Mr.E.G.

Also, the original quoted article in this thread is about the goddamned most absurd interpretation of this issue I could imagine. I'm not jumping for joy over this proposal, but that article is about a credible in its interpretation and reporting of the supposed implications of said proposal as a typical Tea Party blog is regarding what the Second Amendment means. (For the record, I am a strong supporter of 2A, but I'm also not an asshole, and I combine those traits together to form what some might call a well-rounded appreciation for guns that falls short of wanting to marry one or elect one as king of the universe, unlike many of my fellow 2A supporters, I'm afraid).

rockville

I was kind of waiting for Mr EG to hop in on this. He seems to have a much clearer idea of the issue than I have. I'm pleased that he can explain why the companies do actually have a legitimate complaint even if we (auto enthusiasts) as a group don't like all the implications.

engifineer

I kind of see the point on the code modifications, but still view it as I am providing them my install of the code I paid money for and having them modify it, so it is a bit of a grey area. However, this is no different than them telling a body shop they cant customize cars any more, since they are taking someone elses creation and then building upon it.

The tuner is not a competitor to the OEM, so they are not losing one tiny bit of money by people modifying the code in that sense. IF the OEM was providing these services, then MAYBE I could see a point there. But they are not in most cases. If anything, people figuring out how to tune a car makes that care more desirable to people like us, thus that is GOOD for the OEM.

So this comes back to only being logical at all from a warranty standpoint. At most then, I could see this being practical only during the warranty period. I really dont care what semi questionable loop hole they can make this fall under in terms of the law, it is still bs.

You are spot on about the article. It was poorly written and 100% misses the point. This will not in any sense prevent people from repairing their own cars. It isnt even aimed at that. This is about modification of the code only (Which is not part of normal repair). But, that is how it goes for the most part with a lot of writes these days. IT is all about catching your attention, not about the actual facts.

Mr.E.G.

You hit the nail on the head; it's a grey area. Think of it like this, though... If you buy an AEM stand along ECU and you make a tune that is specific to your car, you have created an electronic file that does X, Y, and Z. Then imagine that you use a hacked stock ECU and create a tune on that ECU that does X, Y, and Z as well. Even though the end result is the same, the way you accomplished the end result was quite different, especially from a legal perspective. In the first instance, you paid for a license to software and purchased equipment that would allow you to create your own digital files. In the latter case, however, you used the OEM's software (or firmware, whatever) and created your own digital files. Sure, the digital files may be your creation, but the way you made them was by using, without permission, at least some part of the OEM's proprietary technology. If if you delete the factory fuel map and trim data from the factory ECU, there is still an "environment" or operating system or something that is created by the OEM on which you run your new files, and they never gave you permission to do so. See what I'm saying?


The logical distinction is the same but the legal distinction is quite different. You can purchase a car or a boat or a potato, but you (typically) license software. If the proposed changes go through, when you buy a car, it will presumably come with a software license for the on-board electronic files, operating system, et al. So, if that comes to be, your analogy fails because you have not actually purchased the whole car. In essence, you would be buying most of the car but only licensing the electronic stuff. So, yes, a body shop does take someone's creation and build on much like a tuning app would allow you to do the same, and that's fine now because you're buying the whole car. Their proposal would make it such that you are not. If I lease to you the aforementioned potato, I can stipulate how you use it, right? Same thing. What is changing is your ownership. Do you have conventional ownership? If so, thunder forth and do what you want to your ECU (as we all have the right to do now). Are you essentially renting, leasing, borrowing, or otherwise taking less than conventional ownership of some part of your car? If so, then that part of the car will be licensed to you with stipulations.




Except that some OEMs do sell ECU upgrades. Consider the Porsche Sport Chrono package. You get a fancy lap timer clock thingy and, more importantly, you get a modified ECU that has a more aggressive rev limiter and other tuning parameters. Part of the sales pitch for the major players in the Porsche Cayman aftermarket world is precisely that you can buy their tuner and get all of the benefits of the Sport Chrono package but for $500 instead of $5,000. In that case, these tuners are literally competing with the OEM.

