What the Library of Congress gives...
TPP will take away.
New DMCA rules mean you can fiddle with your tablets, routers, cars (as if you weren't anyway)
The Librarian of Congress in America has updated the list of technologies that hackers can tinker with without breaking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Under the terms of the DMCA, the Librarian must revise the list of devices and technologies that can be investigated and altered by people using them. In the past this …
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 04:07 GMT ShadowDragon8685
"Car control systems are also now fair game, the Librarian has ruled, although not until next year. The EFF had requested this, although motor manufacturers lobbied hard against including it, but the recent spate of car hacking cases and the ongoing VW scandal appear to have swung the argument."
I hope this also applies to farm equipment.
John Deere have been horrifically abusing the DMCA to sell farmers licenses to tractors instead of, you know, selling them fucking tractors, ever since they started putting electronic engine controllers in them - meaning that it was illegal to (say,) repair your tractor yourself, meaning you'd have to pay John Deere to send a tech out to do it.
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 06:40 GMT Mark 85
In John Deere's defense, some of those tractors are rolling computers... particularly the harvesters. The computer controls not just the engine but the cabin temperature, air flow, speed, gearing, the blade speeds on the front end that do the cutting (there's at least two different styles that I've seen...corn and wheat) bin temperature, pressure for the hydraulics (power to the wheels and grain handling) and on and on. The last time I looked at one, it had touchscreen panels for most of the controls. An impressive piece of hardware and a more impressive price.
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 09:22 GMT DaLo
"In John Deere's defense, some of those tractors are rolling computers... "
How is that a defense(\ce)? The more it is computer controlled the more you should be allowed to access the software and change/modify/repair etc. If I buy a PC I don't expect to be told that as it is mostly a computer I can no longer make changes or repair it.
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Thursday 29th October 2015 07:12 GMT ShadowDragon8685
Which means sod-all when the problem is some thoroughly mechanical malfunction that Farmer John can fix with a welding torch, the way his pappy and his pappy's pappy fixed their John Deeres before them, only the difference is that this time, John Deere can claim they violated the DMCA and sue Farmer John and take his family farm.
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 23:10 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: examined and customized by their owners
What it means for the rest of us is that things like custom ROMs can be developed publicly and the rest of the world might be able to share in that bounty when the projects are put on the web. I'd feel a little more confident in a ROM from an English speaking website where I can understand descriptions and read the forum contents. I'll be especially impressed if we start seeing custom ROMs for smart TVs which as we all know will not be smart for long as the "apps" lose support. (My wifes Wii has almost no app usage these days, it's pretty much all no longer supported.)
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 08:59 GMT dotdavid
"The EFF also petitioned the Librarian to include Blu-Ray encryption on the list of hackable products, arguing that it was needed for educators making teaching material and for making private remixes of films."
But that would lead to widespread piracy of films, which are impossible to copy and/or download at the moment!
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Wednesday 28th October 2015 14:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
There are conditions however...
A copyright holder can not be held responsible for modifications performed by someone else. A perfect example of this is a tuner modifying an automotive ECU. When the engine fails due to the tuner mods, consumers have no recourse against the copyright holder except in the U.S. where the laws don't mean what they say if a paid liar can reap fortunes from twisting the law to suit their needs. In addition the person modifying the device/code is the only one responsible for said modifications. That means that when you engine self destructs due to excessive boost or ignition timing, you get to sue the tuner not McDonald's except when you place a hot cup of coffee between your legs and drive down the road. In that case you get to become a millionaire for being an ass clown. So the new rules apply except when they don't, which would be in the U.S. the land of litigation for windfall profit.
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Thursday 7th January 2016 23:19 GMT martinusher
Reality meets Fantasy
The DMCA was written back in the late 90s in time when the media companies were all telling us of impending Doomsday, the end of the world as we knew it, because of rampant piracy. Twenty years later and we all know the reality. The hacker community takes apart systems, people make informal copies of media, there are even commercial pirates and yet, somehow, the sun keeps on coming up in the morning, people carry on with their lives and, most importantly, the media companies are bigger and richer than ever.
The DMCA, like all other copyright enforcement mechanisms, never was about preventing revenue loss. Its about control of markets. We all know that when something is wrapped up so tightly that it becomes a hassle to use then people just stop using it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
