The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee have drafted a compromise bill that will allow for the unlocking of cell phones. The "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act" [PDF] was introduced yesterday by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA).

Unlocking phones to run on other networks violates the prohibition against "circumventing" copy protection schemes under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

However, from 2006 to 2012, the Library of Congress granted an "exemption" to copyright law that allowed for consumers to unlock their cellphones in order to change providers. They allowed that exemption to expire in 2013, however, and cell phone unlocking went back to being illegal.

That spawned a fair bit of activism pushing Congress to change the rule once and for all. A citizen petition insisting that phone unlocking should be legal gained support from the White House and later from the FCC. A bill moved forward in the House of Representatives, but only passed in February after it was watered down, with a section added to ban "bulk" unlocking.

In other words, it would have allowed tech-savvy individuals to unlock their phones without fear of actually being prosecuted—but not allowed bulk unlockers to acquire, unlock, and resell large numbers of phones. That solution was panned by groups seeking reform.

The Leahy-Grassley takes out the language about "bulk" unlocking and has won the support of advocacy groups, including Public Knowledge, which sent out a press release lauding the initiative.

Assuming the bill does pass, it's not exactly a towering achievement—it's somewhat redundant since the carriers basically gave up and agreed to allow unlocking several months ago under pressure from the FCC. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular have all agreed to put those "voluntary industry principles" into effect by February 2015.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has already failed to achieve results in the biggest tech policy challenge of the year—crafting a patent reform bill. If they can move forward on cell phone unlocking, it might allow for a small but still meaningful achievement to pass this year, before the election-season cacophony about to begin.