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This is insane. How about they pay the payments then? GM is smoking wacky weed.
By Chad Westfall
There is no word yet whether modules that plug inline with sensors would be illegal or not.
About a month ago, we broke the story that there were multiple manufacturers trying to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to prevent you from modifying your vehicle. Many of our readers mentioned that this would never happen and we are making it up. Well, the hearings over this are being conducted now and the decision could greatly effect you and your vehicle, not to mention the entire industry.
General Motors and John Deere are taking the stance that the software used to run your vehicle is theirs and should be protected under the DMCA. If the US Copyright Office agrees, this could make it illegal to change the tune on your vehicle. It may even go as far as to make it illegal to do many repairs. There are a number of media outlets reporting that this may have a substantial effect on independent repair shops.
In addition to vehicle repairs, this would mean that most of the modifications that we have grown to love over the years are not possible because they require tuning changes. This would mean that changing injectors or turbochargers would not be legal. Exhaust systems would be ok, but some transmission upgrades require tune modifications, which would not be legal. The entire diesel tuner market may find itself on the wrong side of the law within the next few weeks if GM and John Deere have their way. Modules (electric tuning devices that intercept the signals from sensors and send a modified signal to the ECM) may or may not be illegal. It just depends on how far the OEM’s are willing to push the issue. Certainly, at this point, we can assume they will go after modules as well.
This would mean that in order to modify your vehicle with anything that requires a tune adjustment, you would need to use a standalone computer system that does not interface with the factory software. This would mean roughly a $12,000 to $20,000 standalone system which isn’t necessarily obtainable for the “average” guy.
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John 3:16, Romans 10:9-10...Tuning for the Heart and Soul.
Originally Posted by Double R Diesel LLC
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