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If at some point Ford decided it was in their interest to restrict sales of used Fords then yes they could. Although it's likely that high end makers would do s

If at some point Ford decided it was in their interest to restrict sales of used Fords then yes they could. Although it's likely that high end makers would do so first - a supercar maker might be more interested in protecting it's brand image by keeping broken down versions of it's car off the street. Ford is more likely to suffer from the anger of departing new buyers than gain from there not being 40year old Ford pickups rusting in fields. Microsoft has already won a number of cases stopping companies selling unused software licenses. This is actually a big deal if you are a company - if you have $$$$ in MSFT licenses that you have been treating as assets and the court rules that they can't be sold and so have zero value - you might have a lot of auditors and shareholders you have lied to.

spinlock 14y ago
How is this possible? From my reading of the article, the suspension of first-sale only applies to goods manufactured abroad. Wouldn't MS software be manufactured in Washington state?
- martingordon 14y ago
  This is because MSFT and others have set the precendent that you don't own software, you license it. They can include a clause in the license that prevents resale of the license. The physical good that software is distributed on is covered by the first-sale doctrine and you can resell that, but it won't do much good because you can't reassign your license to it. If I have a license for Windows but lose the physical disc, I can buy your disc. However, without owning a license, I wouldn't have the right to use the software. If the SCOTUS upholds the circuit court's decision, I wouldn't be able to buy your Windows disc anymore (assuming it's pressed outside of the US).
tikhonj 14y ago
In fact, I think some supercar makers already do something like this--they make you sign a contract limiting how soon you can sell your car or even mandating that you allow the company to review and control whom you can sell the car to. Of course, this only works for really expensive but limited edition cars. If there is a several year waiting list just to get the chance to drop half a million on a car, the car maker can get away with almost anything--the customer is obviously willing to go through a lot of trouble! This is designed to stop people from flipping supercars. Also, there is a very important difference between a voluntary contract and an abuse of copyright law. Now, if every car maker mandated such a contract on every car, it would be a big issue even if it was ostensibly voluntary. In a free market, some other company not mandating such a contract would emerge; however, markets rarely function perfectly. I think this is an interesting parallel to the whole safe boot nonsense: if there was more diversity in the market it wouldn't be an issue, but the market is heavily dominated by a handful of companies, so it is an issue from a purely practical standpoint.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  On the other hand, suppose a group of car makers all coincidentally decided to impose this - purely for safety concerns. And while they couldn't ban after market parts, they could make the engine not start if the new brakes/mufflers/cat didn't give the correct crypto response to the engine management system. And just imagine that congress would bow down to the car makers (that it had just bailed out) and rule that you couldn't modify the engine computer - in the interests of safety of course.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I think the Nissan GT-R had some components like this, actually.
    - tikhonj 14y ago
      Did it? All I heard was that it had certain components hand-built and customized to each other (like the engine and the transmission). However, this is an entirely mechanical issue: since it wasn't really mass-produced, each motor and gearbox is different, so replacing them is going to be nontrivial. Of course, I'm not an expert, and could certainly be missing information on other components of the GT-R. Either way, it's useful to keep in mind that the GT-R is a really crazy car :P.
      - rdl 14y ago
        I know they were trying to prevent it from being "chipped", and putting cryptographic interlocks in major components is the best way to keep the ECU from being completely replaced.
ben1040 14y ago
It would be just as easy for a hypothetical Ford to do what GM did with the EV-1 -- don't sell the car and only offer it for lease.

spinlock 14y ago

How is this possible? From my reading of the article, the suspension of first-sale only applies to goods manufactured abroad. Wouldn't MS software be manufactured in Washington state?

martingordon 14y ago
This is because MSFT and others have set the precendent that you don't own software, you license it. They can include a clause in the license that prevents resale of the license. The physical good that software is distributed on is covered by the first-sale doctrine and you can resell that, but it won't do much good because you can't reassign your license to it. If I have a license for Windows but lose the physical disc, I can buy your disc. However, without owning a license, I wouldn't have the right to use the software. If the SCOTUS upholds the circuit court's decision, I wouldn't be able to buy your Windows disc anymore (assuming it's pressed outside of the US).

tikhonj 14y ago

In fact, I think some supercar makers already do something like this--they make you sign a contract limiting how soon you can sell your car or even mandating that you allow the company to review and control whom you can sell the car to. Of course, this only works for really expensive but limited edition cars. If there is a several year waiting list just to get the chance to drop half a million on a car, the car maker can get away with almost anything--the customer is obviously willing to go through a lot of trouble! This is designed to stop people from flipping supercars. Also, there is a very important difference between a voluntary contract and an abuse of copyright law. Now, if every car maker mandated such a contract on every car, it would be a big issue even if it was ostensibly voluntary. In a free market, some other company not mandating such a contract would emerge; however, markets rarely function perfectly. I think this is an interesting parallel to the whole safe boot nonsense: if there was more diversity in the market it wouldn't be an issue, but the market is heavily dominated by a handful of companies, so it is an issue from a purely practical standpoint.

excuse-me 14y ago
On the other hand, suppose a group of car makers all coincidentally decided to impose this - purely for safety concerns. And while they couldn't ban after market parts, they could make the engine not start if the new brakes/mufflers/cat didn't give the correct crypto response to the engine management system. And just imagine that congress would bow down to the car makers (that it had just bailed out) and rule that you couldn't modify the engine computer - in the interests of safety of course.
- rdl 14y ago
  I think the Nissan GT-R had some components like this, actually.
  - tikhonj 14y ago
    Did it? All I heard was that it had certain components hand-built and customized to each other (like the engine and the transmission). However, this is an entirely mechanical issue: since it wasn't really mass-produced, each motor and gearbox is different, so replacing them is going to be nontrivial. Of course, I'm not an expert, and could certainly be missing information on other components of the GT-R. Either way, it's useful to keep in mind that the GT-R is a really crazy car :P.
    - rdl 14y ago
      I know they were trying to prevent it from being "chipped", and putting cryptographic interlocks in major components is the best way to keep the ECU from being completely replaced.

ben1040 14y ago

It would be just as easy for a hypothetical Ford to do what GM did with the EV-1 -- don't sell the car and only offer it for lease.