Farmers Demand Right To Fix Their Own Dang Tractors (modernfarmer.com)

According to a report, farmers are demanding the right to fix their tractors. The report reminds us that owners of tractors aren't allowed to fix them, thanks to a set of laws designed to protect software intellectual property. The world's largest tractor maker, John Deere, in fact, says that people who purchase tractors don't really own them and instead they are getting an "implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle." Some farmers are voicing their opinion against these laws. From the article: What this has meant is that tractor owners can't repair their own tractors -- and if they do, they're in violation of the DMCA. So, if a machine stops working, its owner can't pop the hood, run some tests, and find out what's going on; he or she is legally required to take the tractor to a service center (one owned by the manufacturer, since that's the only entity allowed to analyze the tractor's issues). This can be expensive and time-consuming, and more to the point, unnecessary -- at least according to farmers in several states, who are lobbying to force tractor manufacturers make their diagnostic tools available to independent repair shops and owners. Not everyone is on the farmers' side here; some, according to the Associated Press, are concerned that the move would reduce revenue to tractor manufacturers, potentially landing them in trouble. But the tractor owners disagree, annoyed that their tractors are treated differently from their cars and trucks, which can be serviced by any independent shop.

Comments

License to work

[Calydor]

So basically John Deere is reserving the right to cancel any of these licenses, impound the farmer's tractors, and put him out of a job?

Re:License to work

[bev_tech_rob]

So basically, you're an idiot.

No, you're the fucking idiot. That is precisely what Calydor is saying. I'd love to see John Deere try that bullshit on a farm. The unlucky sap they hire to impound the tractor would be looking down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun.

Re:License to work

[Anonymous Coward]

(soft bricked tractors)

Re:License to work

[mrclevesque]

Shouldn't John Deere be clear then, and say they only rent tractors

Re:License to work

[elrous0]

I don't think that's what John Deere is meaning for at all. And let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, as someone who has worked with farmers in the past.

First of all, as someone who grew up working on farms and with farmers, let me dispel some of the Norman Rockwell bullshit image about the "noble farmer." The farmers that I knew coming up weren't the "heart and soul of America" (well, maybe they were, but not in a good way). They were the greediest, cheapest bunch of sonabitches you ever wanted to meet in your life. They would routinely try cheat their workers, crawl over their mother's dead bodies to make an extra penny, lie, cheat, and often outright steal if they thought they could get away with it. They were the kind of unabashed brutal capitalists who would easily give the most heartless Wall Street prick a run for his money in greed and avarice.

They didn't do this out of necessity, mind you. Most of the farmers I knew had plenty of money. Far from the popular image of the poor struggling farmers, most of them were quite well-off. Yet they would cheat you out of every dime they could if they got a chance. And when the illegals came in to my area in a big way back in the late-80's and early-90's, these "noble farmers" were the first to happily hire them, cutting farmhand wages in half and pocketing the difference by flagrantly breaking the law. The average farmworker salary went from $7/hr. to $4/hr. almost overnight, in spite of the fact that farmers were already making good money paying their workers $7/hr.

With that in mind, I suspect this John Deere situation has something in common with the controversial Monsanto seed situation, in that the real truth is that it boils down to cheap-ass greedy farmers using the "evil big corporation vs. the little noble farmer" image to their advantage by villianizing John Deere. What I suspect is REALLY going on here is that John Deere and other manufacturers have adopted a model of selling their equipment to farmers either at a loss or at cost, with the understanding that they'll make their profit in implicit servicing contracts. And the farmers, now that they have the equipment in hand on the cheap, have decided to "alter the deal" (to quote the great Darth Vader) to save a buck. And they're playing on their bullshit image to portray themselves as the little guy fighting back against evil big business to do it, when in reality they're every bit as greedy and underhanded as the company they're fighting (likely more so).

Now go ahead an mod me down, all of you whose only knowledge of farmers comes from John Mellencamp songs.

Re:License to work

[guises]

Most of your argument there consists of, "I hate farmers." You throw in a bit at the end about how non-sale sales and customer lock-in are okay, although maybe that's only when they're directed at farmers, who you hate.

Ignoring the first part of your argument: when a company sells a product, but retains practical ownership over that product, that's a big problem and it's been happening more and more wherever the opportunity to do so has arisen. The farmers in this case are asking for nothing which hasn't already been addressed for other vehicles, and regardless of how greedy they may be this is a perfectly reasonable request.

Re:License to work

[CaptSlaq]

I don't think that's what John Deere is meaning for at all. And let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, as someone who has worked with farmers in the past.

