Get the lowdown on how the antipiracy Digital Millennium Copyright Act is being applied to phone-unlocking tech and what a recent update to the law means to consumers who want to unlock their phones.

The change comes as part of a three-year cycle for renewing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF). And in this cycle the Library of Congress, which has the job of approving exemptions to the law, decided not to exempt the software locks that carriers put on devices that prevent them from being used on other carrier networks.

The mobile phone and its ubiquitous nature are the catalysts for many business opportunities today. One such business trend is mobile marketing. Technology advancements have sprung up new marketing communication channels like email, SMS and MMS; of which mobile marketing has really caught up. 

The German research organization is showing technology that lets NFC-equipped smartphones unlock doors, and let one person effectively e-mail a key to another. Fraunhofer's Key2Share system lets a person send an electronic key by e-mail or text message to another person, who then gets authorization to use a smartphone to open a lock.