ECU Tuning...

[Adydas]

RIght so you spend $600-800 getting your ecu tuned.. and a while later you go to check out the map or be nosey using the software.. Oh no a PIN number..

Who "owns" the map on the ecu, can a tuner legally charge you money and then make the maps youve paid for become compleatly hidden?

[MrOizo]

Wouldnt it be more so you dont go and change something and then BANG!??

they mut have a few people that have done this?

So you have car now ayyyeeeeeeee?

[Lith]

You should own it. If they don't want you to see it, do they have something to hide?

[Adydas]

Its not a deal for me to see or touch it
but i rang the Old dyno tuner for my ecu to get hte pin so my tuner can do his work ( Yes my cars that close to been finshed....) and i was told NO..

They wont give the pw but they would take the ecu, remove the pin(as well as the map) indicating they are protecting the map as if they still own it..

Got me thinking is all.. i understand they are hiding the map so you cant reproduce or on sell it what ever as its there work regardless that youve parted cash for it..

[pjay]

Call Jason at SHEN DIAN ENTERPRISE LTD if you want ECU work done.. hes good, and cheap

[MrOizo]

If you get no where by asking give fair go a call and see what they have to say about it

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/tvone_minisite_i ... r_go_group

[audi man]

Its not a deal for me to see or touch it
but i rang the Old dyno tuner for my ecu to get hte pin so my tuner can do his work ( Yes my cars that close to been finshed....) and i was told NO..

They wont give the pw but they would take the ecu, remove the pin(as well as the map) indicating they are protecting the map as if they still own it..

Got me thinking is all.. i understand they are hiding the map so you cant reproduce or on sell it what ever as its there work regardless that youve parted cash for it..

Were did you get the tune done, as this as happend to me as well, but i got friend that got past the pin number for me.

[Adydas]

I have a tuner thanks, My question is who retains legal ownership of the MAP!!

[MrOizo]

Were you told about the conditions before you got the work done?

Nothing on the receipt?

[fivebob]

Intellectual property rights are a thorny issue, but unless they told you that they owned the rights to the map when they tuned it for you, then they're on very shaky ground, and IP usually rests with the people that pay the bills.

Perhaps you need to take it to the disputes tribunal and let them decide who owns the map.

What ECU is it? There may be a way of hacking the pin

The other option is, if you have any data logs, to rebuild the maps from those.

[flygt4]

my understanding is that in a normal situation you own the tune. you paid for them to create it therefore you own the product of the work. same deal as paying anyone where they create something for you ie photographer etc. could be a grey area as said above tho.

situation may be complicated by the fact the tune was done for a previous owner? its possible they may have had an arrangement with the tuner, or they used a a standard pin for their workshop that they put on all their tunes and don't want it known.


i reckon it possible they are just being precious.

[Adydas]

Its a Motec ecu, perhaps i havent explained my self clearly i got it second hand and it allready had a map on it from glenn sucklings tuning.

my tuner ( not glenn ) asked for the password to get in and edit whats there to what my car needs rather than blank it and be forced to start from scratch ( fair point could be a tad quicker.. )..

SO when i went to get the PIN on his behalf from the tuner that put the pin on it, i was told No.

We wont give you the pin but give us the ECU and we will remove the pin number at the same time as removing the data file aka map.

SO that means that they are refusing to give out the pin so as to stop anyone else seeing " There Map ", so my question is who Legally owns that map / datafile?

Glen for doing it and making it on a dyno pressumablly for money from the person whos ecu it was and owned the car, Or does the owner of the ecu and car own it beacuse they paid the tuner the money in exchange for the map.

Whats the difference, imagine i could go to torque performance and say I need a map for this car, this motor that runs this boost and kw etc and they magically were able to print out the figure and sell me it for $500 * lets say * so i could take it home and insert it on my car and then keep that file to do with as i wish.

The only differnce is in the real world you cant buy a tune from somone without them working the tune out directly onto the hardware, but does that change the fact its Yours or theres?

[pjay]

its anyones unless it is copyrighted as far as i know

[fivebob]

Is it password protected, or encrypted?

