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Comment by HWR_14 | Hacker News Reader

Good. People who buy things should own the things they buy.

I enthusiastically endorse this sentiment until I remember I'm a software engineer whose career depends pretty fundamentally on copyright law.

As an industry, we sell things that make hardware more useful. That's what software is. But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they own. And we do all that for money. *Substitute whatever you think the right terms are for these words (licensor, licensee, borrower, tenant, serf...)

If we sold an app on a mobile-phone store, and a h4ck0rz came out with a crack that unlocked the premium features on it, we'd take measures to stifle it (patching the code, increasing the obfuscation, sending a complaint upstream of whoever was distributing it, etc.), and I don't think any of us would think we're bad guys for doing so. We're just trying to feed our families. And I doubt any of us would feel compassion for someone who said they paid for that phone, own its hardware, and can do whatever they want with it including run your paid software for free.

Tesla's sin, if any, is that they sold us hardware that's designed to work only with their software. And "their" software could include software they licensed from your company, if you work in their software supply chain.

Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"?

This is probably not productive, but I think the response would be; I bought the software from you so it's mine now.

Yeah these discussions always give me a bit of cognitive dissonance.

On one hand, I like owning my software or content I purchased (talking about DRM)

On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates, which isn't sustainable if you only ever get paid a small onetime fee for your software. If you make the fee large, like Modo/Photoshop did, then it acts as a financial gatekeeper to your product. Even then, I feel like it creates wrong incentives for the product, so I'm not sure it's good either.

> On the other, people expect most things to be a "live service" in terms of updates

Do they? Most people I know don't want anything to update as long as it's working. They don't want new features. They don't want new UI changes. They'll dismiss/ignore prompts to update for as long as they possibly can. In very very rare cases people want "live service". They want their GPS to give them traffic information for example, but otherwise they don't want anything but bug fixes.

Photoshop for example doesn't need to be constantly updated and a version of photoshop from 10-15 years ago would be just fine for the vast majority of people. The idea that software has to either be insanely expensive or a subscription is a false dichotomy.

Yeah, exactly this. Companies want live services because they want to charge recurring fees. Customers want to buy and own software.

As a software engineer, I don't sell software, I'm paid to make it. I don't even own it afterwards. I hear some people are paid to develop open source software. I don't think my career depends "pretty fundamentally" con copyright law, as if the software I produce is otherwise worthless. Most people on the planet can't do the work I do, which means that somebody pays me for this work. Changing copyright law wouldn't change this fact -- at most it could affect my pay grade.

> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"?

If someone roots their phone or car, which they own, despite the manufacturer's best efforts to prevent this, it should be legal because they are modifying a physical object they purchased. If they teach other people to root their devices, it should be legal the same way teaching lockpicking is legal if you're just lockpicking something you own.

Nobody is asking manufacturers to stop trying to get in the way of people hacking their devices. Most people won't have the skills or desire to jailbreak anyway.

But John Deere will sue farmers who try to fix their tractors themselves, Sony will sue you for jailbreaking your PS3, etc etc. That's wrong.

Additionally, DRM generates physical waste by making it hard for people to fix things they bought. The right to repair is important.

For software, illicit redistribution is covered by copyright law, no? But the same is true: if you own a copy of software and want to hack it (e.g. mod a game you bought) why should that be illegal, provided you were able to get around the game's built-in circumventions?

That isn't the only way to sell software, it is a relatively recent invention, I honestly wouldn't care if that went away.

> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"?

There's something obscene about unlocking existing physical features with more money, but there's also our mental model of what ownership means. Imagine you buy a new fridge, and it has an extra compartment that is installed, gets cooled but you have to pay to unlock. No one could ever verify that you didn't rip it open yourself. I don't think anyone would object either.

The current monetization strategies for software favor the corporations. They can withhold service in case of no payment, and they are trying to do the same to hardware. I personally feel we should regulate this as soon as possible, otherwise things like right to repair will simply disappear.

> But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they own.

I'd say the software equivalent to right to repair would specifically be about restrictions against inspecting/decompiling/modifying the software running on your machine.

While I also think copyright is flawed in general, restrictions against redistribution of the software seem like a separate matter - in the same way hardware right to repair doesn't mean you can set up a manufacturing line for new John Deere tractors to sell to others.

