SRT Hellcat Forum banner
  • Hey Everyone! Vote for the Site Favourite HOTM winner for the year of 2022 HERE!

Our cars are meant to be 'licensed' to us...not owned.

2380 Views 12 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  hellcat1
I just read a couple of articles outlining a desire by the Automakers Alliance to have our vehicles fall under the restrictions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That is, the automakers wish to make it illegal for us to work on/repair/modify our own cars...with emphasis on the ECU code. While this thought is not a law, it has been presented to the 2015 US Copyright Rulemaking proceeding.

Effectively, if allowed to pass as law, the vehicle we purchase will come a with a EULA for the software (directly, or inferred), and any actions that may effect the software as an input to it (think: changing tire size) will be restricted by DMCA.

I refrain from posting urls/links due to not finding specific language granting me permission to link to any of the URLs I found the info at. However, this is an effective search string with most browsers: DMCA automobile 2015
1 - 1 of 13 Posts
I read that article as well. It's a bunch of nonesense.... That will never fly. Kinda sounds like the old group that was named the Association of Licensed Automotive Manufacturers (ALAM) that sued Henry Ford as the patent owner of the "automobile" back in the early 1900's. Just because they held the patent on anything catagorized as motorized vehicles. Ford sued and won...

This has profit and monopoly all over it. I am sure that the stipulation is that "Only Authourized Dealer Network" can work on these vehicles. I don't think this has a chance in any court of law, even if it made it that far. At the rate that FCA is going, they will put their dealer network out of business or force them to seek alternative means to make a profit, as they just raised their wholesale pricing on their vehicle invoicing.
1 - 1 of 13 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top