ECU Tuning as per Down Under

[Douglas Broussard]

On Thursday, September 12, 2002, at 04:13 PM, George Roffe wrote:

> I would argue that they Nissan's code is public domain at this time.
> In
> order to retain your copyright you must vigorously defend your
> copyright.

Respectfully, the belief that copyright must be defended by an author
to remain intact is a myth. I don't know how this one got started, but
I hear it a lot.

In the U.S., copyright is granted to an author at the time of creation
of original work. If I create a picture, a publishable work, or
computer code to name some popular examples, I automatically have
copyright for those works.

Registration of the copyright with the Copyright Office is not required
to retain copyright on original work, but it makes collecting damages a
lot easier. Absolutely no evidence of defense or enforcement is needed
to retain copyright by an author, only evidence of creation of the work
by the author.

Copyright provides protection for the way an idea is presented, not the
idea itself. As a result, it's possible to achieve the same end through
different means, like writing your own ECU code to run on Nissan's
hardware. Or, you can legally license Nissan's code and work from
there. Modifying the code without Nissan's permission could be a
violation, but that's a question for an attorney.

I've dealt with many copyright issues as a professional photographer,
and I employ a copyright attorney - although I'm no attorney myself.

Works like computer code can pass into the public domain after a set
period of time (75 or 100 years). Any copying of the original code or
modifying the original code is technically a violation of copyright,
but generating original code (like new maps not based on Nissan's maps
or code) would most likely NOT be a violation of Nissan's copyright on
the code.

Again, respectfully,

Doug Broussard
Technical Writer
Digital Imaging Consultant
http://www.alternativelight.com