> h4ck0rz came out with a crack that unlocked the premium features on it

If someone grafts on useful features using only what you have already downloaded to my device, I think that's fair game.

IP has gone too far. We're seeing more and more instances of computers forced into perfectly good physical products for the express purpose of degrading their functionality unless a ransom is paid. Now instead of toggling a relay, you have to go through an entire software stack and license check to heat your seats.

which toggles a relay.

I want to add agreement to this, but to be more precise: people should own the things they buy and artificial (software ) means of locking people out of features shouldn't be allowed.

If you opt out of the heated seat package when you purchase the car, that doesn't mean the manufacturer can't add that hardware in a disabled state. That also doesn't mean you own the heating feature after you opted out

That's like asking Intel to fix a processor you overclocked

The far better analogy for what Tesla is doing is "it's like Intel preventing you from overclocking your chip". Sure, you should not expect support for your hacked seat warmers.

i came here to say this

If I paid them money and they gave me hardware (in this case a heated seat) then I can do what I want with it, sucks for them if they don't want me to. They can give me the non-heated seat. And yeah if I brick my car trying to jailbreak it that's on me, fine.

Nah, that's like asking Intel to enable two more cores on a two core processor made from a four core binned chip that they also sell four core processors based on. The only difference is software.

Intel briefly did have a scheme where you could pay to unlock parts of the processor that were disabled for segmentation reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Upgrade_Service

It was abandoned due to backlash but that didn't stop Intel from doing artificial segmentation, so instead of buying a chip with "3MB" of cache and being able to unlock it to 4MB later, now you buy a chip with "3MB" of cache and 1MB of dark silicon that's permanently lasered off at the factory. I get the objections, but the alternative isn't really an improvement.

Here's an analogy: the year is 1950. I bought a car and a radio is built in. But I didn't pay the extra radio fee, so a wire is intentionally left out and the radio does not work. But the car is mine--I could choose to scrap it, radio hardware and all; I owe the company nothing, and I am the owner of a car with a nearly-functional radio. Then how could somebody object to my going in and fixing the radio, if it is my property to begin with?

The answer is: the year is 1950, and property rights are respected.

The year is 2023. The goal of Big Tech is the elimination of ownership and the rise of perpetual rental income.

Back then, the dealer would remove the radio before handing the car over to you. In its place would be a panel blocking the hole in the dashboard.

I used to work for a radio shop, and it was reasonably common for us to remove the radio when customers did not want it in their new car. Some wanted to have no radio for religious reasons, some businesses wanted the absolute cheapest vehicle possible for their employees, most wanted to install their own aftermarket radio.

Then they should pay me rental fees in compensation for electricity I have to purchase to haul their hardware around.

There are semantic games at play here, I suspect.

The manufacturer sold the hardware configured in a certain state; the same device could have been configured differently depending on price. Once the device is sold, the new owner is a petty tyrant over the state of his own property.

But if I don't own the heating "feature" (promise of a result), I don't care. I am pretty sure that the warranty indemnifies the company against the hardware actually being fit for said purpose and therefore will not guarantee a result anyway, so what do you "own" in the first place, if not the device itself?

[edit: grammar, readability]

The doctrine of first sale says that companies cannot restrict the second (or later owner) of a thing. You may notice that some books printed in the UK have some wording on the copyright page about how you can't sell the book (nor give it away) without requiring the subsequent owner to follow the same "license". In the US, I can give away a book, or sell it, and no condition that the publisher makes me agree to will apply to the next person.

Physical goods should be required to follow the doctrine of first sale. There should never be any possible conditions on subsequent owners. If the first owner "unlocks" a feature, it should be unlocked for every subsequent owner.

I've been thinking about this as a thought experiment lately.

Let's say there's two versions of the car. Higher spec has heated seats, lower spec doesn't. Let's say it's a $1000 price difference.

At what point below are you ticked off ?

Level 1: The higher spec car has the physical seat heaters, all the wiring, all the plugs and all the software. The lower spec car has none of that.

(I think this is how cars have always been sold, so it's "normal" and "acceptable" and nobody would complain - they paid $1000 less and got less features.)

