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The Polish hackers who heroically fixed a series of NEWAG passenger trains that the manufacturer had artificially bricked with DRM are now being threatened with lawsuits from NEWAG. NEWAG has also filed a complaint with Polish authorities and has demanded the trains be removed from service.
Hackers fixed the trains *with permission from the trains' owner*
Repair expert told us this is "classic OEM bullshit," just on a train this time
@404mediaco it'll be very interesting if this gets escalated to the EC, as a challenge under EU Right to Repair. clause 18 of the directive makes it clear that third party repair is a matter of consumer choice and is encouraged, but I suspect that NEWAG will challenge the notion that the modifications made constitute a repair, for which there is less supporting precedent. not that I expect they'll have much luck.
@gsuberland @404mediaco The original code was malware/fraud and should be treated as a criminal act by the manufacturer. Defusing that is absolutely "repair".
@dalias @404mediaco while I agree that perpetual-renting style purchase agreements and related mechanisms for obfuscating ownership and impeding right-to-modify ought to be banned, I strongly doubt that the legal apparatus would agree with a severe enough interpretation to classify it as a criminal act of fraud.
but that's still fine, because even a far more moderate (and, let's be honest, realistic) legal interpretation would clear LSR, SPS, and Dragon Sector of any wrongdoing.
@dalias @404mediaco the real gem in all of this is the precedent it is likely to create. NEWAG may well have done everyone a favour here, given the EC's propensity toward take-no-bullshit stances on matters of consumer rights as of late.
@gsuberland @dalias @404mediaco my excitement cannot be contained
@gsuberland @dalias @404mediaco small asterisk though:
The customer is not a consumer, but a professional entity. May be afforded fewer rights...
I still hope NEWAG gets seriously told to eff off by the courts in a way that future attempts can be pointed at
@gsuberland @404mediaco If the software is pretending to be broken because it inferred from GPS that it was taken to a repair shop, that's fraudulent. It's attempting to obtain something of commercial value based on deception.
@dalias @404mediaco on that point I agree, but I suspect that the EC will stop short of taking that legal stance if the case is brought to them. I've got no frame of reference for Poland's judiciary, though, so who knows what they'll do.
@dalias @gsuberland The "fraud" part also comes from newag trying to blame the 3rd party repair shop's work for "why the train doesn't want to work". In other words, they're misrepresenting who broke the train in order to pressure the owner to have them repair it instead (and likely with inflated prices because "urgent" and "don't have to compete")
@becomethewaifu @dalias all of this is true, but is still a separate matter from whether or not the EC would make an executive ruling that this is a case of criminal fraud. the onus is largely on Poland's judiciary, on that front.
@becomethewaifu @dalias to be absolutely clear: my argument is that the question of whether or not it is criminal fraud is largely orthogonal to the EC's regulatory function in this matter and, as I understand it, also somewhat beyond their remit.
nothing NEWAG did was excusable or right or justified, and that entire brand of anti-consumer fuckery needs to get right in the bin.
So if it is not fraud, it is instead infrastructure sabotage and extortion (with a side of racketeering).
Sabotaging rail infrastructure for *any reason* in Poland is a crime.
@lispi314 @gsuberland @dalias @404mediaco Deliberately lying about what was broken (claiming a specific part had failed after X time) seems fraudulent to me. Certainly a plausible enough argument to end up in court.
I look forward to seeing how the suit turns out.
@azonenberg @lispi314 @dalias @404mediaco I'm getting a lot of replies that basically say the same thing as all the other replies so maybe this will help for context: