PROMs and Copyrights...

[Jennifer and Brock Fraser]

>I've long suspected that companies like G-Force, Dinan, Hypertech, ADS, JET
>et al cannot possibly all have agreements with all of the car companies
>whose PROMs they tweak...or do they? Somehow it seems unlikely that GM or
>BMW or Volkswagen would disclose to them technical information about their
>systems and what to modify. But how else would, say, Hypertech come out
with
>the Hypertech programmer for LT1s without such insider information so soon
>after the new cars ('Vette, Impala SS etc) were released?
>
>I know in the big scheme of things that this is really pretty small
potatoes
>but it has sorta bugged me for a bit.
>
>Any opinions? Any knowledge?

I can tell you (as a past Hypertech employee) that copying the stock binary,
making changes, and then selling it as your own work is NOT illegal.  This
has been a legal  issue of long debate.  Once the binary is modified, it is
no longer copyrighted material.  Re-selling of non-modified binaries IS
illegal, however.

To answer your question directly, it would be my guess that to display,
dissect, explain, or otherwise USE the stock image isn't illegal, but to
sell it would be.  There's no such thing as plagiarism on binary data...
modify just a byte, and then you can call it your own.  I'm sure things get
more complicated when you deal with commercial software that has user
interfaces and so forth... then the images and interface could be protected,
I'd assume.   Otherwise, you would see hack programs like "Microsoftish
Words" selling for 10 cents on the dollar of the original program, with all
the functionality.

And, Hypertech doesn't get any "inside information" from the manufacturers.
Time to market on new factory releases is only possible by purchasing the
first car in town of that model, getting started immediately, and working
hard.  Unforeseen technical challenges on selected models will always hurt
time to market, of course.

-Brock