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Comment by carstenhag | Hacker News Reader

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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