First of all, as someone who grew up working on farms and with farmers, let me dispel some of the Norman Rockwell bullshit image about the "noble farmer." The farmers that I knew coming up weren't the "heart and soul of America" (well, maybe they were, but not in a good way). They were the greediest, cheapest bunch of sonabitches you ever wanted to meet in your life. They would routinely try cheat their workers, crawl over their mother's dead bodies to make an extra penny, lie, cheat, and often outright steal if they thought they could get away with it. They were the kind of unabashed brutal capitalists who would easily give the most heartless Wall Street prick a run for his money in greed and avarice.

They didn't do this out of necessity, mind you. Most of the farmers I knew had plenty of money. Far from the popular image of the poor struggling farmers, most of them were quite well-off. Yet they would cheat you out of every dime they could if they got a chance. And when the illegals came in to my area in a big way back in the late-80's and early-90's, these "noble farmers" were the first to happily hire them, cutting farmhand wages in half and pocketing the difference by flagrantly breaking the law. The average farmworker salary went from $7/hr. to $4/hr. almost overnight, in spite of the fact that farmers were already making good money paying their workers $7/hr.

With that in mind, I suspect this John Deere situation has something in common with the controversial Monsanto seed situation, in that the real truth is that it boils down to cheap-ass greedy farmers using the "evil big corporation vs. the little noble farmer" image to their advantage by villianizing John Deere. What I suspect is REALLY going on here is that John Deere and other manufacturers have adopted a model of selling their equipment to farmers either at a loss or at cost, with the understanding that they'll make their profit in implicit servicing contracts. And the farmers, now that they have the equipment in hand on the cheap, have decided to "alter the deal" (to quote the great Darth Vader) to save a buck. And they're playing on their bullshit image to portray themselves as the little guy fighting back against evil big business to do it, when in reality they're every bit as greedy and underhanded as the company they're fighting (likely more so).

Now go ahead an mod me down, all of you whose only knowledge of farmers comes from John Mellencamp songs.

I won't contest that farmers are businessmen first, despite being firmly blue collar, but they DO have to hedge against QUITE a bit of stuff. While they don't worry about "the consumer won't buy our product", they DO worry about "what happens when the crop gets destroyed by bad weather/vermin/disease" and "geez that's a lot of water I'm having to pump this year". These impact the bottom line and have to be hedged against. Long term farmers hedge against multiple seasons of bad, which is why they've survived as long as they have.

The amount of assets (which includes the land itself) required for farming is pretty significant when compared to most other businesses.

Broken equipment doesn't just cost "what's in my SLA", but could cost a significant yeild of a crop. Being able to fix stuff in-situ makes sure the wheels keep turning. This is (part) of the argument against John Deere: Calling them during a busy time is potentially a massive problem because "Locusts are chewing through the field next to mine and if I don't get mine crop harvested, I'm not going to get anything out if it either." "We can dispatch someone tomorrow" is a non-starter at times. I don't know how the SLAs are set up for farm equipment, if there are any. When my family was working, it was fixed in place with bailing wire, duct tape, bubble gum, and spit, until it could be fixed right.

Re:License to work

[aardvarkjoe]

What I suspect is REALLY going on here is that John Deere and other manufacturers have adopted a model of selling their equipment to farmers either at a loss or at cost, with the understanding that they'll make their profit in implicit servicing contracts. And the farmers, now that they have the equipment in hand on the cheap, have decided to "alter the deal" (to quote the great Darth Vader) to save a buck.

Well then, John Deere should get a lesson on what happens when you have a stupid business model. If they want to make a profit on equipment sales, they'd better price their equipment such that they can turn a profit.

Whether or not the farmers are cheap bastards -- given human nature, they probably are -- is really irrelevant.

Re:License to work

[jdavidb]

What I suspect is REALLY going on here is that John Deere and other manufacturers have adopted a model of selling their equipment to farmers either at a loss or at cost, with the understanding that they'll make their profit in implicit servicing contracts. And the farmers, now that they have the equipment in hand on the cheap, have decided to "alter the deal" (to quote the great Darth Vader) to save a buck.

If I buy somebody's loss leader and then don't want to participate in the business model they were expecting, that doesn't mean I've "altered the deal" unless there was an actual deal.

And if somebody's trying to save a buck that doesn't make him bad. In fact if he's the guy supplying our food or something else we need that makes him good.

Re:License to work

[Shadow99_1]

Living in a small town... I can say your wrong. Though more likely the repo guys would call the local police or state police (the state police act as local police where I live), since the county Sheriff doesn't deal much with anything outside prisoner transport and serving civil papers. And the state police wouldn't really care as they don't really 'live or work' in the community (their office is about 10 miles from the town itself and most actually live in the largest city in the area and commute to work each day).

It may be different in other places, but there are a lot of small farmers still here who aren't part of large agribusiness (though there is a local 'co-op' which has grown to become big agribusiness as well). We even have a John Deere dealership in town (other manufacturers have ones 10-20 miles away), so I see a lot of John Deere equipment in a typical day if I'm out and about.

