The trials of NC tuning...

[Magpie]

If I pay someone to create something for me, I own the copyright

If the content creator is on staff, and the work is created during their employment as part of their job, usually the employer owns the copyright. If, on the other hand, the content creator is an independent contractor, then they will usually retain copyright unless there is something in writing transferring copyright to you. If you have not made an agreement about how you may use the material, you would usually be entitled to use it for the purposes it was commissioned for, but may not be entitled to use it for other purposes.

http://www.copyright.com.au/get-information/about-copyright/copyright-myths-and-misconceptions

Copyright applies to the following:
text (e.g. in books, journal articles, reports, webpages)
images (e.g. photographs, artistic works, graphs)
video and moving images (e.g. films, videos, television commercials,vodcasts)
audio recordings (e.g. music recordings, radio programs, podcasts)
computer programs

Under Australia and most other countries, copyright automatically applies as soon as the content is created and 'fixed' in some way (e.g. written down, recorded, saved to disk). There is no requirement to register or go through any other process.

Whilst Copyright requires no action, IP rights need to be protected. I'll wait for the argument that a ECU tune is not covered by copyright. Please check your facts before going down this path...

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/understanding-intellectual-property/what-is-ip/
Intellectual Property (IP) is a term that describes the application of the mind to develop something new or original. IP can exist in various forms; a new invention, brand, design or artistic creation. There are various types of IP available.

Creating intellectual property (IP) does not necessarily mean that you own the rights to it. To own the rights to your IP you need to protect it.

[Apu]

That may (or may not, I don't know) be true legally but legality has no bearing on morality.

Dann

Magpie is right.

[Jeo]

Agreed with Dann. IP and Copyright law exists to promote innovation, but in it's current standing in many fields it only stifles it. From a layman's understanidng of ECU tuning and the information provided in this thread, I'd be leaning more towards the latter in this case.

[hall6463]

Good luck with Overseas Tunes,
2010- Purchased a piggyback system (didnt work)
2011 -Purchased a USA tuning kit (didnt work)
2012 - Purchased USA Tunes ( ex Italy) lunched an engine
Sent money to 2 USA suppliers and have recieved nothing back ( been ripped off)

2012- Puchased a Ecutech Licence ( a legal Australian Version not a pirate import), Daniel tuned the car on his Dyno.
Result, the car set Track records at SMSP, QR, Bathurst. Now can do a 1.063 around WP. ( my best time 1.07 dead)

My experience is that every car is different, so everycar requires a slightly different tune to get the best out of it.
If your tuner cant give you a Dyno sheet before and after how do you know it worked?

[Deckspeed Racing]

Where I have taken offence with the original post is that bye inuendo Rob has stated that I stole the tune file from his tuner, this is simply untrue and could have easily been verified bye Rob as such bye sending the file to ecutek and having it checked for such a breach prior to slurring me both personally and profesionally on a public forum, the other offensive part of it , that the inference is I need to steal files from off shore tuners to be able to [as he put it be at the cutting edge of this technology], Rob if you had any idea of the countless hours I have spent developing our race car tunes so as to 1. learn and understand the NC ECU and 2. the technology available to modify it , I would hope you wouldn't have made such stupid statments. I have been prepared to spend my own money on my own car to do this and not use customers as guinea people to achieve it, can your tuner say the same thing? I have also been prepared to race my car pubilcly so people can make ther own judgement on how good or bad the result is, can your tuner say this or is he only good at blowing smoke up his own arse on public forums?
You where having issues with your car on that day at eastern creek and asked me if I could assist which I happily did at no cost to you, I will think more carefully about giving you such assitance in the future if this is the appreciation you display for it.

Daniel

[pie5]

I'm very interested to see the development of the OpenFlashTablet.
I think it's a reasonably priced device for flashing a tune and free open source software to view and modify the unlocked tune/s if required.

It's the system that has come the closest to tempt me to tune my car.

[Magpie]

Deckspeed Racing I agree that you should be able to defend yourself, especially when it is innuendo. However the OP would have been much better off to NOT use a public forum to air dirty linen. There is always two sides to a story.

The OP actions may not effect Dann's attitude towards helping others, however there are other ramifications because some people will now rethink helping, as you have now done.

Hopefully Deckspeed Racing time will prove you right and people are man enough to eat humble pie and publicly apologise.

[22Silver]

Did anyone ever sign a contract upon purchasing a tune that they will never ever plug their ECU into a machine NOT owned by the tuner again?

Also- if someone does a rewire/hose reroute or something in my engine bay, does this mean I can't take it to a mechanic because someone might steal the IP 'hose layout' or 'wiring schema'?

[Magpie]

I had a feeling that this would get to extreme situations.

