it seems) in a Texas federal court.[Via HotCellularPhone.com]
Filed under: Misc
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Daniel @ Mar 11th 2008 5:19PM
isn't skynet from terminator? ...scary
plh2034 @ Mar 11th 2008 5:34PM
Love the Skynet reference
2cdneh @ Mar 11th 2008 7:25PM
Perhaps the author is unaware that "gyp" is a contraction of gypsy and is a racial slur.
Brad Ackerman @ Mar 11th 2008 8:33PM
This was a default judgment, so while it's a judgment in favor of shrinkwrap licenses on any random piece of equipment, it's not AFAIK a precedent.
I've mirrored copies of the complaint and default judgment order so that other people don't have to have a PACER account to get them: http://yamazakikun.livejournal.com/52887.html
(doesn't seem to have taken the first time... hopefully won't wind up with a million duplicate copies of this comment)