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Three States Propose DMCA-Countering 'Right To Repair' Laws (ifixit.org)
Automakers are using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to shut down tools used by car mechanics -- but three states are trying to stop them.
An anonymous reader quotes IFixIt.Org:
in 2014, Ford sued Autel for making a tool that diagnoses car trouble and tells you what part fixes it. Autel decrypted a list of Ford car parts, which wound up in their diagnostic tool. Ford claimed that the parts list was protected under copyright (even though data isn't creative work) -- and cracking the encryption violated the DMCA. The case is still making its way through the courts. But this much is clear: Ford didn't like Autel's competing tool, and they don't mind wielding the DMCA to shut the company down...
Thankfully, voters are stepping up to protect American jobs. Just last week, at the behest of constituents, three states -- Nebraska, Minnesota, and New York -- introduced Right to Repair legislation (more states will follow). These 'Fair Repair' laws would require manufacturers to provide service information and sell repair parts to owners and independent repair shops.
Activist groups like the EFF and Repair.org want to "ensure that repair people aren't marked as criminals under the DMCA," according to the site, arguing that we're heading towards a future with many more gadgets to fix. "But we'll have to fix copyright law first."
Thankfully, voters are stepping up to protect American jobs. Just last week, at the behest of constituents, three states -- Nebraska, Minnesota, and New York -- introduced Right to Repair legislation (more states will follow). These 'Fair Repair' laws would require manufacturers to provide service information and sell repair parts to owners and independent repair shops.
Activist groups like the EFF and Repair.org want to "ensure that repair people aren't marked as criminals under the DMCA," according to the site, arguing that we're heading towards a future with many more gadgets to fix. "But we'll have to fix copyright law first."
They sound like good laws. I just hope they pass.
Under the DMCA they can lock out jiffy lube by saying the change oil light reset code is under the DMCA and only dealers are to have it.
But this needs to extended to firmware images, sd card images, etc for embedded hardware.
Info on old pc based embedded hardware and older video games (arcade) that used custom cards so they can be run in VM's on newer pc hardware.
Letting people run that hardware in a VM with having to rebuy the software / pay the rights holder again. Yes some like that did have happen in the past and there a free VM system to replace the old pc and custom pci card. That still needed some of the old hardware and they got sued.
Anymore. You just rent it until it breaks so you can re-up on a newer rented item. Greed has no bounds.
Thankfully, voters are stepping up to protect American jobs
Can't help but feel like my anus is being forcibly greased up whenever "protect american jobs" is being waved around.
"Right to X" in the title of a new law is also a red flag.
I mean, I'm aware the DMCA is awful. They should just do something about that. Maybe say, we're going to repeal and replace it? Introduce the All-new Copyright Act, or ACA for short?
i have a 1999 Ford Expedition, great truck for the 2-3k I drive it a year. Had a cracked windshield replaced which leaked (they fixed it) but it got my Gem Module(General Electronics Module) and fuse box wet. Darn truck, kept draining the battery, most of the electric stuff did not work, no lights, flashers, turn signals, dash indicators, windows ;) lol, !. Got it to the dealer. They said my GEM Module was bad, and they would order one.
;)
It would be 700.00 dollars up front and they had no idea when it would arrive. In fact they had one customer that has been waiting 7 months.
OK so I talk about getting one from the junk yard. But!!!! it needs to be programmed with the exact options my truck has and only Ford can do that and that is 500.00
I went home and just charged the battery everytime I wanted to drive the truck. And over time things dried out. All is good now.
