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Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles.
In comments filed with a federal agency that will determine whether tinkering with a car constitutes a copyright violation, OEMs and their main lobbying organization say cars have become too complex and dangerous for consumers and third parties to handle.
Allowing them to continue to fix their cars has become “legally problematic,” according to a written statement from the Auto Alliance, the main lobbying arm of automakers.
The dispute arises from a section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that no one thought could apply to vehicles when it was signed into law in 1998. But now, in an era where cars are rolling computing platforms, the U.S. Copyright Office is examining….
More in the link
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/automakers-gearheads-car-repairs/
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This kind of stuff will never happen because it’s impossible to enforce.
We had one a couple of years ago saying they wanted to make it an MOT fail (state inspection) if the vehicle was modified in anyway from when it came from the factory.
That being said I think independent shops are going to struggle in the future the special tooling costs for cars is just getting more and more extreme profit margins are all cut to the bone.
From what I’ve gathered, its mostly about the software in a vehicle.
However, with everything needing to be reprogrammed or relearned after replacement, that could potentially extend to other facets.I think this is more to do with ECU manipulation, and personally can see why the manufacture and Government would be in favor of denying access to “repairs/modifications”. Manipulating ECU settings could make cars fail state/federal emission standards in states that simply don’t enforce EPA emission, or increase power for which the chassis isn’t rated for leading to an unsafe vehicle being sold second hand, and here comes the class action law suits to the Detroit three. For example, all those lifted 4×4 pick up trucks in the south shooting black smoke are obviously committing felonies in the eyes of the EPA.
This may just be a debate on legal talk as I’m sure I read a similar article, though it was discussing the user interfaces used in info-tainment systems. I see nothing wrong with manufactures wanting to protect their intellectual property from modifications/repairs meaning “changes”.
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