Right to repair versus Company trade secrets.

[22R]

My old Carbed Duece Stroke looking betta n betta

22R

[LakeFever]

You own a phone..lol no you bought a license to collect data for the company who made the phone...

You can add apps, crack the phones OS, and many other things perfectly legally too. Sure the parent co cuts warranty and support off in this case, but its still YOUR phone to do what you want with it

[powerabout]

You can add apps, crack the phones OS, and many other things perfectly legally too. Sure the parent co cuts warranty and support off in this case, but its still YOUR phone to do what you want with it

not quite the hardware might be but the software may not be
cracking software is a breach of copyright and that software is licensed to you not sold or sold with conditions
Check your Windows PC license you agreed to by buying it...

[powerabout]

If what you say about mercury is true it should be a huge issue for owners. If you bought the engine then you own the data stored in it. If mercury wants to see that data say for R and D, any other reason other than what the owner hired the dealership to do, then the engine owner needs to be justly compensated. There basically steeling valuable research data from unwitting consumers.

I'l bet there is a licensing clause in there somewhere that you have agreed to by buying and operating it.
IT industry being doing that for years, nothing new

[WaterZebra]

I retired from VW dealer in 2015 and at that time anyone could purchase any special tools, diagnosis tools such as the notebook computer system with software ready to use, including repair information manuals(online). VW hasn't printed manuals for many years. Most through snap-on for purchased at $25/week(LOL.

VAS6150E, Professional Diagnostics Laptop - VW Authorized Tools and Equipment (snapon.com)

I haven't bought a book form manual or downloaded anything in years. Now, my DIY training tool is YouTube!