Mazda false DMCA takedown notice Home Assistant App

Mazda brand cars allow remote access to certain functions of the vehicle via servers owned by the company. To access these functions, Mazda provides an official app for the smartphone. After an open source project emerged that integrated support for Mazda vehicles into the Home Assistant suite, Mazda issued a false DMCA takedown notice causing the project to be abandoned. A year after the incident Mazda then introduced a subscription model into their app that costs $10/month locking the previously free features behind a paywall.

Background

Many vehicles sold by Mazda allow for remote access to various functions of the car. These include features such as starting the engine remotely, rolling the windows up or down, or checking the fuel level. To control the car remotely, Mazda offers an official app for your phone that connects to a server which then transmits the data to the car.

Programmer Brandon Rothweiler released an open source tool that integrates the Mazda connectivity features into the open source home management software "Home Assistant", which is an open platform that allows users to access their products via these indiviually created integrations. The program functions in essentially the same way as Mazda's official app, connecting to Mazda's servers that control your car remotely.

Malicious DMCA takedown notice

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On October 10th 2023 Mazda issued a DMCA takedown notice to github claiming the integration that adds connectivity with Mazda vehicles infringes on their intellectual properly rights by stealing code from their official app and wanted it, along with forks of the project, removed from the website. Github complied and promptly removed the repositories in question by October 13th.

The reason the DMCA takedown notice is malicious is that no code from Mazda's official app is not required to develop a tool that works in a similar way. The API of the server is freely accessible and figuring out how to interact with it can be done completely without infringing on anyone's copyright.

Mazda's response

There was never a response from Mazda, but the intention and proposed solution was for people to use their official app instead.

Additionally, Mazda introduced a monthly usage fee of $10/month to the MyMazda app starting in mid 2024. Cars purchased between 2019 and 2024 retain a 3-year trial period and cars purchased since 2025 a one-year trial where the remote features can be used free of charge, however, past the trial a monthly fee must be payed in order to continue using the connectivity features.

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