I believe the question being referred to is one that was raised in the other thread posted about whether if the stock tune and the means of altering is was tampering with intellectual property. I had inadvertently raised the issue in the other thread.

 

I see. If it was ( I think not) Mitsu would have forwarded a cease & desist letter with fancy legalese to the authors of the EcuFlash software. Mitsu could care less IMO, they want you to void the warranty.

 

The other half of the question is at what point would it be a new product anyway? Live mapping, speed density, map switching, knocklight, etc. is all new code. DSMlink is considered a standalone product (though it has firmware), so does what Tephra and JCSbanks done qualify as new? Least thats my question I suppose.

 

That is definitely a new product and those guys could have charged for access to those patches but would have to rely on a gentlemans rule for customers to not forward that code. Kinda like a tuner expects you to not share his tune...when its not really his property either. This is just my opinion of course

 

donour's point is very interesting to me, since I'm directly involved in the redistribution of stock ROMs (I have company, at least ).

My thoughts on it: I didn't sign a software licensing agreement when I bought my car, nor do I believe anyone else here did either. There was no fine print governing the software in the car in the purchase agreement. Because of that, and because such an agreement would actually be likely to run the automaker afoul of "right to repair" laws here in the U.S., we fall back to the governing document over the sale, the purchase agreement. Because it's a sale, not a license, right of first sale doctrine applies; you can resell it, take it apart, sell the parts, etc. It's yours. You own it. Do with it as you please; hacking on it is fine.

By the same token, we can talk about this stuff all we want here. The First Amendment (offer not available in all areas) guarantees our right to discuss whatever the hell we want, assuming we're not shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre, or inducing anyone to break the law.

Now, as to redistribution: copyright law probably applies here. I would be utterly shocked if Mitsubishi registered their code releases with the U.S. copyright office, however, which minimizes exposure quite a bit: Mitsubishi would have to demonstrate the financial loss caused to them by redistribution, and I'd expect the argument to be that MUT-III software update costs are a good place to start, but then you get into discussions separating the value of the ROM updates vs. the value of the tool itself. (Ask a Mitsu dealer how much the tool is worth to them, vs. how much those ROM updates are worth. ) Once you get through that, then you're in a position to talk about costs; there's no claim to be made for statutory damages, because they (probably) haven't registered the copyright. So, they gain almost nothing to stop a bunch of hobbyists from tuning their cars.

Then, we get into what I consider to be the most important point: most automakers just don't care. They live cheerfully with plenty of commercial companies (EcuTek, etc) doing for profit exactly what we're doing for free. I have yet to hear of any tuning company saying, "sorry guys, we're closing down because we got a C&D from Mitsubishi". (I actually think the Subaru guys are on shakier ground here, just because Subaru implemented a few half-baked technical measures to prevent ECU tampering; it indicates at least someone inside Fuji Heavy Industries cares about this.)

But, this is all mental masturbation. I have a good-faith belief that the hacking we're doing individually is just fine, per the purchase agreement we signed when we bought the car, and discussion of those hacks is a first-amendment issue. Redistribution of Mitsubishi's code is probably covered by copyright law, but it's really not worth the cost of enforcement, and which past history is no indication of future behavior, they've shown no interest in pursuing this legally with anyone that I've come in contact with.

To the point about EcuFlash: I think Colby is actually in pretty good shape, legally, regardless of what real lawyers might think about my above positions on the this. He doesn't redistribute anything other than software that interfaces with off-the-shelf Renesas (and other) CPUs via documented flash interfaces. They aren't redistributing anything, only providing a tool to work with your own hardware. The only one who might have any kind of beef with him would be Renesas, if (and only if) he used any of their code in the OpenECU flashing kernel. The only way I could see Mitsubishi pursuing him would be if they could demonstrate that Colby was actively inducing infringement, ala Grokster.

I am not a lawyer, and wouldn't even pretend to be one, and I only have a passing familiarity with U.S. law, not any other country. This isn't legal advice, and I'd urge anyone worried about it to consult their own attorney.

(Holy wall of text, batman. Sorry about that...)

 

DIE HIPPIE, DIE

I feel like I'm knee deep in petiole oil...

 

You do realize how almost unfathomably gray this area is right? I'm just providing a somewhat brief summary of my thoughts as an actual software developer myself.

Software is protected as works of literature under the Berne Convention, thus any software written is automatically covered by copyright. This allows the creator to prevent another entity from copying the program and there is generally no need to register code in order for it to be copyrighted.

However since it was already given away for free you can't exactly go back and say i was really meaning to copyright it. Provable by the forum release dates with no indication of payment or copyright.

