Hoist your wrenches into the air, folks. As of today, October 28, you can now hack, repair, and conduct security research on your own car—or tractor!—without risking jail time for copyright infringement.
If you’re wondering what car repair has to do with copyright law—believe me, you’re not the only one. People have been repairing, modifying, and tinkering with cars ever since we left horses in the dust. But cars have changed a lot since Henry Ford rolled the first Model Ts off the assembly lines just over 100 years ago. Cars aren’t just pistons and pumps anymore—they are giant computers on wheels. And the software that tells those computers what to do is (you guessed it) copyrighted.
Thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, manufacturers can potentially sue you for fiddling with their copyrighted programming. Even if you just want to fix your car or tractor. Even if you just want to check your 2014 Jeep Cherokee for security vulnerabilities—on the off-chance that hackers could commandeer its operations. Because, it turns out, they can.
Last year, automotive cybersecurity researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely hacked and disabled a Wired reporter’s Jeep while he was driving on the highway (don’t panic: the reporter was a willing and unharmed participant). Miller and Valasek’s work prompted Chrysler to issue a massive security update. Technically, Miller and Valasek’s experiment could have violated the DMCA—and Chrysler could have prosecuted the digital do-gooders.
Obviously, most researchers wouldn’t risk hacking cars if it could put them in jail. And that’s troubling. We need more security researchers, not less of them. Especially in an age when manufacturers are hooking up absolutely everything (thanks, IoT) to the Internet and carmakers are teaching their vehicles to cheat emissions tests.
And the DMCA stifles more than security research. Last year, John Deere claimed that farmers didn’t own the software in their own tractors. As such, Deere argued that farmers were not allowed to access the programming to repair the tractors themselves. Naturally, that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Including us.
iFixit, Repair.org, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (and many others!) fought for nearly a year to have repair and security research (activities that have nothing to do with copyright) exempted from Copyright law. The US Copyright Office agreed.
Exactly one year ago, the Copyright Office granted a host of exemptions—including three-year exemptions for repairing, modifying, and conducting security research on your own vehicle. Unfortunately, the Copyright Office also decided that the vehicle exemptions wouldn’t go into effect until 12 months after the initial ruling. Which is today.
Yeah we know, the year of waiting cut into those three years of freedom—but that’s bureaucracy for you. The upside: For the next two years, you’re legally entitled to fix your tractor and tinker around under the hood of your car—even if it requires access to the car’s programming. The downside: In 2018, advocates will have to ask for permission to repair their cars again—a daunting process that costs a massive amount of time, effort, and legal fees.
But we’re trying to change that. Yesterday, iFixit and Repair.org submitted comments to the Copyright Office in support of carving out a permanent exemption for all repair and security research—for cars and everything else. Hopefully, fixing your tractor or hunting for security vulnerabilities in your car won’t be a jailable offence ever again.
If you want to help make the world safe for repair, join Repair.org—they’re on the front lines every day, fighting for your right to fix everything you own.
Glad to see forward progress. I would like to remind the corporations that I don’t dictate what they do with my cash once I give it to them. Just as I don’t expect them to dictate what I do with my good, which I exchanged my money for. Please keep pushing to extend this to personal electronic computing devices.
This is a good one, keep it up
I live in an area where most of the farmers use John Deere tractors. If the CEO of john deere has already claimed that a user of their tractor only has rights to use it, rather than initially “owning” the tractor, does this still apply? Basically I am asking if a person signed off on a document saying they dont actually own the tractor, does this change anything? Do you have to be an “owner” legally or can you also be someone who is “granted the right to use in perpetuity the tractor” as it says on the John Deere copyright/patent paperwork to be able to edit digital files? Did John Deere get in under the wire with initially claiming they have NEVER granted ownership rights?
We need “hacks” as such for older OBD1 @ 2 vehicles just to make sure our older classics can remain roadworthy, economic or powerful as they can be
I’d like to get the schematics for GoPro Camera s so it would be easier to trouble shoot issues …………….
Thank you for this information. It would have been irritating to think that we could spend our hard-earned money and buy a car yet face penalties for working on our own car or tractor. If manufacturers want to give me a car or tractor at no cost then I would say they have a right to keep us from working on it. Until then, “I will not buy it if I cannot work on it!”
So if John Deere “owns” the Tractor does that mean they can be held liable for any malfunction of the software that causes injury or property damage? If a software glitch results in a crop failure can the user of the equipment (farmer) sue the owner (John Deere)?
I know this is a case of David versus Goliath but I would like to see an industry organization back that fight. JD can’t have it both ways. They can’t claim ownership and then deny responsibility.
What if the software fails and the tractor is stranded in my field? If JD owns it then they should have to come pick it up and give me a new one. I am purchasing the right to use the tractor. If I don’t own it then I am not responsible for it either.
JD is opening a can of worms if they think that they can play the Equipment as a Service card and have it both ways. They own the tractor when it is convenient for them and don’t own it when it is not.
I hope this exemption is able to become permanent.
The DMCA Act only applies if you were to work on the actual programming inside of the chips in the “computer” in the car. Most DIYers don’t mess with the computer components (except to replace them)- just the mechanical parts, which thankfully ISN’T illegal. Most “software” for vehicles is embedded in ROM chips, which makes it very difficult to modify and change unless you know how to re-program the chip itself. (There are electronics engineers who can, I’m sure!).
I think the “ownership” problem can be solved very simply; let’s get rid of this “intellectual property” nonsense.
That is how these companies are claiming that they still own everything after they’ve sold it & that the buyer who bought it doesn’t own anything that they bought. They say “it’s our intellectual property” in other words “it’s our idea & so we own it forever in our imaginations”.
Perhaps they can claim ownership of the patent, even proprietary manufacturing rights, but to say that if I buy their product, if I exchange my money for their item, that I don’t/can’t be the “owner” of it…that’s patently outrageous!
It’s absolutely ridiculous that something as simple & fundamental as ownership of property (physical property at that) is being threatened by these companies and their obscene greed.
Any type of lawsuit where a company claims that an item bought and fully paid for by a consumer is still “owned” by said company after the sale is finalized, should be thrown out of court by any & every judge it’s brought before.
This is a crazy situation, what’s going to happen if (when) driverless cars become the norm? Are we all going to be transported around by vehicles, controlled by software that we aren’t allowed to touch? The way I see it, if I’ve bought and paid for the vehicle, then it’s mine to do whatever I want with. I also don’t see how a copyright law of this nature could be successfully enforced. Are they going to go around plugging laptops into people’s cars? It’s a crazy world!
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