Automakers Lobby To Ban Tuning, Feds Dismiss Their Case – For Now

You have every reason to believe you own the car that sits in your driveway, don’t you? Think again: you might have paid for it, but its manufacturer believes some of its parts are still their own.

However absurd this may sound to you, The Washington Post reports automakers are trying hard to stop people who buy their vehicles from tampering with them. Obviously, we’re not talking about things that will void the warranty. They actually claim that it’s their intellectual property and you have no right to modify it.

Their argument is based on the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was passed to protect certain things, like music and movies, from being pirated and distributed on the web, causing substantial loss to their creators.

What do The Hunger Games or Kanye West have to do with your Chevy/BMW/Toyota/what-have-you? It’s called software; the thing that controls more and more functions that have to do with the car’s operation. They claim that, with modern cars being so complex, tampering with them should be prohibited by law.

The US Copyright Office every three years holds a session, in which they review possible exemptions from the DMCA. Automotive software was one of those the Office decided to remove from the list.

Not all of it, though. Telematics and infotainment systems are still included in the “can’t touch this” zone. What’s more, a bill saying “it shall be unlawful for any person to access, without authorization, an electronic control unit or critical system of a motor vehicle,” has already been introduced in the House of Representatives.

If it passes, it will cause a ruckus. Do they believe cars should be treated like songs downloaded through iTunes? Are they seriously trying to kill tuning? They must be out of their minds, yes?

Maybe there’s a catch. Take a look at the increasing personalization programs offered by manufacturers themselves. Then look at their massive presence at SEMA.

They are fully aware it’s very lucrative business, so why not keep it all for themselves? What say you, does this line of thinking make sense?