So essentially it boils down to from now on MrFred and Tephra really could if they wanted to start a company or whatever and copyright their new code releases if they so choose and sue others for infringing on their code. I would wager saying that that the code involved would have to be an pretty exact copy unless the code could not be created by any other means provable in court for a lawsuit to stand against any other party. Not really the best situation to be in since it would be fairly simple to do something slightly different and be in the clear in these cases.

 

What issue is the thread pertaining to? The recent obma poster, AP photo thing? Real tangible property? Electronic media?

As far as I'm concerned with IP, as an engineer, is that if I design something that can be marketed, how do I keep some other person from stealing my idea? I think (somewhere in la-la land) that IP protects those backyard inventors and gives them the ability and motivation for innovation. I'd like to think that without IP noone would feel like making anything new because there was no incentive to do so...who really knows tho, I sure don't.

 

RoadSpike, I am not worried about them suddenly deciding that we are all using a copyrighted product and they want us to quit. My whole thought was vs what Mitsu originally released, when is it no longer "theirs". I think thats what I am trying to say anyway

 

Aaron...if you aren't careful you are going to start having nightmares about this instead of wet dreams about strippers

 

LOL...good point and I sure as hell dont want that to happen.

 

You bring me to a good question as well. Seeing as how most of us are in agreement that the tune belongs to the end user, how do you (everyone participating in this discussion,, not just you) feel about tuners locking their tune? Should they be allowed to do this if not specifically requested to do so by the end user?

 

I feel the locking of the tune thing is stupid

1. There are easy ways to unlock them anyway
2. One tune does not fit all. So one would be stupid to flash a tune from someone elses car into there own. Even a car with the same mods may respond different to boost, timing, and fuel adjustments

 

Wow well this has taken off . I guess I'll start off with a statement

Why is this thread here?

It seems every couple of months (average 6-8 Months so no thebluesky your comment didn't really have much to do with this ) since the ECUFlash forum has been around there have been questions as to Intellectual Property (IP), who owns what and who has rights to what.

There are actually several levels of this (in no particular order):

- Who owns the actual contents of the ECU?
- Do tuners have the rights to lock a tune or not?
- Can modifications produced by hobbyist on this forum legally be re-sold by vendors?
- Are the modifications produced by the hobbyists on this forum legal?
- Can I as a hobbyist (if I want) prevent a vendor from re-selling my solution without giving me a share of the profits?
- Are my modifications (as a hobbyist) covered by any licenses?

Etc. Etc.

Often in these threads there is a lot of information that is clearly erroneous. We often seem to have a lot of grandiose statements that are founded in personal beliefs that have little to no legal grounding or even for that matter grounding in real life .

Rather than batting around this issue every couple of months, it seemed to make sense that we get one uber thread on this, hopefully come to some useful conclusion and sticky it up for future reference.

Someone wanted rough direction for the thread and that's it I would think

 

Now I'll preface this definitions post by saying a few things:

1) The opinions that I post on this thread are solely my own and do not represent those of my past, present or future employers or any other company affiliations.
2) I am not a lawyer, but have dealt, and have a rough understanding of IP law as it applies to software and hardware since I have worked with it at varying levels from startups to small companies to large enterprises.

Now here are a few basic things that we need to understand:

Intellectual Property

One of the largest grey areas in the whole topic. Roughly this is my right as a creator of content to protect my content from being redistributed in any form in which I do not see fit. "Content" is the largest contention point in general and this is what often allows people to be able to make claims on trivial operations/processes. IP covers a wide range of things from patents, copyrights, licensing and so on.

Licensing

A license allows me as the owner of my IP to legally allow someone else to use it (re-distributor). All licenses are not created equally. So while one license might give me (the re-distributor) the right to later alter the original IP, some might not. Some also give rights to the original purchaser, but do not transfer when that purchaser re-sells the content.

Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is the process of taking a final product and working it backwards to the original components used to make the product. Many licenses call this process out as illegal.

Open Source

The real "true" definition of this is software for which the source code is freely available for anyone to see. This term has been clouded in the last couple of years by companies/entities that are "Open Source" because they base their software on Open Source but for which you cannot actually legally see the source code of that software. Others do it for marketing/promotional reasons.

What ECUFlash Does

ECUFlash is honestly a glorified hex editor with write-back functionality. It communicates with the ECU using specific protocols and edit the contents of the code in the ECU's memory.

What EvoScan/MitsuLogger Do

Both these logging programs request specific information from the ECU and record its responses to a log file.

What the patches/modifications Do

The patches/modifications that are applied to ROM code change the execution of the code that originally was released with the car.