While I believe John Deere is being stupid, I know the county and state would never go against John Deere since they do a lot of business in my region. It would be more likely to get traction against John Deere if the local agri co-ops had issues with it as they have far more power and money than individual farmers.

Re:License to work

[Shadow99_1]

Your view of farmers and mine seem a bit different. Then again farmers where i live rarely have farm hands... Well a few do, but they aren't immigrants, instead it's typically local teens. Though most of them also probably have ~100 acres of farmland at most in the first place, so maybe the ones you know work on a different scale.

That said, the farmers I knew still were not 'poor'. Farm kids when I went to high school where the ones whose parents bought them brand new cars to drive when they turned 16 and who could go to Florida every year for a few weeks during summer. They were also big supporters of the schools (most notably the sports teams like baseball and football, and their kids usually played on those teams) and made some fairly large donations so school libraries, football fields, and gyms were often named after farmers (at least 20 or so years ago).

I found them to be much like other people: some were kind and generous, some were in between, others were mean and rotten, and lastly were those tightfisted greedy ones. They were however all business people, but that didn't always mean 'greedy and selfish'. It just meant they ran a business and had to take a broader view than most.

Re:License to work

[geoscodin]

Why lump all farmers together? My grandfather was a farmer and briefly owned a tractor dealership. He was a real-life George Bailey type from A Wonderful Life. He made a pretty good living, but was never wealthy. His farm was a family operation in rural Pennsylvania with some seasonal help. He kept what he needed, gave a lot away, and from what he sold, he kept what needed to get by and donated the rest to the church and directly to people in need. Some farmers in our community focused on their own families, and there's nothing wrong with that, Some got rich doing it, and there's nothing wrong with that either. I can only think of one farm owner who took everything he could at the expense of others, although there could very well have been more. And in the winter when snow made farming impossible, my grandfather worked in the coal mines, and eventually died of black lung from that experience. I have no doubt that there are scum-of-the-earth folks out there in every industry, but for you to agree that farmers across the country should not be allowed to fix their own tractors because you once knew some bad guy farmers is a bit short-sighted, don't you think?

Seriously?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

some, according to the Associated Press, are concerned that the move would reduce revenue to tractor manufacturers, potentially landing them in trouble.

Who gives a shit apart from the owners of the tractor makers?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I like food. Do you like food? I think we can all agree that we like food.

Who grows food?

Re:Missing Info

[OrangeTide]

I don't think farmers are trying to mod their tractors. I think they are trying to repair them without going to John Deere. Which means the tractor is probably out of warranty. Farmers are really cheap people and if they still had some free repair warranty service available to them they'd be using that instead of screwing aroud with hacking into their tractors.

While it would be nice if this just goes to court and somehow weakens the DMCA. I suspect that congress will just write up a quick and dirty exception for the ag lobby and slap a band-aid on the problem to make the farmers happy.

The future of ownership.

[geekmux]

"...Not everyone is on the farmers' side here; some, according to the Associated Press, are concerned that the move would reduce revenue to tractor manufacturers, potentially landing them in trouble...."

Since we're talking about John Deere here, let me point out the fact that their global revenue almost doubled in the last ten years. In short, fuck your concerns about them being "in trouble".

"...But the tractor owners disagree, annoyed that their tractors are treated differently from their cars and trucks, which can be serviced by any independent shop."

For now, cars can be serviced at any independent shop. Let me know how that changes when Tesla becomes the dominant force on the road today, or when autonomous automobile laws force people to maintain their vehicles according to specific guidelines designed to maximize revenue for manufacturers and authorized support centers.

It's not too hard to clearly see where the concept of ownership is headed in the future.

So are Whirlpool, Samsung, Kenmore, et al

[Anonymous Coward]

I can no longer repair my washing machine myself, it uses a proprietary modem to generate tones to transfer diagnostic information. I cannot legally dissect those tones thanks to the DMCA. Very slippery slope ahead

Re:So are Whirlpool, Samsung, Kenmore, et al

[thinkwaitfast]

I use a twenty year old washing machine. It works perfectly and I expect it to last another twenty years at least. My grandmother used a washing machine from the 1920's, and while a little inconvenient, also worked fine. Washing clothes has been around since clothes and nothing more needs to be done. Humanity solved that problem millennia ago.

Re:So the farmer is merely renting the tractor?

[Scutter]

"Oh, sure, we'll fix it for free, but you have to bring it to our repair facility in Tucson. Oh, by the way, our single qualified technician is backlogged six months. If your crops can't wait six months, we do offer a premium value-added repair service that includes same-day onsite repairs..."

Re:John Deere is evil.

[bev_tech_rob]

They are trying to subvert the foundations of capitalism - ownership.

They are abusing the DMCA - a badly designed law that was created to stop IP theft but has instead become a weapon of fraud to trick people into paying ownership prices for what in reality is merely renting.