I have been gathering every scrap of info so I can build a jig and write a program to dump the firmware from my electronic modules on my truck, since I am keeping it forever
I used to work at Dialogic, which was then bought by Intel. In all my time there, new prospects/customers would invariably say: "This is really hard to configure (we had line resource cards, DSP resource cards, and various ways to map these resources together.) don't you guys have a card configuration utility?" Well, for Windows, yes. For Linux, no. "Too hard and no demand" says Engineering. So, taking the bull by the horns, I found the PCI ID codes for the various cards, wrote a utility to configure them, got approval from my manager to release it as open-source and all was well. Until...The head of Engineering at our division found out about it and lodged a formal internal complaint that I had "released Intel proprietary information" and was summoned to Parsippany to face legal. Fortunately, my manager's support and basic common sense prevailed, the Eng manager was sent packing with his tail between his legs and I flew home drunk as a skunk. The legal guy basically said: "when you expose a PCI ID to the OS, it's no longer proprietary - dumbass!". Point is that when information is documented and exposed in any way, it is not "proprietary" in the sense that it cannot be used, just not stolen and used inappropriately.
I mean, I'm aware the DMCA is awful. They should just do something about that. Maybe say, we're going to repeal and replace it? Introduce the All-new Copyright Act, or ACA for short?
Sorry. The DMCA is Republican creation. Republicans are only opposed to laws created by Democrats.
The DMCA was a bipartisan effort. Created by Republicans, but signed into law by a Democratic president. The husband of the same person who almost became our current president.
Get away from the "us versus them" mentality. All the bad shit we have right now is the result of bi-partisan cooperation among politicians.
Your side is crap as well as the other side.
Insulting "the other side" does nothing to solve the underlying problem.
That's the beauty of a FEDERAL state. Don't like Cali, got to Idaho, don't like Idaho, go to New York...
Bill Clinton, a DEMOCRAT, signed it into law.
Not really. The Obama administration decided not to enforce the marijuana laws, but they are still on the books. From Wikipedia: "On August 28, 2013, a federal executive agency announced that it would no longer actively pursue marijuana offences taking place in the states that have legalized the small consumption and possession of marijuana." A future president could reverse that.
That is a bit of anger! Relax Mr. Anonymous Coward!
This has nothing to do with Anonymous Coward. This has everything to do with Common F. Sense.
And if it's not about foreign v. American jobs, why does the summary say "Thankfully, voters are stepping up to protect American jobs"?
Because TFS is inaccurate. Sure as hell wouldn't be the first time. This has to do with protecting the rights of any car owner or 3rd party repair shop to service or repair a car if they have the knowledge and skill to do it. And to give TFS some credit for accuracy, yes, that would include American jobs, but more accurately any American who happens to own a device they hold the skill to service or repair, regardless if they hold a job doing it.
I've been maintaining my own vehicles for almost three decades, and as a result my cars have lasted me at least 200,000 miles each time. I've also not had to waste thousands of dollars on misdiagnosed issues of questionable legitimacy; otherwise known as why we call them stealerships. It's no secret the department driving considerable profit into a stealership is the service department, and I'm not about to be forced to have my car "serviced" by pure unadulterated greed just because they didn't get enough profit from me when I bought the damn car.
If automakers and stealerships had their way, every Discount Auto Parts and Autozone would be shut down, Haynes and Chilton repair manuals would be illegal, you would need a federal license to even look at the Craftsman tool department in Sears, and opening the hood on your car would require an encryption key. Abusing the shit out of the DCMA seeks to destroy an entire industry that has been established for decades, along with the thousands of jobs within. Are automakers likely trying to protect some American jobs? Sure, but the end result would still be a rather massive net loss.
In this case, Common F. Sense needs to prevail over Corruption N. Greed. Plain and simple.
You fulfill the stereotype that people with low user IDs are autistic middle age weirdos, likely unemployed, who can't work out conversations.
The parent has a valid point here, and the GP is an idiot for bringing up Chinese hackers. The actions of both those for and against the DCMA in this case is fighting over American jobs, but siding with the automakers and stealerships would result in a massive net loss for American jobs, since they would not seek to hire everyone they wish to put out of business by turning auto repair into some sort of DMCA-protected black magic.
This pretty much has fuck-all to do with China, apart from giving them credit for cracking a "code" that should have never been allowed to exist in the first place, under a weak-ass DMCA argument. Ironically enough, the hacking in this case creates American jobs.
