Will copyright law stop you from working on your car in the near future?

[FLYFISHR]

Any opinions on this.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/11/25/w...r-in-the-near/

[continuecrushing]

nope

[feldy]

Lol this would be extremely hard to enforce. And no just because some old man decided to make a law doesn't mean I'm going to follow it. It's never stopped me before.

[Target70]

Unlikely, but if they ever do enforce this stuff, I'll just have to go back to old school rides. I modded my original xbox. If you signed on to xbox live with a modded box, microsoft would wipe your hard drive remotely and ban your account. Now with the newer generations they pretty much require constant connection. I don't see our cars being any different. True someone finds a way around every new lock, but the question is, is it worth the trouble?

[wparsons]

Canadian laws are also very different from US laws when it comes to things like this.

[boredom.is.me]

Haha that's cute.

[phrosty]

In the near future? The EFF is saying it may be illegal right now.

First -- people distributing ROMs, modified or not, are certainly breaking copyright already.

Second -- copyright doesn't allow people to modify the software on their own devices that don't have a supported mechanism to do so. I.e. you can't break a secure system. It was amended to allow this under a few explicit circumstances (like jailbreaking phones) that don't apply to our ECUs. I assume the reason EFF isn't 100% certain of the legalities is that although our ECUs certainly has a standard mechanism to do so, flashing is obviously not intended or supported for enthusiast use.

Third -- less certain here but there are probably additional emissions laws that forbid custom ECUs on the street.

[zc06_kisstherain]

we paid our own money to buy product(car here) which including cost of copyright. are we distributing OEM ECU ROM files? no.
what about warranty on ECU? obviously No warranty if something happens

[Luckrider]

Originally Posted by phrosty

In the near future? The EFF is saying it may be illegal right now.

First -- people distributing ROMs, modified or not, are certainly breaking copyright already.

Second -- copyright doesn't allow people to modify the software on their own devices that don't have a supported mechanism to do so. I.e. you can't break a secure system. It was amended to allow this under a few explicit circumstances (like jailbreaking phones) that don't apply to our ECUs. I assume the reason EFF isn't 100% certain of the legalities is that although our ECUs certainly has a standard mechanism to do so, flashing is obviously not intended or supported for enthusiast use.

Third -- less certain here but there are probably additional emissions laws that forbid custom ECUs on the street.

I see nothing relating to ECUs in the latest version of the law as seen here: https://www.eff.org/document/final-rule-2012

One thing to realize is that the DMCA laws apply to the regulation of end user license agreements, and right now, I have never seen one for an ECU from any manufacturer which means vehicles are excluded simply because the manufacturers have not included them. It sound like the EFF is pushing for protective legislation in advance of manufacturer intrusion.

As for your points.

1. Without a copyright being claimed by manufactures, the distribution of a ROM would be legally gray. In the US, a copyright must be registered in order to be eligible for statutory damages. Source

2. Copyright doesn't allow for the circumvention of security measures. There is nothing illegal about changing software on a device that doesn't provide such a mechanism. As of right now, our ROMs are not encrypted. They are stored as hex values on the ECU and "cracking" an ECU really refers to translating it. This is not illegal for personal use.

3. This is a little more legally gray depending on state. California has the CARB process which does certify SOME flashing. One example would be the Jackson Racing Supercharger kit which has been CARB certified for use with the provided tune. In other states, it is likely legal as long as the modification doesn't increase emissions beyond the regulated amounts. I am a little uncertain on this part myself.

As for cars, there are regulations surrounding the limitations of a manufacturer or dealership from enforcing work mandates that require vehicles to modified, serviced, or repaired at an authorized dealership. ECU modifications would certainly fall under this umbrella.

The final point on this subject, if manufacturers prevent modification in this sort of way, they would be killing a large support for their enthusiast portion of their customer base which would turn those people to other brands. Even if that didn't deter people from certain brands, aftermarket ECUs would become a much more popular option for people.

[phrosty]

Originally Posted by Luckrider

I see nothing relating to ECUs in the latest version of the law as seen here: https://www.eff.org/document/final-rule-2012

One thing to realize is that the DMCA laws apply to the regulation of end user license agreements, and right now, I have never seen one for an ECU from any manufacturer which means vehicles are excluded simply because the manufacturers have not included them. It sound like the EFF is pushing for protective legislation in advance of manufacturer intrusion.

DMCA is just one amendment in a much larger corpus of copyright law.

Originally Posted by Luckrider

As for your points.

1. Without a copyright being claimed by manufactures, the distribution of a ROM would be legally gray. In the US, a copyright must be registered in order to be eligible for statutory damages. Source

This is not remotely a gray area. It is flat out illegal distribution without permission.

Statutory damage eligibility is a separate matter, and it's not the only type of damage you can claim. Even when not registered, automatic copyright still affords actual damages -- basically taking your loss and the defendant's gain into account. It's tricky and a lot more work to calculate actual damages, and it'd be hard to find such damage by end users, but companies like OpenFlash and Ecutek who are actively distributing derivative works and directly or indirectly profiting from that could have a problem.

Originally Posted by Luckrider

2. Copyright doesn't allow for the circumvention of security measures. There is nothing illegal about changing software on a device that doesn't provide such a mechanism. As of right now, our ROMs are not encrypted. They are stored as hex values on the ECU and "cracking" an ECU really refers to translating it. This is not illegal for personal use.

This point being true or not is the entire question EFF is raising. I have a better understanding of copyright law than most and I've always thought it was iffy, so I'm happy to see someone else questioning it as well.

Originally Posted by Luckrider

The final point on this subject, if manufacturers prevent modification in this sort of way, they would be killing a large support for their enthusiast portion of their customer base which would turn those people to other brands. Even if that didn't deter people from certain brands, aftermarket ECUs would become a much more popular option for people.

Unfortunately large industries aren't always known to do what's in their best interests in these situations. We can only hope.

[renfield90]

Modified ROMs and chips have been passed around for decades now with the tacit approval of the manufacturers. There are some exceptions like Toyota, who are notorious for making uncrackable ECUs. That just goes to show you that if manufacturers really wanted to keep you out of there, they could.

As others have mentioned, this would be next to impossible to enforce and cost way more money than simply enabling the security fuse in the microcontroller. I'm a big fan of the EFF but I think they're making mountains out of molehills here.

This is simply not an issue.

[skye67]

I own my iphone there for i can jailbreak my iphone. This is already gone through the courts.

[kaluce]

This is a tricky situation. According to the DMCA we are not really breaking any copyrights here in regards to flashing the ECU. There is a mechanism to acquire the rom legally, and there is a mechanism to write the rom legally.

Now, if we were to pull the rom, write the values, and then upload the changed file to the web, that gets a bit hairy and go into the grey areas. But there are ways around this and to stay legal.

Since we really only modify a small subsection of the code, we could actually get around copyright law by only distributing Diff files. Since the mechanism to pull the rom and to flash the rom are the same tool, it would make sense that owners of the vehicle (99.9% of the users doing this) would have the tool, or at least access to the tool to get a copy of their own roms.

They then apply the diff files to their own, legally obtained roms (which they backed up using the legal mechanism), and they then get the same thing as we do now. Crisis averted.

There is also nothing really to gain by enforcing this either. Copyright laws for something like an ECU, where it's physically impossible to make any extra cash on distribution (contrast for example, a burned CD filled with pirated music being sold for $5) would make it really hard to justify damages and suing the tuner, since usually if you tune your car you either

1. know what you're doing
2. blow your engine.

the latter means that your warranty is shot and the manufacturer isn't on the hook for repairs. and the former means that there is no harm inflicted on the parent company.