
Ford Tries to Shut Down Independent Repair Tool with Copyright - guiambros
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/ford-tries-shut-down-third-party-repair-tool-copyright
======
curiouscats
Ford looks even worse when you see how Tesla and Toyota behave. Ford is trying
to take the most hostile to customers action it can get away with under the
broken copyright system. Meanwhile Tesla and Toyota are giving away patent
rights in order to encourage innovation and help customers.

This is just a very visible example of how Ford thinks and how Tesla and
Toyota think. Sadly Ford's behavior is a very common USA management practice
while Tesla and Toyota are rare. It is short sighted thinking and results in
many less visible bad decisions that cripple companies in the long term.

~~~
blackaspen
Patents aren't everything though:

From ToyoDIY: December 6, 2009 The diagrams are no longer available on this
site per demands of Toyota Motor Sales Inc.

Yes, they still have part number listings/search (which is awesome), but they
did use to have more.

~~~
kw71
This site has extracted the databases of the "Toyota EPC" application and put
them on the internet with a web usable UI.

If you want this material, one place I know you can find it is rutracker and
you should simply search for "Toyota EPC."

A site called 'realoem' did the same thing with BMW's database, and seems to
have had no trouble for the years that it's been online.

------
tokenadult
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) article kindly submitted here
points out, there is just about surely no copyright protection under United
States law for the Ford FFData file, so this effort on Ford's part should fail
if litigated. But pulling in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as an
additional layer of protection for Ford's data file complicates the legal
analysis, and I'm glad that the EFF is on this case to urge a clarification of
how that act applies to cases like this, so that buyers of cars can have
choices in seeking service for their cars.

Of course, on my part I am appalled that Ford is even trying this, and so as a
consumer I am now less likely to suggest to any of my friends that they should
consider buying Ford cars. (Disclosure: we own two Toyota vehicles, both
bought new from the local Toyota dealer in the last few years. Before we
bought the first one, we shopped at a Ford dealership but didn't like the cars
we tried as well as the Toyota cars we tried.)

~~~
kw71
The app that this data was "stolen" from is a big java mess. The files are
encrypted with AES but it takes about three seconds to find the key in the jar
file. It doesn't really take any thought or effort to get.

The app also contains material from other carmakers, because of mergers and
acquisitions. For instance, there is material from BMW so that Ford is able to
support certain Land Rovers built by BMW which have BMW engines and
electronics.

I'm sure that the developers of the free "Forscan" app have examined the
material in question too.

~~~
lsiebert
Remember, you don't have to have a good copyright protection scheme to limit
circumvention. You could rot13 something and the DMCA applies.

~~~
alanfalcon
Is that literally true?

~~~
Retric
Sort of, _`(B) a technological measure `effectively controls access to a work
' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the
application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of
the copyright owner, to gain access to the work._

However, as ROT13 is not limited to just protecting copy-write works and is
reversible you could have an effective tool with other works. _(A) is
primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection
afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a
copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;_
[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/F?c105:1:./temp/~c105eDJ...](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/F?c105:1:./temp/~c105eDJ19j:e2850):

On the other hand, if you only apply ROT13 to part of a file then it probably
does qualify for protection.

------
esaym
Having a family owned auto shop, I'll chime in here.

I didn't read everything but here is what the facts seem to be:

I found it odd that a "part list" is the root of the issue here since common
repair software has lots of "lists" and diagrams. ex:
[http://www.ondemand5.com/](http://www.ondemand5.com/) yet Ford isn't suing
them...

The issue seems to be that this company hacked/stole/cracked/reverse
engineered Ford's own software and is now giving non public data to the
public. You really can't think that this is right... They clearly had to
circumvent some kind of encryption. An obvious sign that you shouldn't be
doing this... (hence why the encryption is there, no matter how simple)

Competition is a big issue in the automotive industry. There will be no
"github" for your vehicle. Auto repair and manufacturing is a totally
different world. And plus lives are at stake here. You can't have people
unofficially getting part specifications and blindly stamping out inferior
(and unauthorized) replicas.

Protection of IP is a big thing still in many industries. Even at my family's
small shop, we get regular calls from people that download $10k auto repair
software from bittorrent and call up the shop asking if they can install some
"awesome" software for our shop for a low price of $500... There is a lot of
money to be made by stealing in the auto industry.

~~~
nathan_long
> You can't have people unofficially getting part specifications and blindly
> stamping out inferior (and unauthorized) replicas.

Why not? If the part itself is not patented, and the branding is clear, and
any safety regulations apply to the competing part, it's just competition and
should result in cheaper, better, safter parts.

~~~
esaym
The point is that a part manufacture has to go through the right channel (ie,
get certified, inspected regularly) to have the 'right' to make parts.

You wouldn't want parts of questionable quality being put on an airplane, some
goes for your car too.

Even certified after market parts have their issues too and seem to get worse
(in quality) every year.

------
_nullandnull_
That is pretty shady of Ford. They were one of the few American car companies
I kind of respected. Not anymore.