He did that because he HAD to. Otherwise, he starts a small scale war where the state then makes most activities that might support enforcing the federal law illegal. Next thing you know, there are DEA agents sitting in jail while it all winds it's way slowly through the courts. Worst case (for the president), the legitimacy of invoking interstate commerce to permit the federal laws to exist ends up in court with an opponent that can actually afford to fight it.
Let's remember, Autel is a company based in Shenzhen, China. Ford is based in Dearborn, MI, USA. So these bills are all about robbing American jobs, to support Chinese hackers.
To give you an idea of just how wrong you are, in this case, "hackers" cracking a code has created and secured American jobs by enabling American workers to thrive in a 3rd party industry that has been established for decades, fighting against automakers who wish to turn auto repair into some kind of fucking black magic voodoo, driven by greed.
The larger issue is the fact that we're reliant upon hackers from any country to crack codes that should have never been allowed to exist in the first place, codes created and protected by abusing the shit out of the DMCA.
And yes, this issue does get rather sticky because it's actually about fighting over American jobs. Those jobs created by automakers and "authorized" repair centers (read: stealerships) vs. the much larger industry of 3rd party repair shops and DIY mechanics wanting to maintain their own vehicles.
Perhaps if they didn't get so fucking greedy to earn the moniker of stealership, this wouldn't have grown to be such an issue. Either way, the DMCA abuse needs to stop.
Actually, lets.
It is perfectly legal for me to repair my own brakes or steering. People have done so for decades even though a failure while driving could be very bad. The upshot is simple, if you're going to work on safety critical parts of your car, you'll want to make sure you know what you're doing. If you screw up, you might face significant liability.
The last time I took my Ford to a dealer they charged $150.00 per hour for labor with a 4 hour minimum.
A 4h minimum is set by what's called the "blue book" which details exactly how much time the repair is supposed to take. Those hours are set by government. That means if they get the job done in 20minutes the book says the job is 30min, they have to charge for 30. On the flip side of that, this also protects you from overzealous pricing charges. That means if the job is listed at 4hr and it takes them 5hr to do it, they can only charge you for 4hr. Some places allow small incremental increases, but most don't. And in those cases there is a hard cap to the limit that can be charged. When you look around the "waiting area" you should also see a sign which states the minimum hourly rate. Depending on the state/province it will right now be between $80 and $140/hr(when I was an apprentice the hourly rate set by the province was around $35/hr). That again is set by the state or province, those are the minimum hourly rates that they have to charge by law. The higher hourly rate above the minimum requirement is called a "rate premium" which any shop can charge. Meaning a independent can charge $80/h or more if they can get away with it. Or a dealership can charge $80/h or $300/h if they can get away with it.
Now onto the parts, since you were able to buy them through a "friendly parts man" that means you're buying a OEM-non dealership part. Under the old auto-pact treaty, OEM parts suppliers can make these parts and sell them to anyone for as long as there is demand. The automaker themselves must make these parts for your vehicle for a minimum of 10 years -- some will make them for longer if the vehicle sales were amazing. Now, there is no set prices on auto parts. Meaning a dealership don't have to price you out anything other then in their parts from their warehouses unless you request it. You can bring your own parts, and they have to install them though. You can request that they buy the parts from a OEM parts supplier like NAPPA, Pep boys, or whatever else.
Om, nomnomnom...
I find the partisanship of the USA electorate incredible. The government has in general a bipartisan agreement to not give a shit about the people yet everyone will blame something on one side or the other.
I believe the question here is one of scope. The DMCA was created to protect copyrighted works - stuff that's supposed to be distributed throughout the public, but the creator still retains ownership rights.
These companies (and printer manufacturers with their ink cartridges) have been trying to extend the DMCA to cover what's traditionally considered a trade secret - stuff that nobody except the creator is supposed to know about. The "problem" with trade secrets (from the owner's perspective) being that if anyone figures out or reverse engineers the secret, it's no longer a secret.
As Congress hasn't made any moves to address whether or not the scope of the DMCA covers trade secrets under the guise of copyright, these states are. That way the conflict between these state laws and DMCA can be resolved through the courts, and case law setting the boundary on whether the DMCA can be extended to protect trade secrets in this manner..