Mod away fellow enthusiasts!

Recently OEMs have been trying to use copyright law to make it illegal for vehicle owners to modify the software of cars they'd purchased. Today, the US Copyright office determined that this software was not covered by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and that vehicle owners (the aftermarket) are free to make changes as they see fit.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/27/copyright-dmca-gearheads-can-repair-modify-cars/

There's probably too much money at stake here for this to be the end of it, but it's a positive step for gearheads, as well as the aftermarket.

I like it

Farmers with John Deere tractor are probably re-enacting the Ewok celebration scene right now

I still can't see the reason OEM would want this. It's not like they are going to mod my 30 year old ECU for my 22re when I turbo it. So why? I understand when the vehicle is under warranty. But when out, who gives a flying hoot?

Also, even if they outlawed this, people like us would still do it., Just not talk about it. Kinda like torrenting music...

In reply to Trackmouse:

My guess is to look at Tesla's self driving mode. Some owner decides to modify the software and the car starts running over nuns and puppies then Tesla gets sued. I doubt they really care about changing the fuel curves and spark advances.

Between this and the Skyactive-R Rotary it's a good day!!!

In reply to GTwannaB:

And to that point, in our society that is so quick to sue and even quicker to pass ill-informed social media judgement, I can't say that I can really blame them either.

BTW this means it's also no longer illegal to test the security of your own devices (when those devices are cars). This could prevent another Jeep Cherokee-type trivial remote exploit from going unnoticed and make another VW emissions cheat much harder to pull off.

I'm a little curious how they thought that outlawing zero day exploits would cause zero day exploits to cease existing. All it would do is prevent white hat or gray hat security researchers from making flaws known. Legislation written by the lowest common denominator.

bgkast wrote: Between this and the Skyactive-R Rotary it's a good day!!!

I know this is a thread jacking, but how can they make the rotary "skyactiv" isn't that just really high compression and premium fuel? Unless they are building the new rotary to run crazy high compression.

I think Skyactiv (no E, oops) means basically "light and efficient", which can include but is not limited to high compression DI engines.

WooHoo! Can't take car rights away from Americans! This gives me hope that we will always be allowed to drive our own cars on normal roads.

It's a name, just like JEEP'S Trail rated.