One of the inherent rights of owning a vehicle is the ability to get on one’s backside — a wrench in one hand and a grease rag in the other, and just tinker to your little heart’s desire. Since the vehicle was invented, it’s been an important facet within the community of gearheads.[1]
General Motors and a few other big players want to take that right away from you. It’s called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The act itself has been around since 2000 and it started as anti-Internet piracy legislation. But car manufacturers now want to use it to make working on your own car illegal. How nonsensical is that?
The reasoning that they give is that cars now are so complicated and advanced that any improper tinkering can be potentially dangerous.
Some of the industries leading companies are now claiming that their software has become so complicated that “tampering with it,” or making repairs on your own property, could be a copyright violation.Interestingly enough, Tesla, the company which has the most complicated technology in their vehicles, is not in support of this legal action. [2]
Companies like GM and Ford want to reclassify cars as “mobile computing devices” so that they can use DMCA to enforce copyright laws- all of this would be potentially disadvantageous to consumers.
As of now there are currently 13 auto manufacturers on the list supporting that the DMCA be applied to cars:
General Motors Company
BMW Group
FCA US LLC
Ford Motor Company
Jaguar Land Rover
Mazda
Mercedes-Benz USA
Mitsubishi Motors
Porsche
Toyota
Volkswagen Group of America
Volvo Cars North America
These companies have made the following statement justifying why they want to make it illegal for people to work on their own cars:
“Automobiles are inherently mobile, and increasingly they contain equipment that would commonly be considered computing devices… Many of the ECUs embodied in today’s motor vehicles are carefully calibrated to satisfy federal or state regulatory requirements with respect to emissions control, fuel economy, or vehicle safety. Allowing vehicle owners to add and remove programs at whim is highly likely to take vehicles out of compliance with these requirements, rendering the operation or re-sale of the vehicle legally problematic. The decision to employ access controls to hinder unauthorized “tinkering” with these vital computer programs is necessary in order to protect the safety and security of drivers and passengers and to reduce the level of non-compliance with regulatory standards. We urge the Copyright Office to give full consideration to the impacts on critical national energy and environmental goals, as well as motor vehicle safety, in its decision on this proposed exemption. Since the record on this proposal contains no evidence regarding its applicability to or impact on motor vehicles, cars and trucks should be specifically excluded from any exemption that is recommended in this area.”
This whole thing is wrong in so many ways, and if the automakers are allowed to restrict owner access to their own cars — whether they themselves tinker or repair them or not — a cascade of unfortunate effects will follow. Independent repair shops will have it especially rough, becoming vulnerable to manufacturer lawsuits if they attempt to repair a car by accessing the ‘restricted’ code or even just connecting to the ECU. [3]
Sources:
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/gm-ford-others-want-working-own-car-illegal-160000229.html
[3] http://jalopnik.com/carmakers-want-to-make-working-on-your-car-illegal-beca-1699132210
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That’s just plain insane. We wont allow that to happen.
F**K That. The day I can’t tinkwer with technology I own is the day I lay down in the box.
Watch as Tesla fucks them in the ass with open source and better technology. Go fuck your internal combustion engines in the ass.
that’s absolute nonsense. That’s why we have emmisswhy testing for a vehicle 5 years or older,they have to pass emissions testing and I mean if its still being financed, they can have mandatory checks whvehicle vehicle has to be taken to the dealer sedealer department at least once a year to check all the equipment to make sure it’s still the original equipment. that’s bullsh*t
Then using this “logic”, downloading something from the internet would be modifying your computer, making it illegal.
This is like being told i can’t repair/modify the computer that i bought and paid for. I read this and all i see is greed. they want people to pay them to do the same things that people have done for themselves for years. and their excuse is bullshit when you see the most complicated vehicle manufacture of the lot who you would think would agree with this because of how complex there system is. instead disagrees with this idea basically saying that people should be allowed to fix/modify what they own.
This isn’t just a slap in the face of automobile DIY it’s a slap in the face of ALL DIY communities. If this is allowed other companies will take notice and try something similar. pretty soon there won’t be any DIY.