KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Even though fixing up your own car or tweaking it for added performance is a little more complicated today than it might have been a few decades ago, it's still a popular hobby; especially if you factor in the use of aftermarket garages. However a collection of car-makers want to make that illegal in the US going forward, by utilising DMCA law. They argue that as cars become more connected, it would be easy for people to pirate music through modified infotainment software, so tweaking anything electrical should be illegal.
This sort of block on changes to a vehicle would only be possible if legally, people didn't really own their cars, but that's exactly what many major car-makers are arguing. They also suggest that allowing people to modify their own vehicles presents a danger to the public. The same goes for repairs too, the various companies want to make it so that only approved repair shops are allowed to fix certain aspects of your car.
‘Wo there buddy. Were you just about to breach copyright?'
For those wondering who to name and shame in this instance, it's a surprisingly long list, according to Yahoo:
- General Motors Company
- BMW Group
- FCA US LLC
- Ford Motor Company
- Jaguar Land Rover
- John Deere
- Mazda
- Mercedes-Benz USA
- Mitsubishi Motors
- Porsche
- Toyota
- Volkswagen Group of America
- Volvo Cars North America
All of them, in some way or form, are pushing for legislative changes that prevent car owners from even looking at the code that runs on their cars.
Fortunately then the Electronic Frontier Foundation is hoping to halt this sort of legislation moving forward and reverse any measures already implemented. Citing a number of instances where the DMCA law over complicates or oversteps its mark, it's petitioned the Copyright Office to undo the collateral damage of these changes and hopes that it will once and for all pass all responsibility for regulating the auto-industry onto the relevant regulatory bodies, rather than allowing car makers to lobby for more control of the industry.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Fortunately this only appears to be ongoing in the US at the moment, but you can bet that if it catches on, those same companies will try it again in other countries too.
Well, I know what Companies to never support if this passes.
Yeah…pretty much every vehicle manufacturer that exists…with the rest to follow (hopefully not).
This is a joke, I bought a brand new car from BMW and it was set up all wrong, had to have done myself at extra cost. You can’t rely on dealerships to give you a car that’s properly set up or to properly sort out any of your problems. It would be like not being able to go elsewhere for a second opinion. It means they could charge what they wanted to fix your car and you wouldn’t be able to challenge it. Redinky donk!
The cars are set up for daily life. If you want to drift however, you have to pull out your wallet :p
I guess just get a KIA for your budget car, and an AUDI for your luxury car. Problem solved.
I’m afraid you’re out of luck with Audi, they’re owned by Volkswagen. Can’t think of many brands that aren’t owned by one of the companies in the list above.
Though KIA seem to be moving into the upper market.
Glad Telsa isn’t on that list 🙂 It’s the only car I’d really want to own.
Mwuha-ha-ha-ha… pirated music and stuff as an argument in this case… what a bunch of joksters here!
John Deere? They make tractors not cars, who the hell modifies their tractor? And what with? Neons? NOS? 😛
As a car enthusiast, all I can say is WHAT THE HELL….
Before they start legislating about new cars because they mught be unsafe, maybe they should start clearing up the roads of old death traps that some parts of the US allow…
Pirating music is laughably easy when you do it on a PC, why would anyone do it in their car? Such BS…
Not necessarily, it isn’t uncommon for new cars to have tracking that is all over the place, sometimes not even balanced from one side of the car to the other!
Yes I know that, I don’t want to drift my car lol. The car was set up wrong from the factory. I had to have the wheel alignment, camber, toe etc all revised. For example, the back right wheel was over 1 degree out on it’s own, the camber on three of the wheels were wrong. The machinery that the alignment place uses sets the cars up to the specifications the factory are supposed to set and they were all out by quite a large margin. If I wanted to drift I certainly wouldn’t be using my daily driver haha
Tesla, Honda, Hyundai, Kia not on that list. Glad I own a Honda!
what about peugeot and fiat?
