From the PRI Washington, D.C., office

Vehicle owners and businesses acting on their behalf received a three-year exemption from federal copyright infringement laws when accessing, storing and sharing vehicle operational data, including diagnostic and telematics data, the Librarian of Congress (LOC) recently declared.

In establishing an exemption to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the United States statutory prohibition on circumventing technological protection measures (TPM) that control access to copyrighted works, the LOC, in consultation with the U.S. Copyright Office, is protecting vehicle owners and the automotive business of their choice from being subject to copyright infringement when they download, copy and use non-copyrightable data that is stored on electronic control units and other copyrightable works in their vehicles.

This exemption will help to preserve consumer choice by ensuring that vehicle owners can decide who works on their vehicles and the parts that are used. The Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) requested the Class 7, Computer Programs exemption in 2023, which SEMA and PRI supported in its comment to the LOC and U.S. Copyright Office.

The LOC also provided a three-year extension for the current exemption for "Computer Programs--Vehicle Operational Data" that protects vehicle owners and third-party service providers that circumvent the TPMs to access computer programs primarily designed to control vehicle telematics and entertainment systems. This exemption was first created in 2015 for vehicle owners and was expanded to include third-party service providers in 2018.

For more information, contact Eric Snyder, SEMA's senior director of federal government affairs, at erics@sema.org.