We have in the past talked many times about this issue, here is real life.
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Giant Robot Imprisons Parked Cars
The robot that parks cars at the Garden Street Garage in Hoboken, New Jersey, trapped hundreds of its wards last week for several days. But it wasn't the technology car owners had to curse, it was the terms of a software license.
The garage is owned by the city; the software, by Robotic Parking of Clearwater, Florida.
In the course of a contract dispute, the city of Hoboken had police escort the Robotic employees from the premises just a few days before the contract between both parties was set to expire. What the city didn't understand or perhaps concern itself with, is that they sent the company packing with its manuals and the intellectual property rights to the software that made the giant robotic parking structure work.
The Hoboken garage is one of a handful of fully automated parking structures that make more efficient use of space by eliminating ramps and driving lanes, lifting and sliding automobiles into slots and shuffling them as needed. If the robot shuts down, there is no practical way to manually remove parked vehicles.
In the days that followed, both sides dragged each other into court. Robotic accused Hoboken of violating its copyright. "This case is about them using software without a license," said Dennis Clarke, chief operating officer of Robotic Parking, in a telephone interview last week.
At the same time, Hoboken accused Robotic of setting booby traps in the code, causing the garage to malfunction. Then Robotic accused Hoboken of endangering its business by allowing a competitor into the garage.
In the meantime, many of the garage's customers simply couldn't get their cars out.
According to Tom Jennemann, a staff writer who followed the story for the local Hudson Reporter, the distrust between the city and Robotic Parking goes back to the beginning of their relationship. "I think (the city) signed a bad contract," says Jennemann. This conflict began after the last software term ran out at the end of 2005, and the city began to license the software on a month-to-month basis. By the end of July it had no legal access to the software at all.
"It's more of a problem than people imagine," says Bill Coats, Partner at White & Case. More complex licensing schemes are becoming common, from term licenses like those offered by Robotic to "Self Help Features" that allow venders into their software after the sale, and "time bombs," where the term in the license is backed up by code in the program which simply stops it working after a certain date.
With ever more specialized software, companies and governments increasingly find themselves in situations they didn't anticipate. "More and more the (vendors) are realizing this gives them phenomenal leverage," said Coates.
Jonathan Band, a Washington policy consultant on intellectual property, thinks changing the law might help.
"I can see certainly some legislative solution ... (situations where) I need to hack into software on my own computer to make it work," he says. Especially in cases of vital infrastructure, like hospitals and power utilities, an overly restrictive license might not hold up in court.
But Case warns that any such legislation is likely to be circumvented in carefully written corporate contracts. He encourages the oldest market advice; buyer beware.
"Vendees are going to become more sophisticated in the deals they enter into." Case even sees this as a driver of open source software. "If you can get (open source software) you can't be shut down." But that's harder to do in highly custom applications.
When it's working, the robotic garage is a wonder. It allows twice the parking of a traditional ramp garage, says Robotic's Clarke. "If you back off and look at this, you are looking at elevator technology."
"Wonkavator" might be more apt. The lifts act independently of each other, and move in many directions, instead of just up and down. Every entry/exit station can accommodate 40 cars per hour, and every space is essentially a separate machine acting cooperatively. As the lot is used, it learns when particular cars tend to be picked up and dropped off and shuffles its load to optimize pickup time.
"It takes 30 seconds to get your car," says Clarke. But it's the software (that) is key to the smooth and safe operation of the facilities, according to Clarke. The software allows for remote administration of the lot as well.
After much public wrangling and court dates in Hoboken, the two acrimonious parties came to a settlement: the city would pay $5,500 a month for a three-year software license; Robotic would continue to provide technical support. And neither party would talk about the whole business anymore.
Coats, for one, doesn't think he'd like to have his car in that garage in three years.
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