I might be inclined to accept it, if we didn’t pay in thousands for the car
do they really plan to argue people don’t own their cars? Soon people won’t own their clothes, furniture, houses.
FCA = Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
Huh. Peugeot and Citroen appear to be a merged company but otherwise not on the above list.
Take a trip to Youtube and type in “modified tractor”. I wasn’t expecting what I saw and I doubt you will either.
Yeah but the million dollar question is, “would you download a car if you could?”
When you think in 10 or so years time normal cars might have all but died out in favour of self driving cars this actually makes sense.
Good luck with that,i do whatever i want with my car you guys have nothing to do with it, since i already paid for it!
yeah saw this one a while ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2FsricRm7g lols.
WTF
Mitsubishi Motors ??
Without any modifications Mitsubishi lancer is like a nude baby 😛
♡♡♡♡I RECEIVED FIRST DRAFT OF $13000!@ak29:
,,,,
➨➨➨➨http://MediaMacTech.com/Service/Easyway….
Most approved shops don’t know how to change a fucking tire and take a year to do so , Not allowing you to work on something you own = something that you would see in a fascist/communist country. You own it they shouldn’t have no say in the matter period ,This is what happens when you’re getting more electronics and crap into cars , vehicles ran better when they didn’t have all these computer shit in them and broke down way less, but break downs make money so need more of that, parts need to be replaced brand new now, you can’t swap out parts as easy , it’s what the companies want, buy a car, and spend your entire life fixing it buying the parts off them.
ya letting computers run things, pffff ummm no, Bugs, freezes , hacks, and whatever else , say good bye to your life, it’s like how the gas pedal now in some cars , go from computer to the gas flow to increase speed or whatever and if that computer freezes or gets hacked there’s no way in hell to stop the car since , you can’t turn the key off due to new fancy safety feature , can’t change the gears to toss in neutral to burn out the accelerator , so much simpler when we never had all this computer shit in cars and safer.
Rather drive an old death trap then a new car with all the computer shit that you can’t tell or know when it’s going to fail , Old cars you could tell what was wrong by sounds and feel not no more tho.
Well studies show otherwise, humans are far more prone to error than a well-designed computer system. I think when lives are concerned and companies making the components could be liable for extremely damaging lawsuits if anything went wrong, self-driving cars are likely to be made as safe as houses. And the point is, if a user could modify their self-driving car then it compromises this safety.
Audi is made by Porsche
I own a small/medium car/truck custom business in upstate NY and know for a fact this has nothing to do with anything beneficial for the consumer. The first thing I do when buying cars is to rip every factory electronics from it (generally the cheapest stuff they can get away with and spyware).
This push is essentially about two things:
– Making the consumer spend fortunes on dealerships (this is where car companies make most of their profit). But, above all:
– Total control over your driving and a future “pay-for-mile”/GPS tracking/”Blackbox” system similar to the one mandatory for long distance transport trucks.
Like all totalitarian pushes of the recent past, it comes as a seemingly innocent step with the usual “nanny-state” excuse of protecting the consumer from him/herself…
Any survivalist (believe in them or not) will tell you what the electronics in your car actually do and how they are a menace to anyone living in remote areas (or who doesn’t want to be tracked nor driving a “kill-switch” around)… Which is why most military vehicles avoid any electronics in their engines. Electronic consoles which control the engine behavior can only be worked on using electronic equipment (computers with specified manufacturer programs)… Have some issue in a remote area? Tough luck, you can walk all the way home ’cause you are not able to apply quick-fixes on the fly.
Car manufacturers (most bleeding money) want you exclusively dependent on them. Governments want to tax and fine you for any and every small mistake/infraction/transgression. We call that the perfect storm.
Cheers.
It’s funny to see how much you fear computers because you don’t understand them. Tell me, how do you hack a computer if you can’t access it?
