I never know whether to laugh or cry when I hear all the crazy crap corporations come up with to justify trying to ensure that the people who buy their products don’t actually own those products. One such instance is John Deere claiming that allowing car owners to modify their car’s computer systems would enable them to literally pirate music through their car… I’m not kidding.
Did you know that it’s illegal to tinker with the code in your in-car computer? Thanks to the nuances of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you’re not even supposed to inspect the inner workings of your vehicle’s circuitry. This is absurd, which is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is fighting for a better policy. The EFF is currently entrenched in a legal battle to challenge DMCA overreach. In a new blog post—colorfully titled “Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car”—the digital rights advocates share some of the absurdity that many vehicle manufacturers are slinging to justify the DMCA’s applications to in-car computers.