First, this is completely bogus: Swapping the circuit board does not give unlicensed access to Bird’s software, it removes it, and second:
You Are Pulling This Crap on Cory Doctorow? Are You F%$#Ing Sh%$ting Me?
This has gotta be the stupidest take-down notice ever:
According to a new letter published Friday by an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer, the scooter startup Bird significantly overstepped when it recently demanded that Boing Boing remove a post describing personal “conversion kits” that enable the removal of Bird’s proprietary hardware from a seized scooter.
The fracas began on December 8, 2018, when Cory Doctorow, the longtime Boing Boing writer and famed science fiction author, wrote a post entitled: “$30 plug-and-play kit converts a Bird scooter into a ‘personal scooter.’”
In it, Doctorow described the existence of kits that purport to allow someone to legally purchase an impounded Bird scooter and then alter it for personal use.
Bird did not take kindly to this post. On December 20, the company demanded that Boing Boing remove it. Bird’s lawyer, Linda Kwak, claimed that, simply by writing about the existence of these kits, Boing Boing violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
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On Friday, EFF lawyer Kit Walsh, who represents Doctorow in this dustup, wrote to Kwak that Doctorow “has no obligation to, and will not, comply with your request to remove this article.”
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It appears that the current exemption to the Section 1201 law that normally prohibits circumvention of digital locks is protected under the section that specifically allows for “Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired motorized land vehicle… when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, repair, or lawful modification of a vehicle function.”
And also, Cory F%$#ing Doctorow?
This man is the EFF’s public face on fighting digital rights management, and has arguably been the most prominent opponent of DRM in the computer community world wide, and you serve up this sh%$ sandwich?
What the F%$# is wrong with you?