The issue is not what you do, unless you said to the person "you can have a copy of the tune for $...". It would be different if you said to the person, "I do not want you copying anything in this car as I do not own the rights".

Can you prevent somebody from copying (without your knowledge) a hose layout or a wiring schema?

Stop looking for reasons to not do something

[Dweezle]

I might be wrong, but haven't these "tuners", hacked into Mazdas Ecu to be able to tune it?
Is that not stealing IP?

Again, I might be wrong

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[bear2230]

Interesting reading but this thread should probably be locked then deleted.
My experience with Daniel has been fantastic and I would recommend him personally and professionally to anyone.

One of my previous tuners blew up my engine on the dyno but this forum is certainly not the place to air dirty laundry and personally attack someones livelihood.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things and putting sh*t on businesses on this forum is definitely not right.

Just my opinion. If you don't like it, I've got plenty of others. Probably won't like them much either.

Richard.

[bigmaxy]

One of my previous tuners blew up my engine on the dyno but this forum is certainly not the place to air dirty laundry and personally attack someones livelihood.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things and putting sh*t on businesses on this forum is definitely not right.

Quite separate from the original topic. But the point you raise does come in a variety of flavors. I only agree with what you are saying if the problem (blown engine) was handled appropriately by the business.
I the business tells lies, dodges responsibility and basically tells you to stick it, I feel it is warranted to let other people know of your experience and let them make their own judgement whether they wish to use that tuner in the future.

Without this kind of feedback, shonky businesses continue to fleece unknowing customers.

Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the vendors concerned in this thread. I use Ecutek with a locked tune. I have no way of being able to read the tune. Sure, I can do a rom dump but I would need to send it back to Ecutek to have it converted and read. There is no way they would do that for me. I very much doubt that occurred in this instance. It's more likely the bs is coming from overseas for other motives or it was not the OP's car involved at all. This was all speculation from the OP's overseas based tuner.

[Lokiel]

Interesting reading but this thread should probably be locked then deleted.
My experience with Daniel has been fantastic and I would recommend him personally and professionally to anyone.

One of my previous tuners blew up my engine on the dyno but this forum is certainly not the place to air dirty laundry and personally attack someones livelihood.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things and putting sh*t on businesses on this forum is definitely not right.

Just my opinion. If you don't like it, I've got plenty of others. Probably won't like them much either.

Richard.

Here's my take on this:

I think it's OK for users to "air dirty laundry" as long as the accused has the ability to reply and defend themselves from these allegations. This then allows others to decide for themselves who to believe, the accuser or defendant.

If a business has a lot of customers and only a few complaints then you can assume that the business is sound and that the complaints were due to unusual circumstances.

If a business receives a lot of complaints then you can assume that you should probably go elsewhere.

Case in point: BEGi in the US. They are a well known MX5 aftermarket business but if you Google "BEGi" you'll find that there are a lot of dissatisfied customers.

ie. If users have no ability to "air their dirty laundry" then we'll never know if it's an isolated incident or there is actually a problem with a business.

[mazmad]

Valid points. But equally. There is a lot of b.s. online. People talk the talk who simply can't back it up. So you equally don't know if the complaint is valid, just because you read it online.

Me. I gauge a business by talking to 'real' people and tracking how services supplied from that business perform in the real world. Same applies to a workshop/tuner.

I have seen tuners talk it up online, with their every word apparently taken as gospel, only to see cars they built basically blow up on the track.

[NitroDann]

Lots of BS is talked wherever you go online or in real life.

Also having been on both sides of the coin, it's hard to know who is at fault and when. For example I have rushed together a setup for a good friend of mine and it was taken to another well known shop (none of the forum sponsors) to be run up on the dyno, a small enough job done by people with a different train of thought and not much experience became a nightmare weekend for my friend with basically everything being disassembled and slapped back together and subsequent issues, and conjecture regarding what went wrong where flew around. I know what happened, the other shop knows what happened, but everyone else is left guessing. Taking the car back and redoing it on my own and tuning it myself left him with a blindingly fast car that ran many many FTD's over and over again with fantastic reliability.

The moral of the story is that it's hard to know what fault is who's, and the owner should consult the people involved in private before saying anything to anyone, and if they aren't satisfied with what is organised go nuts and tell everyone within the standard social bounds of professionalism.

I imagine that most shops feel the same way as me, my reputation is worth a lot more than anyones parts, so it's imperative to me that should any issues come up, the customer calls me directly and gives me the first opportunity to solve their problem. That's the right course of action.

General advice for customers is make sure that if you can't get your entire list of mods done in one place make 100% sure that the work is separated strongly. Don't ever let 2 peoples jobs cross path, the classic example is the tuner blaming the engine builder and the builder blaming the tuner. The customer cannot possibly know who's fault it is and will be left footing the bill.

Dann