I can probably provide a start up map if that's all you need.

[Adydas]

Im fine, im asking a more general question using my situation as an eg.. My cars been tuned from scratch next week.. its fine..

Im touching more on the ownership of it when its done tho, I see a car MAP like music tablature ( ohher )..

If i go to a music shop and buy a book with Metallicas Nothing else matters guitar tab on it, the money from that sale assumabley goes to Metallica as its there work to produce that unique info.

Another cut goes into manafacture and another toward shop profit etc..

So your holding a book with nothing else matters tab on it, youve paid money for it and you walk away with it and use it..

6 months later youd bored of it ( be it the cars ECU map being not powerfull enuf, or the guitar book tab ) and you decide to sell it.

So off to trademe you go and sell it for lets say 40% less than the price you paid, And you pass the tatteyer older nothing else matters tab to a new buyer.

DIffernce is IF i wanted to sell the map that was on the ecu of mine ( for a V8 ute ) i cant beacuse the tuners ( aka metallica ) are saying its mine not yours, despite you paying money for it.

Now to be fair i CANT beacuse i didnt buy that map for the V8 ute but im refering to the theory can the person that DID, on sell that map ( Not that i think anyone would ever want a used map being that it was specially made for that specific car anyway ).

[flygt4]

us 4agte guys have been swapping maps exactly as you say.

seeing as our setups are often quite similar, and most run link ecu's, its not uncommon to lend people maps as starting points for other peoples tunes. ie someone lends someone else their tune to get them going,and in return get a copy of the others map upon completion.

when setups are quite similar you save a lot of time for the tuner building the tune from scratch.

the pin code thing is a tricky one tho, as ive heard of certain branded ecu's only allowing their official agents access to their maps. think of it as type of quality control as the manufacturer is able to make sure only competent people(usually trained by them) are tuning their ecu's.

[Grrrrrrr!]

its anyones unless it is copyrighted as far as i know

Copyright is automatic.. as soon as you create an original work it is covered by copyright. copyright notices are just to make it
obvious who the copyright owner is and discourage anyone from copying it.
Whether this applies to an ECU tune is another question.

My personal belief is that if they created a tune for a particular engine/setup for a particular customer that customer should own it.
They commissioned the work and therefore it is the customers property.

If the tune is something the shop made as a generic tune for that model of car/motor and they burn for a lot of their customers then sure,
they can protect it, but they should let the customer know up front that they will lock it, and they shouldn't be charging
full custom tune prices.

[MasCam]

I would say that this will come down to a contract issue.

i.e. If the terms of the workshop say they own it and it was tuned with that understanding then they will retain the copyright on that map. If they don't have those terms advertised in a reasonable way, or in a contract then I would say that the client would keep the rights to the map.

There was a mention of photographers earlier in the thread, a lot of photographers retain the copyright on the photo's they take of you so they can charge you for the reprints, but this has been tested in court, and if they do not let you know this before you take them then the copyright will default back to you.

So in this case it would require some proof of if they did or did not tell the client that the map would remain their property. I would suggest the the onus of proof would be on them to prove that they did inform the client either through proof of proper advertising of the conditions or a written contract. You could also get a friend to do so spy work and find out if they do tell people.

Chris

[IH8TEC]

i'm affraid to say it, but honda have this down packed. if you say use a hondata, you can go onto their site, and get a map for having this mod and that mod etc.

they litterally have hundreds of maps.

i dont get why tuners get so uptight with their tunes ON STREET CARS

if it's for a car in a competitive class i can fully understand the protecting it.

if i'm paying for it, i wanna be able to play with it, i needed access to mine to be able to fiddle with the launch settings, add stuff to outputs later on, stuff i can do WITHOUT having to go and pay the same person to do it.

[Si]

So it sounds like who ever had the ECU tuned owns the map, and unless that person transfered that "IP" along to you as part of the sale, you have no right to use it.

Fair enough the tuner not giving the pin out, after all, What if it was from say a race car with $$$ involved.

Either get the previous owner of the ECU to get the pin, or get it wiped.