"You Bought It, but Do You Own It?"

Interesting dialogue, but I think most of you are confused as to what copyright means.

Under copyright law, you can open your device, pull chips, put new chips in, change the operating system and rewrite the software, but just to the device YOU bought.  Moding is OK by the law.

That said, in almost all cases, once you open the device you void the warrantee.  That means that the original manufacturer is not responsible to repair or service or replace the device if it no longer works as specified.  Basically, you mod it, you own it, don't bring it back.

As for demanding that a vendors software have sole access to a computer, this is a requirements and reliability issue.  It is very close to the warrantee issue.  The seller is just warning the user that they are only responsible to support their software if you do not comply with their stated requirements.  Again, this is not a copyright issue.  It has to do with their costs involved with trying to solve software problems on their product when you fail to properly install it on your computer.  They are not telling you that you can't, they are only warning you that once you fail to comply, its YOUR problem, not theirs.  Again, a reasonable request on their part.

When I delivered a system to an overseas country and showed them how to change my software.  At first they were very unhappy when I told them that they did not need to call me if they changed the code.  When asked why not, I informed them that I was not responsible for helping them debug THEIR code from eight thousand miles away.  Once they change a single line of MY code, it became THEIR code and my legal responsibility ended.

That is the main issue here.  All vendors, both hardware and software have to make it clear to the buyer the limits of their responsibility to their product.  Again, they are not telling you that you cannot change it or use it in a alternative fashion.  They are just telling you that their responsibility is over as soon as you do.  I think this is a fair response.  You would not believe what shenanigans some people pull and then expect the vendor to pay for their mistakes.  It is not about copyright, its about legal liabilities.

I fail to understand the need to change the copyright law.  It does not prevent any legitament use of a product.  You are free to mod the device or software anyway you want.  They cannot stop you and most likely won't care.  What they are concerned about is you making changes to their products and then claim that their devices are defective because of something YOU did.  This is fair, you should know up front that if you change the device or software that it is now your responsibility to fix it or buy another.  Nor should you expect the manufacturer to help you solve a problem that YOU created.  It all falls into the fair use clause of the licensing agreements.

So I don't think any of us should grouse about the copyright law.  It does not prevent any of us from experimenting with things we buy.  So feel free to mod away, just don't expect the vendor to be happy about it.  They have lots of lawyers laying around worrying about being sued because their product is implicated in any event not favourable to their sales.

Personally, I think many of them are happy to have their devices repurposed.  They get free publicity, ideas for product enhancement and they become aware of issues they had not thought of when they first designed the device.  They just can't admit that publically because of the lawyers.  Some countries have horendous product liability laws that are usually the kiss of death to a manufacturer.  Look at the Billions lost by Toyota over a "suspected" defect.  Granted they deserved a lot of the bad press when they tried to hide it, but still, they had people pulling all kinds of stunts to get an excuse to sue.  Sad, but true.

This is my view of the facts.  I had to sit with my companies lawyers for many hours as they "impressed" upon me what copyrights did and did not protect and which issues were true legal liabilities.  They have valid points from the companies point of view.  Law suits are expensive, even if you win.

From my perspective, there is nothing in the copyright law that prevents moding.  So investigate devices and software to your hearts content, just know that once you break it, its your boat anchor.

Just my opinion

DAB

imagine dell coming to your front door and seizing your hardware because you upgraded your memory in you computer, but did not use dell authorized memory instead you bought somthing half the price elseware.

the exceptions to the DMCA are important to prevent some of the injustices that have and could occur again. and to prevent even worse things from being allowed to happen.

imagine dell coming to your front door and seizing your hardware because you upgraded your memory in you computer, but did not use dell authorized memory instead you bought somthing half the price elseware.

the exceptions to the DMCA are important to prevent some of the injustices that have and could occur again. and to prevent even worse things from being allowed to happen.