Lets help our Honda and tuning brothers.

[MegasquirtCA]

Alright guys I figure I'd make a new thread concerning this matter that may or may not effect the nissan tuning community. Some of the tuning software and systems were inspired by some of the stuff from the honda community.

To give you a rundown of whats happening. A man by the name of David Bludell is being sued by a Major tuning company called Hondata. David is being sued because he is the owner of a forum and website where a user made a post linking a software. Even though David complied with Hondatas request a few months later Hondata decided to go ahead and sue David. So how does this effect us? Well some of the rom tuning software and systems used to tune our Nissans were based off the ideas and knowledge found on Davids website.


For more information.

http://forum.pgmfi.org/

http://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2135448&page=1

http://www.14point7.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2547


Mods I posted in tech section since it involves about tuning even though it isnt a technical thread. Feel free to move to a appropriate forum if you wish.

[jesuchristo]

This whole situation seems kinda sketchy.

The last thing that happened was he sold the board to some random russian guy (his contact info is IN RUSSIA, do they have hondas in russia?) And told hondata that since he sold it he is no longer responsible. Only then is when Hondata decided to sue.

David needs a new lawyer:

"It has further come to my attention that Mr. Blundell has sold PGMFI.org and no longer has the authority or ability to meet your client’s demands."

Any lawyer knows that he can still get sued for negligence that he was responsible for even if he isn't responsible for it anymore. And the message board isn't considered a business so he is being sued personally, so you can't transfer responsibility like that.

This was handled all wrong. He isn't making money off the boards so he should have folded like a paper airplane the first sign of legal trouble. Why would you fight something like this? It's not like Hondata has any unreasonable demands. He should have shut down the boards for a month the second he got a cease and desist letter.

I'm sure David's a cool guy and all, and pgmfi is a cool site.... but for god's sake CYA for cases like this

[MegasquirtCA]

Apparently Hondata went after the original poster who posted the link of the illegal software. That alone should of been enough in my eyes. Sadly I dont understand all this legal mumbo jumbo.

[PRADOgy]

I still dont understand how this may affect us..

[jesuchristo]

I read some of the letters back and forth and it seems all hondata wants is some sort of positive control over people who post copyrighted software. Not an unreasonable demand for the owner of an open source community message board.

People in that kind of community don't really give a rats ass about finding out if a download is legal or not before they post it. But as the owner of that kind of board he should know he is at risk for that sort of thing.

All he had to do was close all new posts and delete any offending content until he resolved the conflict with hondata. No harm done... the kids woulda found somewhere else to play, and all the data and info would have been preserved for reference purposes. Instead, now, he put the whole site at risk by claiming to sell it to some fake ass person. It's just gunna get shut down if it can't be regulated.

Even if you don't understand all the legal speak. Read the letters from David's attorneys and then compare them with the letters from hondatas attorneys. He needs some real legal advice. Something more than "just pretend to sell it to some guy and they should leave it alone"

[MegasquirtCA]

I still dont understand how this may affect us..

I said it may or may not effect. Some of the tuning tools used for tunings rom mostly based off the information from that website.

[jesuchristo]

It would suck if pgmfi got shut down. There's alot of useful info on there that would be unfortunate to lose.