Level 2: The lower spec car has the physical seat heater inside the seat, but none of the wiring, plugs or software to make it function. (It was cheaper for them to just build the seats with the heater in there, so they did, but it will never "work")

Level 3: The lower spec car has the physical seat heater inside the seat and some wiring, but the main loom doesn't have provision for the high current draw, so it can't work.

Level 4: The lower spec car has the physical seat heater inside the seat, all the wiring, but none of the plugs to actually connect it.

Level 5: The lower spec car has the physical seat heater inside the seat, all the wiring, all the plugs (so all the physical hardware is there), but the software to turn it on is not present / not licensed.

(Note: If you got ticked off at level 5, it's pretty much like buying a brand new MacBook and being ticked off that it can theoretically run Final Cut Pro, but you have to pay to make it work. Surely you gotta pay for software ? )

Level 6: The lower spec car has the physical seat heater, all the wiring, all plugged in, all the software, and a setting added (for extra production cost) that makes it not work and can't be changed by the car owner.

We are talking about this one. The entire thread is about this one, and none of your options even passed through the conversation.

FSD is more like example 5

This is identical to 5, in my view. Its not licensed. Is anyone upset that if you download a version of software that has a "basic" and a "premium" version, but the premium costs more money, that you don't get the premium functionality? Just like you "can't change" whether you get premium functions if you don't pay for it, the same could be said for fsd or seat heaters.

I disagree with the premise of locking someone out of something they physically own. You HAVE the seat heater in your car, the wiring works, you just aren't allowed to turn it on. I don't see this as the same as a basic vs premium version of a piece of software. The person owning the car owns the heater, the car, the wiring, they have to pay the miniscule extra cost of carrying that hardware around in their car. If Tesla offered to remove it at no cost if the car owner didn't want to pay the fee, I'd have no issue.

Where do you draw the line?

Next they'll be making you pay a fee to use low gears, or a power steering fee, a radio listening license, a Bluetooth permit, a reverse allowance, power window season pass, air condition authorization.

You HAVE the code for the premium software. It exists. The code all works. You downloaded it when you downloaded the basic package. You pay the minuscule extra cost of downloading and installing the extra code you don't use.

That argument doesn't hold up. Nobody should claim they are entitled to the premium features if they only have the basic license/software.

I agree that I don't want death by a thousand subscription fees, but this isn't exactly the same situation here. BMW's offerings is. Frankly, if BMW offered it with only the one-time charge, I'd consider it similar.

>You pay the minuscule extra cost of downloading and installing the extra code you don't use.

This really is where I have the issue. If I have to pay for my ISP to allow me to access the internet and use my bandwidth to download it, my power bill to allow my PC to install it, use up my storage space to host the software, then I should be able to do whatever I want to/with it and you shouldn't hinder me from doing so.

If I have to pay a fee for premium, and then additional components are downloaded and installed, fair game.

I wonder if there's any law that covers such a scenario, aside from EULA allowing the software dev to do what they want as long as the user agrees.

Yeah, I don't get the outrage. People should be happy because it allows people to hack the software and get heated seats, assuming they are ok voiding any warranty.

None of the levels you mention (until Level 5) operate any differently from this feature. In any of those cases, if I replace the missing parts, I get my heated seats. I would be ticked off if Level 2 had physically integrated seat warmers had some protection people could not work around so they had to cut out and replace the seat warmers.

Level 5, and this case, all I'm doing is adding the missing component. A flag or something.

I mean honestly level 1 is frustrating when the cost is negligible or for safety. Plus it isn't like you can choose which features you get, and it is not like the seat costs 1000 dollars to heat. Somewhere between 3 and 4 should have legislation against it. (Also level 5 isn't like final cut pro not being installed, it's like Apple blocking port 22 unless you pay for a special developer license)

Level 5 is exactly where it bugs me. Levels 1-4 are all concrete (if marginal) cost savings as compared to the full version. But your level 5 means someone spent _extra_ money and engineering time to make something _less_ functional.

Boo. Hiss.

I won all my groceries, but once I consume them, they still turn to shit.

I think we need to hold all EV companies "responsible for their shit"

So, if you buy a tesla - only tesla should be responsible for recovery from every crash and and turn in.

