Vehicle owners are merely "licensees"?

[Frank Lee]

Copyright Office: Gearheads can keep repairing their cars

This, in the "Land Of The Free".

Sure, owners can work on their junk now but you can see where this is headed...

[spacemanspif]

yay!!!! 3 more years! 3 more years!

I didn't read the whole article but saw that the office reconsiders exemptions every 3 years so I'm guessing we are only safe for 3 years before the OEM tries again to keep us out from under the hoods of new cars.

[user removed]

The OEMs will never be capable of repairing all the cars they sell, especially paying lower than 25% comission and nothing for all the parts the techs sell.

regards
mech

[niky]

Shouldn't have given the exemption for infotainment. It is perfectly legal to jailbreak an iPhone, why not a car? Once the consumer takes ownership of the car, it is their right to do with as they will, as long as they break no laws.

Otherwise, happy that the Copyright Office upheld the rights of the consumers. As the VW issue shows, allowing manufacturers to keep the inner workings of software a secret black box allows them to do some very naughty things.

[MkVer]

The overall economic impact of total copyright enforcement would be massive and the auto makers know it. They just want to get a slice of the aftermarket pie. Which for 2015 is estimated at $36 billion, yes $36,000,000,000. If they can get stricter copyright laws then they can create licenses and thereby do zero work but collect money.

https://www.sema.org/products/23100/...-market-report


SEMA has already vowed to fight it.
https://www.sema.org/sema-enews/2015...-copyright-law

[redpoint5]

Having mere license to utilize software is common. When you "buy" a song, you aren't purchasing ownership in it, rather the right to enjoy the content. It's the same for movies, computer programs, and sometimes photographs.

I paid my wedding photographer a generous sum of money to take pictures, but signed a standard contract that said they retain ownership of the photos, with me purchasing the right to copy and display them for personal use. Even though I paid thousands for the images, I could be sued if I published them in a magazine without prior consent.

There are legitimate reasons for manufacturers to keep their control systems closed to the customers. They shouldn't have to pay for warranty service on something that was damaged due to ignorant modifications to its function. Even if a vehicle is out of warranty, a modification could cause premature wear and negatively impact the image of the product. Some modifications could be reversible so that the vehicle appears to be in stock form even though it was damaged by aftermarket mods.

I'm generally for granting the freedom to the customer to do whatever they want, but there has to be some balance that protects the manufacturer's intellectual property from being stolen, and from fraudulent claims.

[gone-ot]

It 'smacks' of MICROSOFT MENTALITY (and business model)...ugh!

[Hersbird]

If it is just the software then it only applies to the software that came from the factory. All this will do is create and even bigger aftermarket for software modifications and even more stand alone computer control systems like FAST.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

It 'smacks' of MICROSOFT MENTALITY (and business model)...ugh!

Not Microsoft mentality, Apple mentality. As bad as MS is, Apple goes a whole quantum level beyond that.

[gone-ot]

The "licenses" on ALL MS products state THEY own the stuff, we just get to 'use' it for awhile...