Tuesday, July 19, 2016

DMCA affecting physical stuff

"Victory! Carmakers Can't Use The DMCA To Make Working On Your Car Illegal

Possibly the most bizarre application of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act finally got the exemption us car enthusiasts have deserved.
Recently some automakers (with support from the EPA of all places) tried to argue that they own the code in your car, and messing with that code would violate their copyright."-source link

The DMCA(wikipedia link) is an abomination, the only thing it did right was the protection of online sites by limiting liability, iirc.
Now in the above article it says how an exemption was given for cars and how it will be rereviewed 3 years later again.   What sort of law opens the possibility that a person can't even fix their own car, the possibility of making fixing your own property illegal?  Needing exemptions to not make what are your RIGHTS, your RIGHTS over your own property something up to the whims of bureaucrats?

"As of right now, since farmers don’t enjoy the exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that gearheads managed to secure, it’s still illegal for a farmer to even attempt to diagnose an issue with their own tractor. That means even trying to check if a code a, say, John Deere 8235 R tractor is throwing means a huge issue or just a filter at the end of its cycle. "-link to source
Amazing, people not being allowed to fix their own property, saying they don't really own what they bought.  This is ridiculous nonsense, and is proof that those who voted for such legislation are not fit to legislate.   The world works by survival of the fittest, but human society exists in a bubble where the unfit guide the world.  Thankfully a temporary thing, the advent of a higher form of intelligence will once again ensure that the planet is governed by the fittest lifeforms.  

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