[Help] iCloud - maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone

I bought a used iPhone from someone online and when I tried to activated iCloud on that iPhone I get the message "The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone"

Is there anyway to work around this? I can contact the seller to have him login his itunes account and deactivated his iCloud on the iPhone. Will that help? If it does how do I go about doing it?