I do not use this integration myself, nor own a Mazda vehicle. But as an integration author myself, this is a major disappointment.
When I first saw the removal in the release notes yesterday and read through the DMCA notice, the first thing that came to my mind was that this is nonsense, for all the other reasons called out here and in the removal PR: that this integration is the result of reverse engineering for the purposes of “interoperability”, which is absolutely legal (in the US) under the “fair use” clause. I agree with others saying that this is a blatant misuse/abuse of DMCA.
I’m disappointed that GitHub enforced the takedown in the first place. I hope that Mazda and GitHub reconsider this. And I hope that @bdr99 follows up with a counter-notice. But putting myself in those shoes, I don’t know that I would take on the risk of going up against a global corporation, and frankly I think that’s what Mazda is counting on (in other words, they’re being a bully on the expectation that they will get away with it).
If HA and GitHub allow this kind of behavior to go unchecked, then there’s nothing stopping every other company behind the products for which there are HA Integrations that offer interoperability from doing the same thing. That includes many of the integrations in HA core, as well as those available from HACS. Take a moment to think about all the integrations you’ve added in HA. Some of them have official published developer docs that officially enable integrations by third parties, but a large percentage of them do not, and the only way to offer interoperability for HA and systems like it is to reverse engineer the undocumented APIs that provide the data and functionality. That process is allowed as fair use under US copyright law.
I don’t think anyone’s expecting the dev to fight it, especially since this is likely just a passion project. It’s more about the public interest and hope that a legal rights foundation or other concerned party could take up the mantle.
What on earth are Mazda doing, someone need to educate them about software. Also it’s ironic that this integration was even better than the official app (which is a disaster)
This is what happens when legal reps try and use grey areas of the law to issue DMCA notices, and generally they’ll have no idea what they are actually looking at apart from “oh this replicates some functionality we built in our app, so it must mean its copied our code.”
While I don’t own a Mazda, I do hope that this integration is restored with an appeal.
I think that it is likely that HA/bdr99 could find pro bono legal representation for this issue
I’m sorry, but it ain’t happening and I support what the maintainer has done here. I also look after an integration for a particular car model and were I in a similar position to the maintainer of the Mazda integration, I would do exactly as they have done. No way am I risking my career, family and well-being on something I do in my spare time to help other people out. Not even close to being worth it.
That being said, if they did go legal on me, I would make sure that as many people knew about it and, almost certainly, it would make me change car (HA integration is, IMHO, essential with EVs, for example). I think it would be safe to say that noone currently using a Mazda with HA would entertain buying another one in the future, so it’s astonishingly short sighted.
I hope that a bit of noise made here might make them reconsider but, hey, if not there are plenty of other cars out there that work just fine with HA and I’m sure the HA community will spread the word enthusiastically that Mazda have not got their customers’ best interests at heart.
Looks like the integration has already been removed from Home Assistant analytics, but the Internet Archive has a recent backup. On Oct 3, there were 227 instances that had this integration set up with analytics turned on.
As a Mazda owner, I’m deeply disappointed in Mazda itself about this DCMA takedown.
I used this frequently to ensure there was enough gas in the car (early morning commute and a shared car), alerts to see the windows are up before rain is supposed to arrive, remote unlocking to avoid a long hike back to the car when I left the keys inside, and remote starting as the weather starts to get colder (again, early morning commutes).
I am too a Mazda owner, and I am very disappointed in their move. I did read through the DMCA takedown, and I fail to see how their Apple and Android apps are infringing on the Python-based library. It’s not the same code base at all. The code that “provides functionality same as what is currently in Apple App Store and Google Play App Store” is NOT a copyright infringement! I can’t believe GitHub didn’t even read the takedown itself.
Another disappointed Mazda owner. I and my family have purchased 3 in recent years. I sent a message to Mazda in their app, telling how much they have disappointed this customer and encouraged them to reach out to the Home Assistant team as there is a mutual benefit to both.
I encourage others to send a message telling Mazda North America how you feel. It’s simple to do in their app. Maybe we all can help them see their mistake.
Yeah unfortunately if the person who posted the code doesn’t “counter-notice” and if the host of the code doesn’t push back and say “your request doesn’t meet the requirements for a dmca takedown”, then companies will continue to get away with abusing these takedowns. Unfortunately the costs and anxiety of “no I’m actually in the right here” are born by the individual dev not the massive corporation.
And yeah replicating functionality is not copyright infringement. Kind of disappointed that the GitHub process is so lax that there wasn’t more pushback. There was obviously some, since there was the mention that this was a revised request. But like, they didn’t identify any actual content copied…
But I know the host has pretty limited push back abilities under the law. If there is actually no copied code, I would have hoped for a counter notice (which puts it back up and it’s then on the complainer to prove more thoroughly) but I totally understand it would be intimidating.
(Not a lawyer obviously.)
Reach out and complain, car buyers and Mazda owners.
and I’m sure the HA community will spread the word enthusiastically that Mazda have not got their customers’ best interests at heart.