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Automakers To Gearheads: Stop Repairing Cars
Mr_Blank writes Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles. In comments filed with a federal agency that will determine whether tinkering with a car constitutes a copyright violation, OEMs and their main lobbying organization say cars have become too complex and dangerous for consumers and third parties to handle. The dispute arises from a section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that no one thought could apply to vehicles when it was signed into law in 1998. But now, in an era where cars are rolling computing platforms, the U.S. Copyright Office is examining whether provisions of the law that protect intellectual property should prohibit people from modifying and tuning their cars.
you simply get to use it, and the automaker gets a final say in how you use your car. good grief.
To purchase a nice car from the 60's or 70's with no computer. Easy to fix, and except for crash-readyness usually pretty solid.
Whilst the DMCA may or may not be a good thing, it is certainly not a means for the car manufacturers to impose a SAFETY based restriction. That organisations pull that sort of abuse is why the legal system is held in contempt.
" The dispute arises from a section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that no one thought could apply to vehicles when it was signed into law in 1998"
Do the editors even read this site ? Virtually everyone realized this could apply to just about anything that ran code. There was even the infamous use garage door opener case
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/...
And the HP and Lexmark toner cartridge cases which were just about embedded serialization
If they do this, they're going against the magnuson moss act.
In a just world they would lose copyright when they stop warranting the product. You want copyright of that ecu? You give a permanent warranty on it and replace them every time they fail, for free. Don't want to have to replace it? then you give up copyright to the code on it because user needs to fix it. I'm not holding my breath though.
And if such changes would cause the vehicle to no longer comply with regional safety standards for vehicles, then the person would be held responsible if or when that modification was discovered. While that may be too late to actually prevent an accident, making it illegal to modify your car under the allegation that you may make it unsafe to drive is like making it illegal for you to drink alcohol if you happen to have a driver's license (ignoring the fact that a driver's license is often used for verifying that one is of legal drinking age in the first place) because you might try drive while drunk. Most of the people who are suspected of drunk driving are unfortunately only found so after they have already caused an accident as well.
My point is that like drunk driving, and laws that prohibit that activity, there are already laws that prohibit making any unsafe modifications to your vehicle... and not realizing that a change would cause a vehicle to not meet the necessary safety requirements is no more of a justification than not realizing that one was over the legal limit for blood alcohol content when getting behind the wheel of a car.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Indeed. I never understood that circular logic. Perhaps somebody of that persuasion can explain how it (allegedly) works for us.
Businesses want control, and if you don't properly regulate them, they'll use every method they have to gain their desired control. I see the government functioning like referees. Without referees a game would become a dirty slugfest instead of a skillfest. Basketball and wrestling would be the same sport. Sure, refs are sometimes stupid, but anybody in any institution can likewise be stupid.
Table-ized A.I.
We want you to buy a new car every 3 years and with auto drive cars they will shutdown after software updates end after 2-3 years.
No, we don't.
Kid-proof tablet..
Printer manufacturers tried this several years ago with chips in ink cartridges. The supreme court ruled it was ok to reverse engineer the code on these chips if it was required to allow other companies to make make compatible cartidges. I would think the same would apply to cars and after market parts and upgrades.
Stallman was right. Although in his story, it was about books, not babies or cars.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...