> Autel violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium
> Copyright Act by writing a program to defeat the "encryption technology and
> obfuscation" that Ford used to make the file difficult to read.

This sounds a lot like Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc.

Check out
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade)

~~~
anjbe
It is like Sega v. Accolade, in the sense that it’s clear abuse of IP law to
limit competition. But there are two major differences: Although there were
accusations of unauthorized copying in Sega v. Accolade, the major issue was
that Sega forced the console to display their trademark upon successfully
loading a game, and then claimed that Accolade was committing trademark
infringement by making a game that could successfully boot. Additionally, the
DMCA didn’t exist back then, so violating copy protection wasn’t actually
against the law on its own.

There have actually been several copyright cases with good results (Sega v.
Accolade, Galoob v. Nintendo, Sony v. Bleem, Sony v. Connectix, Lexmark v.
Static Control), but so many cases that have ended in a negative result
(Blizzard v. Jung, Universal v. Reimerdes, Macrovision v. Sima) did so largely
due to the DMCA. This is why, although I hope Ford loses this case, I hope
even more for active effort to fix the DMCA through Congress, not the
judiciary.

~~~
_nullandnull_
Thank you for the response. I have not heard of some of those cases. I'm
looking forward to reading up on those.

------
markc
Massachusetts tackled this with a ballot initiative and legislation, so they
can't do that here.

Supposedly there's a "memorandum of understanding" that would prohibit it in
all 50 states (but no federal legislation signed yet) I'm guessing this is a
violation of the MOU.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Vehicle_Owners%27_Right_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Vehicle_Owners%27_Right_to_Repair_Act)

------
rocky1138
Is there any sort of "frivolous claims" counter one can make for bad DMCA
requests? Perhaps some sort of exponential backoff for companies who submit
requests which are found to be bad, e.g.,

* 1 bad DMCA take-down, no action.

* 2 bad DMCA take-downs, 1 month until future DMCA take-downs accepted.

* 3 bad DMCA take-downs, 2 months...

~~~
monocasa
Ostensibly DMCA claims are made under threat of perjury which is supposed to
be the check and balance. That being said I can't think of a single case of
that portion of the law being enforced. Unfortunately if a group were to take
the action that you suggest, they would forfeit their safe harbor and be able
to be sued just as had as the original "infringer". You don't get hardly any
leeway in responding to DMCA requests.

~~~
seanflyon
I don't think perjury is an enforceable solution because there is no way to
prove that you _knew_ that the claim was invalid. "It seems I was mistaken" or
"I disagree with the court's decision" is an iron-clad defense.

------
monocasa
IANAL, but I'm not sure Ford actually has a leg to stand on.

1) If I understand it correctly this data could be considered a list of facts
and thus isn't copyrightable (just like a table of contents, or the list of
ingredients in recipe). If it's not copyrightable, then the DMCA doesn't
apply. See Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components.

2) The DMCA has a specific exemption for "interoperability purposes" which I
could see this falling under as well but that's a weaker argument.

~~~
kw71
There is a little more. I believe that in every firstworld country, there are
legislative mandates that car makers must make proprietary information
required for servicing their products available. This is colloquially known in
the USA as 'right to repair' and the idea is to prevent a situation where
independent mechanics, or owners themselves, will be unable to repair vehicles
because the information and tools to do so are held only by the manufacturer
or his agent (dealer.)

Some other carmakers have apparently decided that leaked/extracted information
or software is not really a big problem for them. I know that one carmaker
that I have worked with views that situation as a sales driver for car parts,
and would rather be on friendly terms with its customers anyway. Ford Motor
Company, on the other hand, simply refuses to support old cars. They seem to
have a very efficient system to landfill old parts inventory as soon as they
are no longer legally required to support the cars that those parts apply to.
While other carmakers shift production of parts for old cars to secondary
vendors, I have not seen any examples of Ford doing this.

------
trhway
DMCA was created to defend platforms not creative authors. And Ford cars and
ecosphere is a platform the same way like for example Apple's
iPhone/iOS/iTune/etc ecosphere. Independent auto-repair shops, after-market
parts manufacturers and the likes have to be ready to start paying a
"Ford(GM/Toyota/etc) tax" similar to the "Apple tax".

------
slg
Does anyone have a reference for the EFF claim that factual data collections
can only be copyrighted "if the selection and arrangement are sufficiently
creative"? I always thought the method of acquiring these facts was also
important. Isn't that the point of inserting trap streets[1] and other fake
entries[2] into your data, a practice that many tech companies including
Google[3] still do?

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street)
[2] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)
[3] - [http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-
copying-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-
search-results-62914)

~~~
shakethemonkey
Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)

------
nathan_long
In the last few years, Ford has bought spots on some tech podcasts, talking up
their tech-savvy CEO and geek-friendly innovations.

If they want to appeal to geeks, "you can't examine and fix your vehicle" is a
bullet to the foot.

------
icbm504
this is not just about Ford. eff is pointing out a common business practice of
using DCMA to undermine competition and maintain market share. The link at the
end of the article is laundry list of what i view as disturbing behavior.
[https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-
ye...](https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-years-under-
dmca)