It's like if you go to buy a house and you pay $800k, up front, expecting to be able to get a mortgage, leave the place to your kids, and sell it if you have to, only to be told later that you merely rented the place for your life time.

Fraud is fraud - whether it is done by outright lies, or instead by hidden fine print in contracts, that no one but lawyer reads

For the most part, I agree with your statement, but unfortunately people basically do RENT their homes. They just paid a huge amount for the deposit. What do you think happens when you don't pay your property taxes (rent)? The powers that be will seize the land and auction it off if the tax (rent) is not paid!

Re:Not going to help...

[ThosLives]

These farmers are not trying to modify their source code for these repairs. Farmers just want to be able to pull a code, replace broken sensors / actuators, and reset the codes so they can grow your food.

Politics

[fulldecent]

People seeking DCMA reform couldn't ask for a better ally than farmers.

Farmers are the most politically active constituency.

One Thing Missing...

[twmcneil]

Just like in our business, uptime is crucially important for these farmers. During the spring planting time and the fall harvest period, if that machine breaks, it needs to be RIGHT NOW. They can't wait a "few days" for the dealership mechanic to visit. And he's busy as all hell fixing our people's shit. This isn't just a bunch hay-seeds saying they want to break their knuckles for the fun of it. This is a very serious situation that can have devastating effects on the bottom line.

Re:Unfettered capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

There were plenty of morons parroting nonsense here 15 years ago.

Re:Missing Info

[dunkelfalke]

Have you ever tried to actually use the seat belt? It is a far better solution to that particular problem.

Re:Unfettered capitalism

[Berkyjay]

If we had unfettered capitalism, farmers wouldn't have to fix their own tractors or pay to have them towed to a Deere dealership. A mobile service industry would spring up of mechanics who would come out to your farm, plug in to the diagnostic port, and fix most problems right there in the literal field. But why put up with the uncertainties of capitalism when you can buy socialist protection from the government?

I'm sorry, but what? How on Earth would your so called "unfettered Capitalism" work any differently than it is right at this moment for these farmers? Because it's capitalism that's keeping these farmers from fixing their own machines. It's capitalism that's devised a way to sell something to the farmers without them actually having to give up ownership of the product. It's capitalism that has paid off the politicians to pass the laws that allow the manufacturers to continue milking money from these farmers. Socialism has nothing to do with this. It's capitalism 100% that has created this situation.

Re:Unfettered capitalism

[Wintermute__]

Wrong. When there are no brands that offer "fix it yourself" tractors, where are these smart farmers supposed to go? Abstain in protest and hope the manufacturers budge before they (the farmers) go under? This can only "work itself out" if there is proper competition in the marketplace.

The DMCA in this case is stifling competition by enforcing a legal fiction of "No user serviceable parts inside". Remove that roadblock, and other entities (diagnostic tool makers, etc.) are free to reverse-engineer the status codes and introduce competition in the servicing of these tractors. Then the market can work itself out. This is a case of a government-enforced monopoly artificially distorting the market. Free-market economics can absolutely fix this situation, and is exactly what the farmers are asking for. And this market (tractor service) has traditionally been free prior to this DMCA nonsense.

Copyrights were never intended to prevent someone from fixing a piece of equipment that they own, be it a tractor or a car. And make no mistake, auto manufacturers are heading this direction as fast as they possibly can, which is why us non-farmers should pay attention to this issue.

Re:Unfettered capitalism

[jedidiah]

Intellectual property allows you to steal other people's stuff. The most obvious example is a patent that not only grants you exclusive ownership of your own invention but the right to claim ownership of anything similar regardless of how that invention may have come about.

Treating creative works as property allows people (usually robber barons) to hijack other people's creative works and real property.

And again, we have an example of that right here and now.

The intellectual property fiction is preventing the farmer from fully controlling his own personal property (by way of the tractor).

Re:Unfettered capitalism

[quintus_horatius]

How? Give me an example of how the government is preventing someone new from competing in the tractor business.

The laws aren't preventing someone from starting a tractor manufacturing business, though we could veer off and talk about regulatory capture and speculate that any new business that John Deere can't prevent legally will simply be purchased by them before it becomes too big.

But I challenge you to start a tractor repair business that specializes in late-model John Deer tractors. You may technically start one and hang out your shingle, but you won't be able to execute any meaningful repairs without running afoul of the DMCA. As you might read from the article, John Deere has taken advantage of the law to squelch competition in the very lucrative repair business for their equipment.

But hey, if there's nothing stopping you as you say, you should give it a try. Quit your day job, start your John Deer tractor repair business, and get back to me in six months and tell me how you're doing. If you're correct you'll be filthy rich with farmers throughout the nation clamoring for your services.

Re:The joke's on John Deere

[tsotha]

I suspect it's more likely that in a few decades tractors won't need farmers.