Just start charging exorbitant amounts of money for every API call; problem solved! —Spez
(Also: Fuck Spez)
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
736 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
59197 readers
2518 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Sadly it would end the same like with reddit or netflix: The loss due to the amount of pissed-off and leaving customers is obviously way less than the gain due to the ignorant or root-problem-agnostics. Makes me a sad panda...
This will be over soon. When the EU's Data Act comes into force, car manufacturers will be obliged to allow access to vehicle data.
Also isn't it Mazda's fault for creating an API that anyone can access and get information from? Someone in Mazda IT is probably frantically looking for the email chain where he was told to "just make it public" so our outside analysts can use it.
I think yes, assuming nobody grabbed an API key out of the Mazda app or something.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
This doesn't make any sense. API requests are not proprietary.
Yep, this looks like a blatant abuse of the DMCA by Mazda. Either Mazda is engaging in scummy behavior or they need better lawyers. Either way, it makes me want to never buy another Mazda.
load more comments
(1 replies)
That doesn't stop anybody. Just this morning Amazon sent out a wave of C&Ds because people were using their public APIs to access "proprietary data."
So, they mad b/c of an internal skill issue.
O they mad
"How dare you use our public APIs that we made available publicly for others to use!"
load more comments
(1 replies)
It reads to me like: "this app does the same thing as our app therefore they must have copied our code; there is no other possible explanation". Cool story, bro. I hope the developers will fight back but that takes lots of money.
The article states this was a hobby of his and he won't be defending it as it would entail financial cost of mounting a legal defense.
There goes that rigged system again.
So what? They have more money, they decide what is legal or not.
I didn’t really get it until I read the article (shut up 😃), but it seems pretty clear that Mazda’s primary concern here appears to be access to this API through Home Assistant cutting off future (maybe current) owners’ requirement to subscribe to their app for features.
man, remember when you could buy a car and it wasnt connected to the internet?
Remember when you could buy a car and it was yours?
John Deere doesn't
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
What a load of horse shit.
Just like with hue, and Chromecast, and Android TV, and a million other smart devices, it's perfectly lawful (and IMHO necessary) for individuals to launch their own integrations with their the products they own. People don't need their bullshit "service", and by buying the vehicle they have a legally protected right to alter it and it's software for their own use.
That they bullied this guy into taking down the repo despite what the law protects him to do is disgusting, if not also predictable.
I hope someone with the time and resources goes to the matt with one of these shit companies and make them own up to their exploitative practices.
I for one will be altering my Mazda how I want and sharing my alterations to get around their shit subscription model with everyone I can.
God forbid. Wouldn't want users to find any of this useful in novel ways. Because that never makes a product popular or anything. And Mazda might lose hundreds of dollars or something. Gasp.
Pretty soon we'll have to subscribe to our car's trunk.
BMW on the line for you, sir.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Eh, it's preferable when companies go ahead and self-identify as being comprehensively dog shit and worthless.
Just another company to throw on the list who will never receive a single dollar of my money as long as I live.
Won't lose a wink of sleep over it. Good luck, Mazda.
load more comments
(2 replies)
DMCA is broken, intellectual property is a scam.
It seems to be working exactly as intended. It protects the OP of the rich while not giving a shit about the poor.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I don't get it. People are working for free to add a feature to your product which might move more people to buy said product. Make users who use external features acknowledge some waiver that your company is not responsible for damage. If it turns out to be really good, you can fork it, hire the original inventor and turn it into a paid product. Isn't that a risk-free win? Am I missing something?
Most likely they do not appreciate people adding features to their products for free because these are features that could be sold on future models. This is why right to repair is so important.
load more comments
(1 replies)
They probably want you to pay a subscription for extra features and homeboy went and made it free for life.
A Federated git repo would make this immune from an easy take-down.
Lol no it wouldn't. The guy doesn't want to commit resources to fight this, since it's a hobby project and this sucked away his motivation to continue.
Unless y'all give him enough money to mount a legal defense, no amount of fancy tech will help.
While not exactly this situation, it has similar vibes to this: https://xkcd.com/538/
Oh god.
Federation is going to become the next blockchain thing that people have no idea what it does but insist it'll fix everything, isnt it?
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
Well then, anyone have this code archived? Time to make sure it makes it to torrent networks. The only way we render the DMCA irrelevant is to make it useless.
Make sure to keep the checksums in place.
load more comments
(2 replies)
What a fucking joke. Let me tell you, these car OEMs are fucking SHIT at API development in general. Shit, it's a fuckin miracle when they actually have APIs. A major OEM (won't mention as it's work related for me) just recently published their APIs and MY GOD are they fucking trash, inconsistent, and throw 5xx for fucking any reason (this is absolutely NOT a small or new OEM by any fucking means... Luxury brand)
This is simply a shit company trying to punish people because of their own incompetencies when it comes to API design and management. Oh and just anti-consumer in general, just like how they attack right-to-repair at every fuckin turn possible.
FUCK capitalism, it's fucking broken; instead of ensuring that competition drives innovation we instead get.... LESS control LESS features for MORE across the board (subscriptions, anyone?). Anyone talking about the free market's inherent innovation is a FUCKING GODDAMN MORON
load more comments
(1 replies)
So .. is there a copy of the repo left that we can replicate endlessly?
load more comments
(1 replies)
I'll be buying a new car soon. Fuck Mazda.
Should be legally protected and these companies should receive heavy fines for false DMCA claims
load more comments
(1 replies)
I already thought Mazda sucked and made shit products, so it’s nice that they confirmed it’s not just their products that are mediocre at best, it’s their whole business.
Edit: Turns out my long standing perception of Mazda is woefully incorrect. I could have sworn they had a string of bad reliability issues in the early 2000’s and 2010’s but it turns out that’s just plain wrong. Couldn’t tell you what I was thinking of. Leaving the OG comment to laugh at my mistake.
They can still eat a bag of dicks though for this DMCA abuse though.
My cx-50 is awesome, I got it because my old Mazda3 was awesome and super reliable. (as far as cars go, which are all dirty death machines)
Can you elaborate? All the people I know had good experiences with mazda
Yea, not sure what hes comparing Mazdas to.
As someone who's turned wrenches since the late 70's, Mazda is in my top 3 for reliability: Honda, Toyota, Mazda, in that order.
Every other brand you get to fix the same thing more than once, have weird failures, mixture of Metric and ACU bolts (looking at you American Manufacturers), over-designed systems making trouble-shooting and repair more difficult and costly (like VW tying the door lock ECU to the air conditioning), crappy electrics (Chrysler/Dodge wins on this one, they're almost as bad as as 70's British car with Lucas electrics), weird and problematic mixtures of vendor sources (again, Chrysler, since the days they bought AMC they've continued to have hodge-podge vehicles, like the Chryslers with Mercedes diesel engines, but modified so they don't always use the exact same parts), etc, etc.
I could go on for days listing each manufacturer's pain points.
Far less so with the 3 Japanese listed. For the most part, their vehicles are all their own (some exceptions with Mazda when they were owned by Ford, and Toyota had some GM ties over the years), and even those cars are more Japanese design/engineering/manufacturing than Big 3.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
This is like sueing someone for knocking on your door. Just lawyers and business vampires tripping over their own dicks.
view more: next ›