Digital Copyright Preventing Car Mods?

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This is just stupid. I was under the impression that, when you buy a car, it is yours and you can do with it as you please.

In a development that illustrates just how much cars have become mobile computers on wheels, a privacy group is warning mechanics and car enthusiasts that tinkering with the computers that run dozens of vehicle components, without a manufacturer's approval, may constitute a copyright violation.
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Yes, we have been headed down this path for many years. By accepting what is fed to us instead of opening our eyes and observing what frauds are being perpetrated upon us, we've allowed this reality to come to fruition. We can't change it because it is widely known by everyone that average people are just damn dumb sheep. All they need is a catch word or jingle to satisfy them.

DMCA should be scrapped and rewritten.
 
Article said:
As automakers enhance this software, technology will soon allow them to sell upgrades and customized features to individual customers on an individual basis. Want that extra 40 horsepower? You can buy it on a memory stick. Desire a specific ring tone for your car? Download it from an OEM's website.
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DLC for cars basically.
 
Hmm, guess you will be classified as a Pirate for modding your car. Arrr
 
By opening the car door, you are bound by the EULA. You have permission to use the vehicle. You do not own it. Please drive thru.
 
cageymaru said:
Yes, we have been headed down this path for many years. By accepting what is fed to us instead of opening our eyes and observing what frauds are being perpetrated upon us, we've allowed this reality to come to fruition. We can't change it because it is widely known by everyone that average people are just damn dumb sheep. All they need is a catch word or jingle to satisfy them.

DMCA should be scrapped and rewritten.
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+1
How long did those people against this "law" yell at the top of their lungs to deaf ears, and been ridiculed for being paranoid? Always being told by the supporters that those scenarios they see coming could never happen. Well guess what? It's here and has been happening slowly and quietly to make sure the sheeple don't notice it. Well guess what now that they've noticed they've been in a slowly boiling pot of water, it's too late. You are NEVER going to see this get scrapped. If you're lucky they rewrite it in a manner that sounds like it's going to fix it but will amount to no change.

The only thing you can count on is the laws that grant corporate interests power will never change unless it's to grant them more power. Just like how the government grants themselves power to do things unconstitutional, but placates the populace with words like expires, but in the end it never expires because if the ones in charge vote against it they are soft on <insert FUD buzzword here, ex terror, piracy, etc...>
 
They may brand it as copyright, but it is not about copyright. It is about ruining the 3rd party market and forcing customers to seek parts, repair and maintenance at the dealerships for higher prices. Basically they are trying to monopolize the market.
 
Ashbringer said:
Solution is to not buy new cars.
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Next thing you know, the manufacturers install end of life software. After X number of years, the car ceases to function forcing the purchase of a new car and within the next decade or so, the used car market is dead.
 
I view the ECU program like a computer BIOS, as it's what makes all the individual parts work together. And it's not illegal to modify a BIOS, but it could possibly void your warranty. People face the same outcome when modifying their cars. There should be no need to bring copyright into the current system.
 
What a load of shit. Somebody had better explain things to this privacy group. This is where the copyright garbage falls apart. When you purchase hardware, you own it. Period. You can do as you wish with it. This is not about theft in any way. You can mod your X-Box any way you want. It might not work right after that, but you can still do it. You can flash dvd players. Like what was said above, you can mod your bios file. You can modify computer hardware to run Apple software, not illegal. (although putting the Apple software on there might be) This whole concept has already been before a court somewhere, I just don't remember where.
 
Where were these jackasses 18 years ago when we geeks were shouting how bad the DMCA was? They were probably thinking, "Hah, nerds. Just throw the DVD or CD into a player and stop being so entitled. It's just a movie/song. It's not like you can't still watch/listen to it. Get out of the basement and get over yourselves."

Now, it's:

"Hah, gearheads. Just drive the car and stop being so entitled. It's just transportation. It's not like you can't still drive it. Get out of the garage and get over yourselves."

Welcome to the new world... same as the old world.
 
