PROMs and Copyrights...

[David Cooley]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Williams <dave.williams at chaos.lrk.ar.us>
To: diy_efi at esl.eng.ohio-state.edu <diy_efi at esl.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Sunday, January 24, 1999 7:47 PM
Subject: PROMs and Copyrights...



-> 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.

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.

<SNIP>

Actually, they are not modifying code...
They are modifying look-up tables.  There is no copyright or patent that
covers timing curves, fuel curves etc... if there was, changing the advance
weights in your old distributor ignition car would have been illegal.