Thus the environmental impact due to the heavy metals and all the plastics made are sole responsible from a closed, boring lopp to hyper the link to the fact that all these materials were made by stars. X.

(my point was I PAy/taxxed/etc) for my X-crement...

I think my logic is off WRT analogy, but I beleive you get the premise...

Can we find a complete model of the impact of the matters which are being affected by the musks?

(im not judging musk - I am judging actions... many of these actions suck. IIATAH?

Does enabling FSD come with any liability / terms of service? If it is backdoor enabled and the vehicle crashes, what is Tesla's liability? If the OTA patches to the system are needed and the car is running the base, unupdated (buggy) build, what is Tesla's liability?

Alternatively, if a vehicle is running software that hasn't gone through Tesla's subscription how much of the liability for any software problems will Tesla be able to transfer to the vehicle owner?

Hypothetically, if Tesla were licensing 3rd party software and that license was based on installed uses and Tesla was reporting the subscriptions for FSD (rather than sales of the vehicle), what would enabling the software open up Tesla to? Would Tesla then be able to sue the person who unlocked it for the additional licensing costs they incurred?

If something is opened or modified without manufacturer consent, there is no question of liability because there is none.

Except history hasn't really played out that way. Less serious but Grand Theft Auto had a sex game added to one of their titles that wasn't supposed to be accessible by gamers. People figured out how to unlock it using a modified save file. This ended up in all sorts of legal liability to the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(minigame)

Hot Coffee is and was an absurd case with absolutely no merit behind it.

It only became a large issue because it was a social fad for politicians and mass-media to dogpile "evil gaming companies corrupting poor mindless children", and Rockstar in particular with the GTA series was one of the most popular targets of said social fad.

So if you're using unlocked a version of FSD that has been recalled and don't get an OTA update then any and all faults that may be traced back to FSD even if it was clear that this is a bug in the software (e.g. the reason for the recall) the vehicle owner has full liability?

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/16/tesla-recalls-362758-vehicle...

Software is a legal grey area as others pointed out. In your example, the vehicle owner modified the software version and used an unsupported one. The manufacturer cannot be liable when there is no legal contract.

The problem here is that this is functionally similar to using an outdated version of photoshop but the consequences are vastly different.

It never has been Tesla’s responsibility if the FSD fails (whereas for Mercedes they take responsibility)

Did they ever figure that out?

> There are few federal laws addressing automated driving. So, Mercedes Vice President of Automated Driving George Massing tells R&T, “we will probably have to deal with each individual state.” But the company plans to accept legal liability for what the car does while Drive Pilot is engaged.

As far as I can tell there still isn’t some webpage where you can submit a claim to Mercedes-Benz for a failure of their self-driving tech…

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/mercedes-well-be-liable-for-sel...

In the opposite, Tesla sounds more like the type of company that would sue you if you claim autopilot brought you into a crash.

Since they are technically right, as autopilot disengages before.

> Since they are technically right, as autopilot disengages before.

> To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed.

https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

I'm not a Tesla fan, but Mercedes doesn't have a fleet anywhere near Tesla's. This is a well-run marketing campaign to try to get Tesla to also accept responsibility and bring prices up, IMO. Mercedes isn't really accepting liability for shit at this point, because they only have like one car with level 3 and it's a super top trim and there won't be very many people using it. Once they have a large amount of vehicles out there with this tech, then we'll see what they really accept responsibility for.

> to try to get Tesla to also accept responsibility and bring prices up

If Tesla actually believed that their self-driving works (which they unequivocally and demonstrably don't, as their refusal to accept liability indicates), then it would cost them virtually nothing to accept liability.

Every company that offers self-driving should accept liability to prove that they have faith in their system, and we shouldn't allow any self-driving system on the road for which this isn't the case.

I think the mercedes taking responsibility thing was at least partially clever marketing. there are really extreme limitations last I saw, which honestly is understandable.

The limitations are due to the legal framework Mercedes lives up to. The updated version only recently came out.

I do think they are doing it more responsibly for sure. Just that given the limitations it’s difficult to compare the offerings at this point

But they don't own the license to use the software (Full Self Driving). I agree with you about the heated seats though.

