[thrtythreeforty]

I would love to lobby to change how the law works for these cases: for some definition of "firmware" (informally "software that ships with hardware and is not intended to be selected by the consumer like a computer operating system"), add a copyright exception so that modifying the firmware in situ is treated like modifying the physical hardware, because in practice they are in fact the same thing: a single component that does a single thing.

With this, the John Deere approach to gatekeeping vehicle repair would no longer be legally protected by the DMCA or by copyright law. All the other protections afforded by copyright law would still apply: you cannot rip the firmware off the hardware and distribute it, the manufacturer is under no obligation to help you modify it, etc.

However, tools which patch or circumvent antifeatures of the firmware would now be legal to use on hardware you own: it would be legal to patch out software locks, retune engine computers, etc.

[throwway120385]

I think the law should regard the general thing being copied (firmware, software, etc) as different from a single copy. For example, the law could regard modifying a single instance of firmware similarly to the way it regards modifying a book. Right now you can take a book and mark it up or tear pages out if you want without any permission, and the only reason permission would be required for firmware is because of the ability to have telemetry and attestation. So it seems like a pretty good extension of copyright law to protect any modification of a copy but not the sale of additional copies.