Labor's Pitch to save Mechanic Industry

Maka · 16-05-2018, 07:05 PM

I'm sure this link about oem's attempting to protect their ip in the US has been posted on AFF in the past, nice background reading for this thread imo -

https://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/...s-car-repairs/

"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 whether provisions of the law that protect intellectual property should prohibit people from modifying and tuning their cars."

And for Mecury Bullet -

"Comments from equipment manufacturer John Deere took a more condescending tone toward independent and amateur mechanics, noting that circumventing protected technology should be "against public policy because individual vehicle owners do not have the technological resources to provide safe, reliable and lawful software for repair, diagnosis or some dubious 'aftermarket personalization, modification or other improvement' that is not directed toward repair or diagnosis of the vehicle."

And this from the op's link -

"The modern motor vehicle is basically just a computer on wheels," the association's executive director Stuart Charity said.

"Everyday simple things like changing a tyre ... checking the oil level and what have you is all now computerised and the car companies are controlling the computer gateway into and out of the vehicle and how you communicate with that vehicle and at the moment, they're shutting independent local mechanics out."

cheers, Maka