But let's pretend like that doesn't exist. The rebuttal to your comment would simply be that it doesn't matter; that's not the point. Companies like AEM make their own software and hardware that replaces the OEM software altogether, but companies like Open Flash Tablet sell software and hardware that would not be capable of existing in the absence of OEM software and tuning files. They are making a remix or a cover album, they are not the original composer, and our copyright laws protect the original composer from having someone else make a buck of of the remix without permission.




I agree. I think that their fear that they really have is warranty claims, liability for faulty aftermarket ECU tunes that spontaneously kill drivers, yet no one can tell that the ECU has been manipulated, etc. I think that their attorneys took a long hard look at warranty law and saw that there was no chance that those laws would ever allow the wholesale disallowance of modifications to ECUs, so they set their sights on copyright law. All that to say, I don't think that their position is unjustifiable, nor do I think it is a horrific violation of basic tenets of property law. On the contrary, I think their legal position is reasonably sound. I just think that they are being disingenuous about their true concerns. Further, I am of the opinion that government intrusion, while absolutely necessary in some instances, should be regarded as an evil unless it can be shown otherwise. Clearly, the OEMs are capable of just changing the technology that they use to accomplish the same goals of keeping us out of the ECUs. Porsche has done it with their most recent ECUs, much to the dismay of new Cayman owners. So my interpretation is that rather than innovate their problems away, they're asking for the law to intervene, which is fraught with problems, irrespective of the fact that I don't categorically reject the legal basis for their position.

engifineer

In any case, they will just spawn a new breed of "pirates" by making something that has been legal illegal. People pirate music about as much as they did when Napster was around. All their coding, laws, etc did not really stop that much. They just made people have to be more clever to do it. They are not stopping Xbox or PS hacking either. Didnt even slow it down from what I have seen. People just find better ways to do it on the down low. And in this case, I can see no moral or fair ground behind this, so more people will just find ways around it (at least with music pirating there is some moral ground that keeps a lot of people from doing it). So in the end, the giganto auto corps have made themselves look worse to the consumer, and modding will likely find a way to keep going on. Or, some auto manufacturers will just choose not to monitor or enforce this and more enthusiasts will focus on their vehicles. We are not a high percentage of the car buying public really, so they may not care. But, even people who dont mod their car tend to cringe at big business trying to control EVERYTHING we do with our products.

These companies, want to keep metrics on our driving, pump telematics back to the vendor (some would be surprised at what else those cool, cellular enabled infotainment systems in their cars do ... I have worked on one for a big auto supplier ... priority 1 was collecting real time data from peoples cars, NOT the infotainment portion), use our private information after we register a sale for other purposes we do not know about ... yet they want to tell us that we cant do anything we want with the product we bought from them. Its just a broken system really.

How about we fix the ridiculous litigation issue rather than let more companies impose these sorts of things? Maybe if we did not let stupid people sue for being stupid, this sort of thing would not be an issue

jkelley

People are so quick to think in black and white, or cause and immediate tier 1 effect only. The truth is, things naturally balance. It trickles down.

Example?

Say they do this. You (that means EVERYONE) has to bring their car to the dealer. Does that mean you'll now be paying full price for an oil change? Hell no. You'll probably be paying $10-20 maybe, since they'll have a stronghold on the market but they will NOT be able to gouge you. Do you really think our government would allow that? (lol, but true).
And so what if they did keep their inflated prices? Then you'll see a lot more diversification in vehicle-producing automotive companies because they'll want "a piece of that action" of the folks who can't afford that. Remember the oil boom?: see years 2006-2014........... (granted the little guys are now getting beaten to death, but that's just the tug-of-war battle capitalism is all about).

Whether something like this ever went through or not, I'm fine either way. It'll balance out, one way or another. 100% guaranteed. That's the nice thing about this country's potential on capitalism.

However, this is also because I don't really care to mod my car. So for you folks... okay I see your point. That would be a bummer for y'all. But see one of my points above, you would have new manufacturers coming in that would allow you to do that to their cars, because you would be a "hard market." Then again though, that could take 10-15 years

Chariotz

Hopefully it will all equal itself out. But then again, the way things are going right now, you never know. I'm glad i don't own a brand new car with all these crazy computer controlled systems. No matter what happens, even if they pass it, I'll still always work on my own cars. It's going to suck for those who are into those brand new cars and want to mod them or do project builds on them. I can't imagine whats going to happen to all those performance tuning shops