Quote:
Originally Posted by Rbneader
Exactly. But the car companies are dragging the DMCA into it, precisely because it gives them an unprecedented amount of control over other people's property. That's the problem.
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That's a rather distorted way of phrasing it. Yes, they will undoubtedly try to take advantage of anything that will lock a buyer into using their service and parts but - as others have pointed out - there is nothing new in that. However, a car continues to be a device made up of replaceable parts (much more so than modern electronic devices like ereaders etc.). As such, it may be viable to use the DMCA to argue about what you can do to the internals of a particular part, it cannot be used to argue about replacing that part with some third-party equivalent. So the hazards they are talking about still remain and must be addressed.
And, aside from all that, the old capitalist mantra still remains: competition. If one manufacturer (be it of whole cars or just replacement parts) can be convinced to let buyers play with their components (at least to some extent) then all manufacturers face losing out to that competition unless they offer the same. Are there enough petrol-heads to support such competition? - from what I've seen, I'd say yes.