Cars are safer now then ever. Cars are more efficient now then ever. Cars are more powerful, faster, quicker, than ever. Just because you don’t understand electronics doesn’t mean they’re bad.
Porsche and Volkswagen relationship is complicated. Porsche designed the Volkswagen Beetle. In fact as of the end of 2013 Posche SE controls 50.76% of Volkswagen AG which in turn controls brands and companies such as Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Škoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche AG, Ducati, VW Commercial Vehicles, Scania, MAN, as well as Volkswagen Financial Services.
One could argue that Porsche and Volkswagen are the same company now…
(Wiki Source)
My buddy can hack into those cars remotely easy , so ya i doubt he’s the only one that can do it. But he don’t do it since that’s immoral.
Humans are more prone to error than a computer system? HMmm how are computers made? By humans hmmm better re-read what you said lol. All i know is more computers more chances for shit to go wrong and that’s a fact. Some houses burn down and most houses are made so fast they fail inspections half the time, but they get put into the public any ways, just like these new cars. Also one things computers can’t do it’s feel emotion and react on that. So a self-driving car has no problem running over little Jimmy at full speed and keep on going.
Right… Sure he can. But I mean, even if he can, the only thing you’d have to change is its wireless ability. Take that out and leave everything else in, and your biggest fear is even more unsubstantiated than it currently is. Because, like I said, if you can’t access a computer, you can’t hack it. It’s not magic.
What makes you think computers need emotion to stop from running someone over? I mean, unless you really think a computer will also drive the car into a wall, but with your ignorance about computers, you probably do.
< col Hiiiiiii Friends….'my friend's mom makes $88 every hour on the internet . She has been unemployed for eight months but last month her payment was $13904 just working on the internet for a few hours.
try this site HERE’S MORE DETAIL
????????df
2006 Toyota Yaris for sale 55500 miles, 8 months tax and MOT, best offer + £200 to transfer license to drive
With this piece of news, I definitely would
I completely agree with you there, I’m more interested in older than 1995 (pref the 80’s)
However some cars on the road in the US really ARE death traps. Rusted holes, no seat belts, poorly maintained and from what I know, there isn’t an MOT equivilent in the US (an MOT basically checks that the car is road worthy and is a legal requirement in the UK that it passses every year).
No shit humans made computers. Poor argument: who do you think can perform complex calculations faster, you or your computer? Oh but humans made computers so of course a human could calculate the square root of 34594859453434545 faster than a computer. As your username says – “ROFLMAO”.
As I said before, the studies are there.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520746/data-shows-googles-robot-cars-are-smoother-safer-drivers-than-you-or-i/
As for emotions you actually have somewhat of a point, i’ll give you that – although the scenario with little Jimmy isn’t likely to happen due to the sensors, cameras and safety features built in a more likely scenario is one where the computer is presented with a series of outcomes in a circumstance where it has to choose which life to place in danger; e.g the driver, the kid, or the adult. This is something which will have to be decided and agreed upon by the manufacturers.
This is a joke, especially with more and more manufacturers offering mobile hotspots in their automobiles. Who the hell wants to go through the trouble of this when all you need is a laptop and an AC inverter? This OBVIOUSLY has an ulterior motive.
Fuck off asshole
Most of those are importers, not car makers.
but wifi and internet use in those cars will be a big thing and easy to hack then.
Anything is possible.
We’ll see i guess when most car owners get these new self driving cars we’ll see the stats later i guess , so see you in 10 or 20 years lol.
When I was a mechanic sometimes I had a hard time working round the bullshit the kids have added to their car, I remember I had to remove an entire bumper to replace an exhaust system instead of a 15 minute job it turned into a 2 hour job… So at least that won’t happen anymore. But I’m not a mechanic anymore either… lol
Then you should have taken it back to get fixed. That’s a manufacturing fault and is covered in your warrenty.
Meh, they are nice but Nissan are better to work on. Skyline > Lancer any day of the week.
nothing my 3d Printer can;t fix.lol