Hmm, is the code already present? Would enabling it be putting unexpected load on Tesla's servers? If it's just a local feature (like the heated seats) that's shipped turned off, I'd say enabling it doesn't feel especially different to me (trusting it to drive you around of course is different).

There is some real-time data being downloaded while navigating. https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1641450299285209088

i dont have a settled opinion on software unlockable stuff. in general i think users should be able to hack it without repercussions. however, thinking about the concepts you present i had some hypotheticals. if tesla does all the self driving processing outside the car, it feels a little reasonable to pay them for their processing. but what if they just moved the heat seating processing out of the car (comparing the actual temperature to the desired temperature and modulating the power) ? that would seem unreasonable to me because the car is fully capable of doing it. So then what if tesla ships an intentionally terrible processor so that most data processing happens outside the car ? maybe it's reasonable again . ..

no point to this, just thinking out loud

Software lockable stuff sounds like in-app purchases. Should unlocking this content become legal ?

Self driving has an ongoing cost to Tesla for them to keep it updated and to improving upon its performance.

It’s only a subscription because it doesn’t make financial sense to purchase it outright for $15k up-front (with a 6% interest rate, you’d need to own the car for 102 months to pay less than paying for the FSD subscription for those 102 months, and it costs more per month in your loan than the subscription https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSjfzhdfj0FU... )

Sure, though that highlights why someone would be interested in unlocking it (even without updates going forward). Personally I think I'd want mission-critical sw to be as current as possible, I can see someone arguing they should be able to run what's already sitting there on the computer in their car.

the software stack is different as far as I know. if you buy FSD and sign up for the beta program, you get a fairly massive software package downloaded. it is not instant and already on the device.

of all the things to hate about elon, tesla, and this whole concept of locking down features in a car, FSD really isn't one of them, as its just a software issue and its a totally separate package that isn't core to the operational capability of the car's components.

Here's my attitude: The consumer should have complete control over any hardware and software in any product they buy.

If a manufacturer wants to lock features behind a paywall, that is fine. However, they shouldn't be allowed to complain when consumers modify the thing they bought to get around that paywall. If Tesla really wants to make sure absolutely no one gets FSD or heated seats without paying, then they should make a point of only including the relevant hardware or software in the vehicle at the time of purchase.

Yep, there would be issue at all if they sold the car and you install FSD with a download and a license key but if it comes with the car that's on you if/when the owner breaks the lock they own to access it.

If you sell me a house with a safe in it and want to charge me for the code that's fine, but if get a welder to just break the door open you have no right to tell me no.

in general you would think this is just a DRM race then between tesla and unlockers. however, with so many of tesla's features existing outside the car, tesla has a lot of leverage. a music cd or blu ray is generally finished content. a tesla is constantly getting software patches and most owners use the app which i'm sure is going through teslas servers

is it reasonable for tesla to lock you out of the app or software updates if the software hash doesn't match what they provide ? would it be okay for them to void the warranty if you run software they didn't provide ?

> is it reasonable for tesla to lock you out of the app or software updates if the software hash doesn't match what they provide ?

Of course, and I don't think anyone here is arguing against that.

> would it be okay for them to void the warranty if you run software they didn't provide ?

There are laws governing this exact thing (in the US it's the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act), and in general Tesla would have to prove your unauthorized modification caused the failure which you're claiming under warranty.

They can void the warranty, as long as they can prove that my modifications are what actually caused the malfunction I am making a warranty claim on.

I think it was even a post here, because somebody had to fix something on his car, he don't even had the licence to use it.

I'm ok with charging subscription fees for services with ongoing costs (things like cell connectivity for remote monitoring or something), and I'm ok with charging one time fees for unlocking features that are already there, since it allows for price discrimination, cheaper and more efficient manufacturing, and better prices to the customer overall (potentially at least). But the flip side of that is that...if you put it on the car that the customer bought, and they figure out how to unlock it.....well good for them and sucks for you. This kind of thing _should_ 100% be legal (if it isn't already, and my understanding is that it is). If you want to _100% guarantee_ that they don't get a feature without paying for it, then I guess pony up for the more complicated manufacturing process where it isn't installed on some models.

