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Triumph Ripped Off Two Motorcycle Gear Brands, & The Internet is Angry

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When it comes to motorcycle-specific bags and backpacks, the motorcycle industry has a limited number of players.

Kriega is by far the 800 lbs gorilla in the space, but Oregon-upstart Velomacchi has been making waves as well with its offerings. There is a good chance you have seen one of these brand’s packs out in the wild.

Both brands offer great pieces, but what makes Kriega and Velomacchi both stand out is that they have created unique harnessing systems that are designed around the requirements that come with riding a motorcycle at-speed and while wearing motorcycle apparel.

And now, it seems Triumph wants in on that action, as the British brand has released on its UK website a set of bags that look very, very familiar. Is imitation the highest form of flattery? Or, is it bad for business for all the parties involved?

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News

It’s Legal To Hack Your Motorcycle for the Next Two Years

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Exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) have finally gone into effect, which means that you can now legally hack the computer systems on your motorcycle and other motor vehicles.

The exceptions were put into place last year by the Librarian of Congress, despite pressure from vehicle manufacturers, who wanted to extend digital right management (DRM) practices to the computer systems that now permeate the two and four-wheeled spaces.

This is a win for security researchers and hobbyist mechanics, because it means that they can modify the software on their personal and research vehicles, without the fear of running afoul of the DMCA, which we should point out was written roughly 20 years ago.

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News

You Can Legally Work on Your Own Motorcycle, Still

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You may have not realized it, but if certain OEMs had their way, you would not be legally allowed to work on your own motorcycle. That’s right, because of a perversion of the US copyright law, it would have been illegal for you to turn a wrench on your motorcycle, all in the name of digital rights management.

The issues comes around because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law from 1998 that was originally intended to update the Copyright Act of 1976 for life in the digital age.

Of the more important provisions, the DMCA protects ISPs from copyright claims, and it defines how copyright law would work on the internet and other digital mediums.

One of the major sections of the DMCA deals with digital rights management (DRM), and attempts to circumvent digital systems that are meant to block access to copyrighted information and material. This effectively makes it a violation of the DMCA to circumvent any sort of DRM or encryption put forth by a rights holder.

The original intent of this provision was to protect record labels and movie studios, who were seeing their products shared on peer-to-peer networks ad infinitum, but crafty lawyers have been able to expand this portion of the DMCA to include just about any digital system, including your motorcycle…until now.

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News

Who Wore It Best? Del Rosario Calls Out the AGV PistaGP

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While we are excited and anxiously awaiting the AGV PistaGP helmet, one American helmet manufacturer is less-than-thrilled with the Italian company’s latest offering: Del Rosario. A small boutique firm based out of New York, Del Rosario’s aim was to bring to market helmet designs that were “caught up to the rest of the industry.” Showing off a number of CAD renders since its inception, Del Rosario has clearly missed its late-2011 shipping date, and as far as we can tell, has not actually produced any physical prototypes or finished models.

Getting a fair bit of press and then falling off the radar, Del Rosario is back in the limelight as the company sent a worded warning to AGV through its corporate Facebook page. According to a message posted by Del Rosario on its social media portal, one of the company’s former advisors showed AGV Del Rosario’s stylebook, and now three years later the PistaGP has emerged with a shell design that has some obviously similar characteristics to Del Rosario’s renders.

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Opinion/Editorial

Motorcyclist Magazine Steals From Online Motorcycle News Sites – Shows How Completely Incompetent They Are When It Comes to the Internet

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UPDATE 3: Because of our article Motorcyclist Online has further refined their “Buzz” section. Of course they’ve also removed Asphalt & Rubber from their feed. We’re not expecting an apology from them at this point.

UPDATE 2: A small victory, Motorcyclist Online has changed their format to only copy the first 50 words of our text…still no link love though, and still actually copying the wrong text from us.

UPDATE: It looks like Motorcyclist Online is actually copying this story as well. Sweet irony!

I got a strange email today…which isn’t that strange in of itself, because I get strange emails on a regular basis, but the email contained a link to Motorcyclist Online, the internet version of Motorcyclist Magazine, which is owned by Source Interlink Media.

Clicking onto the link I see an article that was written this morning, published in its full text. “That’s funny” I think to myself, because we certainly never gave Motorcyclist permission to use our articles…clicking further I see we’re not the only online motorcycle site whose content is being copied onto the online pages of Motorcyclist Online…we’re just the latest addition to this blatant act of plagiarism and IP theft.

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