Lund Tuner calling a customer a Re*****?

[robvas]

So your argument is the first guy to rip off Ford is the one who has intellectual property rights to Fords work, and all the others are just whiners who are ripping off the first guy to bring it to market. Am I tracking this right?

It's definitely a grey area, right?

A company like Nintendo would sue you in two seconds if you modified their IP and tried to re-sell it. Why car companies don't do this, I don't know.

But on the other hand, let's say you make a replacement part for an engine. Whatever it may be. Fits perfectly and replaces whatever. You copied the exact dimensions etc.

What if someone comes in and makes a copy of your part, and resells it?

I mean, that's basically the entire Chinese automotive aftermarket supply chain. They copy existing parts, down to the logo at times (which we've seen happen with tunes).

They must either not have a legal leg to stand on, or can't 100% prove it, or it's just not worth the legal costs, or I'm sure people would get sued over copied/stolen tunes.

I think the back door is that you're selling a modification. You own your car, you have a device that can modify the ECU code, and I send you 'patches'. Nothing illegal about that. I'm willing to bet that tunes still contain Ford data, which could be a copyright violation, but there's nothing inherently illegal about modifying your own stuff.

This gets into the whole right to repair blah blah. And you could probably bring in the DMCA for circumventing copyright protection etc

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[K4fxd]

This a stupid argument, becuase this could apply to basically every aftermarket part there is. "You're just putting a new air intake on a motor Ford designed and ripping off their work...", "Your custom cams are just using the same blanks Ford uses..."

If you get rid of the torque management and some other crap all tuners are doing today vs yesterday is using software and a computer to do the same thing we did with springs, air bleeds boosters jets and squirters.

The requirements for the engine to run have not changed, the way we control those things has.

Ford does have patents on the tuning logic. Could Ford require every tuner to buy a license? S650 says yes.

 

[Oakley]

It's definitely a grey area, right?

A company like Nintendo would sue you in two seconds if you modified their IP and tried to re-sell it. Why car companies don't do this, I don't know.

But on the other hand, let's say you make a replacement part for an engine. Whatever it may be. Fits perfectly and replaces whatever. You copied the exact dimensions etc.

What if someone comes in and makes a copy of your part, and resells it?

I mean, that's basically the entire Chinese automotive aftermarket supply chain. They copy existing parts, down to the logo at times (which we've seen happen with tunes).

They must either not have a legal leg to stand on, or can't 100% prove it, or it's just not worth the legal costs, or I'm sure people would get sued over copied/stolen tunes.

I think the back door is that you're selling a modification. You own your car, you have a device that can modify the ECU code, and I send you 'patches'. Nothing illegal about that. I'm willing to bet that tunes still contain Ford data, which could be a copyright violation, but there's nothing inherently illegal about modifying your own stuff.

This gets into the whole right to repair blah blah. And you could probably bring in the DMCA for circumventing copyright protection etc

that's not the way copyright works. copyrights enable a person to sue for someone taking something someone created and SELLING it AS IF they are the CREATOR of said thing.

taking a thing someone made, tweaking it significantly, and reselling it is not copyright infringement because you are A. not presenting it as if you are the creator and B. are modifying it.

 

[junits15]

It's definitely a grey area, right?

A company like Nintendo would sue you in two seconds if you modified their IP and tried to re-sell it. Why car companies don't do this, I don't know.

But on the other hand, let's say you make a replacement part for an engine. Whatever it may be. Fits perfectly and replaces whatever. You copied the exact dimensions etc.

What if someone comes in and makes a copy of your part, and resells it?

I mean, that's basically the entire Chinese automotive aftermarket supply chain. They copy existing parts, down to the logo at times (which we've seen happen with tunes).

They must either not have a legal leg to stand on, or can't 100% prove it, or it's just not worth the legal costs, or I'm sure people would get sued over copied/stolen tunes.

I think the back door is that you're selling a modification. You own your car, you have a device that can modify the ECU code, and I send you 'patches'. Nothing illegal about that. I'm willing to bet that tunes still contain Ford data, which could be a copyright violation, but there's nothing inherently illegal about modifying your own stuff.

This gets into the whole right to repair blah blah. And you could probably bring in the DMCA for circumventing copyright protection etc

I think the loophole is that they aren't selling you fords software so much as you are paying them to modify your car. You send a stock tune, they apply modifications to it, send it back.

I don't think that's how it works here because I've never bought a tune for my mustang, I assume they just send you a file and you start from there never involving your factory flash.

But you aren't wrong, this precedent has existed before and caused some interesting debate.

I think it would be in the late 00's when jailbreaking was new and catching on Apple spent considerable money and time trying to argue that jailbroken software was modifying Apple's proprietary code and was as a result against their terms of use and also illegal under copyright law. However the court didn't rule in Apples favor, and instead argued that people have a right to run whatever software they want on their devices.

I think the difference between the nintendo rom issue and this is that tunign companies are selling modifications, where nintendo argues that sharing roms are directly ripping off their IP.

It seems like a grey area though, you buy the car so its your car, its your PCM but not your software? Or maybe you own that copy of the software and are free to modify and hack it how you please (or pay to have that done) but can't sell it as your own? I think the latter is the current understanding, that once you sell the customer a PCM with a flash on it, Ford no longer owns that copy of the software and can't stop you from messing with it.