As for "they didn't pay for the license"....no....you gave it to them without asking them to sign a license agreement. They paid you money, and you gave them a product. How they use it is up to them.

So contract law and copyright aren't a thing because people don't want it to be? You own the hardware (you can shuck the car, part it out, mod it), you don't own the code it runs. By all means, root the car and take the features you want, but don't be shocked when Tesla either a) nukes the features remotely or b) sues you. You are taking issue with an existing legal and contract law framework. No one is forcing you to buy a Tesla and be bound by agreements with them around their IP. Would you support a software company nuking someone's license to operate their software remotely if the customer defeated a license module they didn't pay for?

(registered security researcher for my rooted Teslas)

I'm not sure how contract law is relevant at all. As for copyright, they aren't copying or distributing it in any way. If you give me the code on it, I am allowed to execute it as I see fit. The only way I see copyright issues is if they weren't actually shipping the code and I had to pirate it and side load it. Which is a completely different issue than is being discussed.

If you sell me a book, I'm not allowed to copy that book and sell those copies. I am allowed to chop it up and and repaste my own copy however I see fit.

If I'm wrong and current copyright law does not permit this kind of thing, then current copyright law is bad and should be changed.

I'm fully supportive of someone going to court and finding out what happens when they do this. It is far more valuable than wild speculation. Copyright law is bad and should be changed, but that is unlikely a winning defense in the course of a civil suit (or criminally, if prosecuted for DMCA violations, such as circumvention of digital mechanisms for access control per 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) [1] [2]. I am fairly confident (not an attorney, not your attorney) this applies to access to Tesla's FSD digital work.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (17 U.S. Code § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems)

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840... (circumvent a technological measure (3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (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.)

Contract law is running afoul of the first-sale doctrine here. Tesla can not enforce many clauses in a potential contract or license via the legal system, so it's not as cut-and-dry as "you don't own the code".

Copyright has zero application here unless you redistribute Tesla's code or binaries. Reverse-engineering is a legal practice (in US law, at least).

> Copyright has zero application here unless you redistribute Tesla's code or binaries. Reverse-engineering is a legal practice (in US law, at least).

Reverse engineering to utilize software you didn't pay for and don't have a license or some other legal authority to use is unlikely to pass muster legally, versus for interoperability purposes.

https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq (Control-F "What Exceptions Does DMCA Section 1201 Have To Allow Reverse Engineering?")

Tesla can't sue you if you splice a switch into the seat heater relays! I don't know if that's a good idea. Or maybe they thought of that and they don't turn on unless there's some of key exchange.

That's BMW, not Tesla. Tesla only offers subscriptions for premium mobile network connectivity and FSD. A quality rocker switch would meet your needs for the BMW seat heater use case.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...

EDIT: I stand corrected. It appears there was a window of time where Tesla offered rear heated seats as an upgrade on a base trim standard range Model 3.

https://electrek.co/2020/02/15/tesla-rear-heated-seats-model...

The cheapest Tesla's offered a one time unlock for rear seat seat heaters. Not any different from bmw, except bmw also offered a subscription option (bmw also offered a lifetime unlock... at a much higher price).

Using software without the license to is copyright infringement, full stop.

In what way? No copy was ever made.

Using a copyrighted work without license is copyright infringement. Not sure how to make that clearer to you.

> Using a copyrighted work without license is copyright infringement

Only for the kinds of “use” that involve the exclusive rights of the copyright owner (“use” generally does not), and even then not always, because there are exceptions to copyright.

If I put a book a don't have a license to under a table leg to make it stop wobbling, it is not copyright infringement

This just sounds like "you get all the downsides of ownership but we get all the upsides of a subscription model".

> This kind of thing _should_ 100% be legal (if it isn't already, and my understanding is that it is).

It may fall afoul of the (terribly written, but still law) Section 1201 of the DMCA, if it's arguable that the circumvention provides access to computer software (and I think it is arguable).

I agree that this should be legal, but I'm not nearly as convinced that it is legal currently.

Agree with this. The DMCA makes stuff like this illegal.

