PROMs and Copyrights...

[Jennifer and Brock Fraser]

> By US law copying, modifying, and reselling code is a Federal crime.
>Several states also have anti-hacking and anti-piracy laws that cover
>this.
>
> Hypertech and others get away with their practices because the OEMs
>have chosen, for whatever reasons, not to take them to court.  There
>aren't any Copyright Police looking around for violations; GM or Ford or
>whoever has to set the ball rolling.
>
> Just because Hypertech and others are not being prosecuted doesn't make
>what they're doing legal - all any OEM would have to do is file, and it
>would an open-and-shut rubber stamp trial.  There are ample precedents
>on the subject of piracy of ROM code - IBM, Apple, and Phoenix BIOS all
>filed suit against code pirates and won.
>
> I've discussed this subject with several chip vendors, who all seem to
>engage in the same kind of wishful thinking as Hypertech.

Interesting viewpoint.  I'm not still in contact with the Hypertech owner,
so I can't confirm further, but I'm just repeating what he told me a few
years ago when I asked these very same questions.

Who knows, maybe he's paying the lawyer $250 an hour just to tell him what
he WANTS to hear.  haha  Considering the millions he has invested in the
business, I'd say that he has a pretty good handle on what his liability is.

I don't have any more confirmation, but this was a revisited issue when the
Power Programmers were designed for the reprogrammable applications...

Maybe the IBM, Apple, and Phoenix "hacking" examples are issues of lost
revenues?  GM doesn't lose any business when Hypertech sells a chip, and
maybe that's the key destinction.

I think we are digressing a bit from the original question.  The point is,
legal or not, if Hypertech can stay open for business for 12+ years, it's
safe to assume that the average Joe can post binary data and interpretations
on his web site.



>The bigger question on copying and modifying the OEM code is who out
>here does emissions testing on the final results?  The OEM's spend huge
>$$$ on testing and I suspect are on the hook for any changes that effect
>emissions.  Do any aftermarket tuners who make PROM changes recertify
>the cars or even test for emissions?

Hypertech does annual "spot checks" at certified labs covering a sampling of
the offered applications.  CARB (and EPA follows along) reviews the results
(an A-B-A  test) and also checks the other applications to make sure that
they are of the same "flavor".  Assuming all the applications follow the
same general patterns for the parameters that are modified, all the
applications are grandfathered in under one CARB E.O. number.  Exceptions
(such as the GM and Ford Diesels) are tested individually.  This makes all
Hypertech products legal for sale in both the Federal and California markets
even though not every chip (far from it) has been tested.  I'm not sure if
other non-chip companies play by the same rules or not -- camshafts, for
instance.  I don't think the other "chip" companies (at least the ones
servicing domestic cars and trucks- don't know about Dinan and Autothority,
etc...) are quite as compliant.