NeghVar said:
They may brand it as copyright, but it is not about copyright. It is about ruining the 3rd party market and forcing customers to seek parts, repair and maintenance at the dealerships for higher prices. Basically they are trying to monopolize the market.
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Software mods and 3rd party parts can cause a care to fail. When a car fails it may be a direct threat to the passengers or nearby pedestrians or cause an accident which then harms the passengers or pedestrians.

Because of Lawyers, if the makers remain completely silent, this will be depicted as approval and then is become the maker's fault who has far deeper pockets than the modders do and lawyer will jockey for any way to go after the makers for the issue.
 
Armenius said:
I view the ECU program like a computer BIOS, as it's what makes all the individual parts work together. And it's not illegal to modify a BIOS, but it could possibly void your warranty. People face the same outcome when modifying their cars. There should be no need to bring copyright into the current system.
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This was my thought as well.
 
To be clear, as far as I can tell, this article is just some schmucks saying this theoretically could happen. I haven't seen any actual traction or desire from car manufacturers to do this.

If I'm a car manufacturer, I'm only investigating utilizing DMCA due to potential safety concerns. Even if logically the modder assumes the risk, it just takes one high profile death and the media is going to plaster news everywhere all but blaming the car manufacturer for allowing the dead person to mod their car.

Sad but true. America, you kind of suck sometimes.
 
jpm100 said:
Software mods and 3rd party parts can cause a care to fail.
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1) That has FUCK ALL to do with copyright protection... are you kidding me? Its abuse of the law!
2) Hardware mods and 3rd party parts can cause a car to fail too, that was no different in 1965 than it is today. If they can reasonably show that the modification you did to your springs cause your shocks to fail, they can invalidate the warranty of the shocks. If you run a chip and it overboosts your turbo and blow your engine, its not covered under warranty. This is nothing new, and has nothing to do with copyright.

These lawyers need to be anally raped with a rusty spoon dipped in lemon juice.
 
Pop out the factory computer and pop in a standalone like an AEM or something. Problem solved.
 
cageymaru said:
Yes, we have been headed down this path for many years. By accepting what is fed to us instead of opening our eyes and observing what frauds are being perpetrated upon us, we've allowed this reality to come to fruition. We can't change it because it is widely known by everyone that average people are just damn dumb sheep. All they need is a catch word or jingle to satisfy them.

DMCA should be scrapped and rewritten.
Click to expand...


People are dumb sheep. Just because something is used to go after certain media buzzwords:
Terrorism, Child Porn, Piracy, etc..

That just means its only a matter of time until it goes affects EVERYONE in some form or another. This will continue to happen when our laws are written with the best influence money can buy. I mean think about it, how many laws passed by congress, or legislation, have actually been written by members of congress and NOT lobbyists or their interns who end up working for lobbying firms down the road? Its a damned small percentage. Just like most americans want to fuck off at work and not do anything, the people we elect dont want to do shit either. Its cost effective for them to have a lobbyist write the proposal while they get a good tug down the road at the local whore house before going home to their wife and kids.
 
NeghVar said:
They may brand it as copyright, but it is not about copyright. It is about ruining the 3rd party market and forcing customers to seek parts, repair and maintenance at the dealerships for higher prices. Basically they are trying to monopolize the market.
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It's more about environmental laws and other regulations.

They CAN"T let you make any modifications that might affect the amount of emissions from the tail pipe.

They can't allow you to modifying dash board displays, because any changes have to be approved by some government regulator.

You wonder why so many cars look the same? Just look at the thousands of pages of regulations covering air bags, crash tests, placement of displays, bumper height, mirrors, etc.
 
You can't claim copyright on property someone physically owns. A person modifying a personal car can be in no way violation of copyright. At best 3rd parties sellings such things could be a violation but doubt it, i'll care when a car manufacture sues, just cause.
 
nutzo said:
It's more about environmental laws and other regulations.