Recall that when CD copy protection was starting to be deployed, you could negate it with a black marker. The DMCA then made black markers illegal, because it bans "tools which may be used to circumvent copyright" as well as the "circumvention of copy protection measures". (Not that anyone tried to enforce it, but the letter of the law was pretty clear that black markers were then illegal to possess)

The DMCA should be amended or revoked to make these shenanigans no longer enforceable.

Black markers are/were very obviously not illegal. The law doesn’t work like code, it’s filtered by humans.

No court would ever come to the conclusion that something as mundane as black markers are illegal to possess.

You almost understood the point.

The DMCA is a problem because putting copy protection on (for example) heated seats is a similar level of silliness to outlawing black markers.

> but the letter of the law was pretty clear that black markers were then illegal to possess

That is wrong. It's legal to possess a hammer but illegal to bash someone on the head with one. It was legal to possess a black marker and arguably illegal to use it to circumvent copy protection.

>"As for "they didn't pay for the license"....no....you gave it to them without asking them to sign a license agreement. They paid you money, and you gave them a product. How they use it is up to them."

That's not true and it's most definitely not a valid legal position to take in defense

Haven’t we already been through this type of shit with EA?

Back in, I think it was bad company 2, EA delivered content on disk, but locked it behind a paywall. Then they got their wrists slapped for locking already available content behind a paywall.

Softlocking hardware that exists in the car (heated seats) behind a paywall seems to be the exact same thing, and is not legal everywhere.

The entire concept of "intellectual property" is an attempted theft of our own physical property, and I for one don't appreciate it. I understand that my values on this don't align with much of the rest of the legal systems of the world, but the absurdity of intellectual property is never more clear than when some far away company attempts to assert ownership over something that you use every day.

The article claims this is not patchable but it also says that the hackers have not yet unlocked FSD with this technique. I strongly suspect that the “unpatchable” part would not apply to any potential FSD unlock because of the large amount of server-side functionality involved for FSD. Server side components aren’t going to be easily fooled by a car-local exploit.

Knowing Tesla, even if they can’t patch the vulnerability OTA I would be very concerned about their being able to detect the use of this bypass and remote-brick cars in response until the customer agrees to bring their car in for a hardware patch.

Edit: a now-dead reply says there is no server side functionality whatsoever for FSD. I don’t own a Tesla but find it very unlikely that FSD has not even usage telemetry in what are otherwise highly connected cars.

Arguably you didn't buy it. Sure you physically own the hardware but you didn't pay for it.

Depending on how you look at it the hardware was paid for by:

1. Tesla as a "marketing" expense. They expect that the $50 of hardware will make a significant number of people pay $500 for the feature. If 1/5 people upgrade that is an expected return of $100 for that $50 marketing cost.

2. The people who purchase the heated seat upgrade. It was more cost effective to install the hardware in all cars than to set up a second production line. So if 1/5 people buy this package their effective cost is $250 ($50 * 5 cars) and $250 is Tesla's buffer + profit margin. So the people who pay for this package effectively pay for the hardware in all cars.

If you enable this feature for all users both of these no longer exist. So the effective cost goes up which would likely raise the price. (Yes, I know that cost and price aren't directly related).

Okay great, but now the lowest cost of the car is an extra $10k because the manufacturing just got a lot more complicated as a result of not being able to build every car the same way.

They can't even build two cars the same way everytime, I think we'll be okay.

That's variance, not intentional.

Then customers have the choice to purchase a vehicle from a manufacturer with more scruples who is willing to sell those features without charging to "unlock" them.

...can you name one? Because every manufacturer does this.

That sounds like problem of a manufacturer not problem of a user.

The price of the product being higher isn't a problem for the user?

Correct. That's a problem of a manufacturer for not having a competing product.

Would be a nice story if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that Teslas are selling like crazy as they are.

Sounds like it would be problem for the consumer, though clearly a solved one.

Adding 10k to the cost of the lowest priced car is definitely a problem for both the user and the manufacturer.

This is naive. Tesla isn't selling the base model below cost. If they did, then Tesla would be wiped out unless people shelled out for the extras, because they'd be losing money on every car sold.

Instead, what's happening is that the current price fully reflects the cost of production, and holding the extras hostage is pure gravy.

Nobody claimed Tesla was selling base models at cost? Completely unrelated to the point.

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