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Wheels That Fail

checho

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Talking this over on another automotive forum yesterday, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of private auto ownership. John Deere, among other manufacturers is claiming that you may buy one of there big tractors, but because of it's proprietary software load, they will retain "ownership" of the vehicle. Now GM is agreeing - it's all being perpetrated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DCMA, a massive copyright regime passed by congress in 1998 that blurs the line between hardware and software.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

The Cliff's on this proposal ends up being a case where you may have bought one of these incredibly expensive farm machines from John Deere, but that doesn't mean you actually own the license to it. GM, Ford and a number of other automakers are thinking along the same lines. There is now so much software code embedded inextricably in modern vehicles that purchasing one does not entitle you to ownership privileges of the hardware. You won't be able to tinker with it, you won't be able to modify it significantly, or even do much more than put gas in it and turn the key.

It appears the manufacturers are concerned with who gets stuck with the hot potato when the vehicle fails some federal standard test. If you've monkeyed with the hardware/software system, JD or GM doesn't know you. While it does make some kind of sense from the manufacturers standpoint of refusing to stand behind the work done by a private individual by enforcing an extended copyright law, the DMCA may make it illegal for you to do your own maintenance.

Your new car may own you, rather than vice-versa . . . in which case, Skynet has won.


It is much worse than that, not only you may not be legally be able to work on your vehicle, but independent mechanics will also not be able to work on the vehicle legally if they do not follow a set of rules set by the owner of the patent.

It gets worse, the owner of the patent gets to enjoy a monopoly in the parts of your vehicle since other vendors will not be able to sell you hardware that violates the patent.

The computer of the vehicle could very well have been designed to fail after some time by checking the time on a built in clock, and a hacker by using a technique called reverse engineering could find this out and make the information available, the problem is that reverse engineering used to be completely legal but today it is illegal due to the dmca, not only providing such information would be illegal but the hacker would be sent to federal prison under some very severe charges, like espionage, since by making the information public on the Internet anyone can read it and under the dmca this is a severe crime. if the dmca was implemented a 100 years ago, we could still be drivings cars that only went 30 miles an hour and have 5 miles per gallon, and all independent mechanics would be out of business.

The computer of a car from a hardware point of view is similar to an arduino uno which costs less than $20, but the computer of the car costs over $500, why, its the software and it is protected by the dmca, so you are not allowed to improve it or modify it even form personal purposes. Other vendors are not allow to make a clone of that computer or make improvements to the software of that computer.

Remember the old days in which buying alternative rom for game consoles was legal, well it is illegal now due to the dmca.

Remember the days in which you could buy alternative cable modems, Der Engel is now in jail due to the dmca.

If this continues very soon it will be illegal to replace the firmware in your own tv box, or personal computer.
For the computer on your car it is already illegal.

I have a computer scientist, however my car does not have a computer on it, since I value my freedom, and like to work to some degree on my car as long as it is legal.

Remember the very first days of electronic ignition systems, there was no dmca, and other vendors could sell you their own version of electronic ignitions which normally were way superior to stock electronic ignitions, and it was all legal, like msd or mallory ignition modules, well that lasted until the late 90's.

Today the only way an independent vendor could sell you a computer for a car would be by paying a patent fee to the owner of the patent, and for such reason the alternative computer would not be cheaper.

The dmca, is also bad for parts vendors since they can not sell products that do not comply to the dmca.
Napa many years ago wanted to sell their own computers for cars, and had a lawsuit against the automobile industry, they lost.
The DMCA is evil, if you buy something you should be able to use it as you please, the way it used to be.

If Elio decides to make the software for their computer available to the public under a license such as the GPL, it would boost sales a lot, since a lot of people like to modify and improve things without breaking the law, and enjoy the freedom of doing so, as far as my knowledge goes it would be the very first vehicle company to do something like this if they did it, but something like this would be too good to be true, I think they will follow what the big car companies due, eventually some car company will open the software to their computer with a license that allows freedom, I hope it is Elio but most likely I am wrong.
 

AriLea

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There is some assumptions here that miss a couple things in the software area, (just the software, but similar for a protected chip image). While the executable code remains in place and owned by the OEM, all or part of the rules noted above may apply. I won't argue that without more research. I also won't argue about the lease ownership issue, except to say, all leases eventually end. So this is about a purchased item containing OEM intellectual property.