Theres also the aspect of optics here, how would ford look if they started suing people over this? A car that has been at the center of the american aftermarket performance scene nearly since its inception suddenly becoming completely unmodifiable? How many people would switch to more open platforms? I would imagine quite a few. There are also a non-insignificant number of buyers who like knowing about the potential of their car. They like knowing that "with just a Whipple and a tune i can gave 650hp".

These are just my thoughts though

 

[K4fxd]

A car that has been at the center of the american aftermarket performance scene nearly since its inception suddenly becoming completely unmodifiable?

This is what is happening. S650 can only be modified by a company that obtains a license from Ford. This modifications this license grants cannot defeat ANY EPA regulations. So basically whatever mods you do need to meet 48 state compliance. Might soon move to CARB compliance.

I think this is being driven by the EPA more than Ford. I think Ford likes seeing Mustang winning in all forms of motorsport.

 

[Bob Lob Law]

The locked PCU is only new to Ford. GM has been locked for a while now(they've been cracked). It will become tuneable eventually as someone will crack it I believe.

 

[K4fxd]

The locked PCU is only new to Ford. GM has been locked for a while now(they've been cracked). It will become tuneable eventually as someone will crack it I believe.

The problem as I see it is it's calling home to Ford. OTA flash. Without the licensed tune file Ford could flash it back to stock. I suppose if you disabled the WIFI or SAT comms but that might open other problems.

Only way to stop this is to reign in the EPA.

 

[junits15]

The problem as I see it is it's calling home to Ford. OTA flash. Without the licensed tune file Ford could flash it back to stock. I suppose if you disabled the WIFI or SAT comms but that might open other problems.

Only way to stop this is to reign in the EPA.

I wouldn't worry about that specific issue, that isn't even forced on computers or phones it would be very odd to see updates pushed without any form of user agreement.

Typically things like this are structured such that if you are running hacked software, the latest update will just wipe it out and bring you back to stock. Then you'd have to re-apply all your cracks and such.

 

[K4fxd]

Typically things like this are structured such that if you are running hacked software, the latest update will just wipe it out and bring you back to stock. Then you'd have to re-apply all your cracks and such.

This is what I was saying. If you are at lunch come out to your Whippled or twin turboed car and it now has a stock tune.......and your flasher is at home.....

Maybe disabling the Comms disables things like adaptive cruise, maps, sync.... Who knows.

Anyway, things to think about.

 

[K4fxd]

Thinking about this a bit more what do you do if Ford patches the crack that allowed your tuner to hack your car? Not drive it for 6 months while they find another way in? Return to stock?

 

[junits15]

Thinking about this a bit more what do you do if Ford patches the crack that allowed your tuner to hack your car? Not drive it for 6 months while they find another way in? Return to stock?

You don’t update the software until a viable workaround has been found. Or truth be told, you never upgrade unless there’s a good reason.

 

[K4fxd]

You don’t update the software until a viable workaround has been found. Or truth be told, you never upgrade unless there’s a good reason.

From what I understand the updates from Ford are automatic and forced.

 

[Angrey]

that's not the way copyright works. copyrights enable a person to sue for someone taking something someone created and SELLING it AS IF they are the CREATOR of said thing.

taking a thing someone made, tweaking it significantly, and reselling it is not copyright infringement because you are A. not presenting it as if you are the creator and B. are modifying it.

It wouldn't be a copyright anyway.

The locked PCU is only new to Ford. GM has been locked for a while now(they've been cracked). It will become tuneable eventually as someone will crack it I believe.

Cracked can be a nefarious term. It's not cracked the way that we're accustomed to living it. You can send your PCM off to be modified (permanently) and then install it back to your car. You can't return it back to stock.

Furthermore, while they "cracked" the PCM, they still have yet to fully "crack" the TCM and there's all sorts of piggy back/workarounds to try to get the transmission tuning to support a bunch of extra power and torque and it works partially, but still an issue.

Dodge has the same probz. Send your pcm off and permanently unlock it, but it's not an insignificant cost and it's largely permanent. Even if you buy another stock PCM, it's both A) easily recognizable it's a different PCM and B) as we've seen with Fords, swapping to a new PCM can be problematic, even when it's necessary and not voluntary (like your PCM has gremlins or takes a shit) sometimes it goes without issue, sometimes it's nothing but problems.

I'm told that the deeper you go into "Ford" at some point they can recognize that you've tuned the car, but at most dealer levels they can't tell you've tuned it other than to run the ignition cycles or observe things like a brand new filter/intake tube, etc.

At any rate, no one can argue that the S550 was the last of an era where we could simply modify the OE calibration with all sorts of flexibility and economical costs to do so. No spending thousands of dollars and waiting 3 weeks to send your PCM off, just buy a flash device, upload the tune, revise and away you go.

 

[Angrey]

From what I understand the updates from Ford are automatic and forced.

Exactly. This ain't 2012. I got away with not running updates on my last phone for almost 4 years. Now, they have shit that won't allow you to skip updates indefinitely. Not only does it never stop bothering you about it, at some point the device stops working until you run the updates.

 

[WildHorse]

From what I understand the updates from Ford are automatic and forced.

100 % correct.

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