They CAN"T let you make any modifications that might affect the amount of emissions from the tail pipe.
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That's on the owner, not the manufacturer. You can also pass emissions testing with a modified vehicle.
 
deathmobile.jpg


Quite possibly the best car modification ever...
That never would have happened if all these ass sucking lawyers had their way....:D
 
So gut the board and build your own SFF computer in the truck and control module in the dash. The lag on coax or CAT5e/6 would not even effect breaking in the length of a car. It would void your warranty and make it nightmare for garage's to work on your car's electrical systems with the standard training they have, but they could still work on the rest and leave the computer parts to you. The major thing is for some warning for the electrical stuff to let emergency personnel know where it safe to cut without frying themselves or you.

Plus the components would not be cheapest parts possible but cherry picked parts to best the efficiency and performance out of your car. Kinda what custom ECU's do for street racing... and you would get normal interfaces that computers use, your music and movies all wired directly into your speakers using the components you want. I use Lepai parts in my home theater so I know that computer parts can go the other way. I'm thinking gut all the electrical parts from the alternator out. Here is a start point. If you don't know electronics get someone else to do it.

Run a line from the Alternator to small breaker box, with trip switches. From the break box from a 40 amp line to your small form factor power supply. I'd suggest at least 12 watts since the mechanical parts will draw off it.

Create an enclosure bolted to the metal frame of the car with lag bolts so that if it is going to rip free it will only do so if everything else is toast. Note you want two different computers one with a rack of sound cards and one to run everything.

The sound cards will send sound over wire directly from the output of sound to the control module. The sound will be seen by the module as electricity on or off, and how much wattage. So that you need something to open or close and it needs a constant on signal you send a flat tone until it is done. This is basically your DC signal. So parts will need a ground, simply wrap bare wire to the power supply which is grounded to the frame.

Run speaker wire to the speakers in your car or optical to an amp and then speaker wire to the speakers. depends on the setup. The subs in cars are usually better but the shield computer speakers may be a better replacement for your in door and smaller speakers...

You should be able to mod a touch screen interface or buy one of the car ones that works as a normal video screen. Run this wire through some place safe where incidental damage does not take out your info mid drive. In theory you could mode the whole dash with all kinds of fun stuff just remember the air bags blowing up in your face can kill you so have some one trained take them out before you work on it, and replaced them before you drive somewhere. No air bags can get you a ticket in some states.

Fun stuff.
 
nutzo said:
It's more about environmental laws and other regulations.

They CAN"T let you make any modifications that might affect the amount of emissions from the tail pipe.

They can't allow you to modifying dash board displays, because any changes have to be approved by some government regulator.

You wonder why so many cars look the same? Just look at the thousands of pages of regulations covering air bags, crash tests, placement of displays, bumper height, mirrors, etc.
Click to expand...
Live in an area/state that has no mandatory inspections, like Florida ;).
 
Sheppard said:
Pop out the factory computer and pop in a standalone like an AEM or something. Problem solved.
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You would loose OBD compliance with that on any car made 1996 or later. Which means not being able to legally drive it on any public road. That's a big issue for most people.

The aftermarket ECU companies will not implement OBD functionality because it is impossible from a practicality point of view due to the nature of modded cars being unique.

The only way to get around this is modify the stock ECU which allows you to change parameters while still implementing the original OBD functionality.

However to do that you have to break into the encryption. The encryption could be extremely easy, but the very fact that it was there means you violated the DMCA.

You then get into very gray areas where for example I can turn off individual emissions test in my ECU, such as no catalyst check or no purge/evap check. This is a gross violation of EPA laws. Who is responsible? The person who made the code to do that or the person who enabled it on that particular car?

I pass OBD inspection every year and my car has tests missing on the OBD scanner. The techs are only looking for pass/fails....not actually counting how many checks are there.
 
Armenius said:
Live in an area/state that has no mandatory inspections, like Florida ;).
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The article is about "what-ifs" and technicalities. Altering the emissions of your car is still illegal from an EPA point of view. Even something as mundane as impacting the gas mileage rating.

Hell from that perspective it might be illegal to put wider softer tires on a car that came with high efficiency tire (hard rubber, narrow profile).
 
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