If you remove and fully replace the installed code with your own, there is no dependency left. This is done all the time. Just pull the ROM chip out and insert your own. As an individual nobody can question you. As a software developer or business, they can question you, but they will fail in court if you can stay the course. This was done quite often for ROM Bios on PC's.

Now as far as reverse engineering, there is no rules against documenting what is found in the chipset from the OEM. (hell of a lot of work, that's the main deterrent) And if you get a hold of the actual source code, or even a reverse-engineered copy, you can document and publish, so long as you don't publish the actual source code. Yes can't publish the actual code from the chip either. But you can expose/publish what is found there. Usually described by psudo code is good enough, where that level of detail is required. Then based on that you can write your own code. An individual will likely never have to prove it is their own code, but an after market maker may well have to do so. Again, this would be a heck of a task, but any number of people have done so.

Once it is established that there is no OEM code left, there is no restrictions, but no OEM warrantee either. An independent shop just has to unplug the device or chip containing source or other proprietary property, replace with non-OEM, and there is no legal basis for legal action.

Now in actual practice, people parse out and reverse engineer OEM code all the time. They just never, never admit they have done so. Then they fully develop their own code from what they learned. This parse and dev cycle is actually legal, but a big mess to prove, so they just kind of hide the fact that the original was parsed.

The key here is fully developing your own code. It's much easier to claim when you also claim you haven't examined the OEM code. Well, and key two is being able to stick it out in a legal case.

Now half the time, a full development is not done, they just scramble up the OEM code so it doesn't match the original. Then again claim the same, that it's fully their own. This leaves a huge undertaking for the OEM to prove it's their code that was ripped. And you better fabricate believable full source code if you do go to court.

So the big deal here is for owners, do you want your warrantee invalidated?
 

'lio

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What if your contract with the company says that a part of the car (that you couldn't drive without) belongs not to you, but the company? You can't replace it, because the company will know (many modern cars report data to the manufacturer) and their contract stays that you aren't supposed to.

That was/is the case with the Renault batteries (there are some great write-ups by "owners" of the car, but none in English). Even though copyright law doesn't really seem involved here, it is invoked by companies that want to bind you into never ending lease agreements and to charge you extra if you violate the agreement, for example by fast charging your batteries.
 

AriLea

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What if your contract with the company says that a part of the car (that you couldn't drive without) belongs not to you, but the company? You can't replace it, because the company will know (many modern cars report data to the manufacturer) and their contract stays that you aren't supposed to.

That was/is the case with the Renault batteries (there are some great write-ups by "owners" of the car, but none in English). Even though copyright law doesn't really seem involved here, it is invoked by companies that want to bind you into never ending lease agreements and to charge you extra if you violate the agreement, for example by fast charging your batteries.
If you like, just remove the offending part and give it back to them. That's legal. Of course very few would consider that.
But seriously, If it gets to be too outrageous for this kind of thing, sales will drop for those models. Many cars are far too complex as it is.
 

imageon

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What's this thread about some law or a plastic car.
I plan to buy my Elio. Drive it for three years and sell it when the payments are done and get the latist version / model. Does the above paragraph belong in this thread?:oops:
MK
 

Elio Amazed

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I just watched a movie named "pump" on netflix.
Along with the U.S. oil dependency and the ethanol/methanol alternative, it talks about the fact that most existing cars' software have the capacity to enable the cars to become "flex" vehicles with one simple click of a mouse, but that it's illegal to do that click.
It states that it's also illegal to put e85 into your vehicle unless it's specically marked for it.
I recommend the movie. It's one of the best of this type, and I've seen a few of them.
 

RUCRAYZE

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I just watched a movie named "pump" on netflix.
Along with the U.S. oil dependency and the ethanol/methanol alternative, it talks about the fact that most existing cars' software have the capacity to enable the cars to become "flex" vehicles with one simple click of a mouse, but that it's illegal to do that click.
It states that it's also illegal to put e85 into your vehicle unless it's specically marked for it.
I recommend the movie. It's one of the best of this type, and I've seen a few of them.
Just put it on my list "PumP', don't have to wait for the dvd Ill catch it the weekend- my profile gave it a 5 star-
 
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