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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.
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
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
...would reduce revenue to tractor manufacturers
bullshit. Speaking as someone who grew up on a farm, almost no independent farmer "buys" a tractor. Its all leased seasonally or yearly, depending on what/when you need it. These manufacturers have a constant stream of interest payments and down payments coming from their own financial lending firms.
A Claas-Axion, used: is $140,000. assuming youve got a lot more than 100 acres, youre going to need a xerion...which again used is more than 200 grand. Do you want to harvest those crops too? you wont be buying Claas because theyre harder than hens teeth to find. John Deere is going to run you through the ringer for another $335,000 "9 series" combine that will refuse to start for almost any code.
so in short, no one on a farm owns a tractor and if they do its 50 years old. Youre hearing more about the DMCA iissue because shops are wising up and refusing to carry replacement and repair parts, at the behest of people like Deere that want to move more new stock in a car dealership model.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Intellectual Property (or more accurately called "Imaginary Property") is an example of that subset of socialism known as interventionism.
You sound like an opponent of IP. That makes you, at least to that extent, a capitalist.
Correction: SOME farmers have debt. The farm I grew up working has zero debt as do most of its neighbors. We've all been operating in the same location for the past 200 years or so, there are family gravestones in the back yard with dates in the 1700's.
Properly cared-for ag equipment can easily last and be productive, money making machines for 50 years. That's about what the depreciation schedule looks like, too. Its not uncommon to see a 40 yr old tractor sell for 1/2 of the new price.
C|N>K
But ONLY if they will support a Universal Right to Repair law.
Cars and Tractors should not be special. We should have the same rights to ALL DEVICES mechanical and electronic.
Iowa farmers: Please ask the state to send all property tax bills for John Deere tractors to the "owner" (John Deere) instead of the farmer. Ask for all the state sales tax money back since there was no sale. Ask JD for the liability insurance policy number for all the tractors since they apparently own them. The possibilities are endless
From the Goblin POV, the only true master of any object is the person who made it. They do not like the habit of witches and wizards acquiring goblin made objects and passing them from wizard to wizard by sale or by inheritance. What wizard think as the price paid to a Goblin own an object, is merely a license fee to use the object for the lifetime of the purchaser. When the wizard dies, or no longer wants to own it, the object should be returned to the Goblin who made it.
John Deere will agree with this philosophy wholeheartedly.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
iii if the farmers only are "licensing" the equipment (and that is UTTER NONSENSE).
Who is responsible for the property tax on the equipment and in the case of an accident, legal liability?
We've been having the same problem with computers for years. Sure, you "buy" the hardware - but then all of the software that makes it usable is proprietary and you are at the mercy of the vendor. Even if you run Linux, it takes extraordinary effort to go all open-source.
This tractor mess is very analogous, and is in the same area of law (I think, IANAL). I really think copyright law should allow limited modification of hardware drivers, even for commercial purposes. For example, if I want to create a company which makes a better Nvidia graphics driver, that should be fine even if I just mod the existing binary drivers. Building my own clone and then shipping the Nvidia drivers should probably still be restricted. The idea is to encourage 3rd party "repair" options without destroying the value of Nvidia's IP. In the tractor case, this would allow 3rd party tools which interact and even modify John Deere software, but it would not allow a cheap knockoff to use the John Deere software directly.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I do not think they sell anything at a loss. I think this is very much the same issue as cpu binning and turning features on and off in software.
I bet that JD limits the power in some of the tractor motors in software. It could be so they can sell the same unit at a higher power output for more money or it could be to cut down on warranty claims.
Jet engine makers do the same thing.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Copyrights were never intended to prevent someone from fixing a piece of equipment that they own, be it a tractor or a car.
On that, we wholeheartedly agree!
But John Deere is using an unholy alliance of the DMCA (which is evil incarnate) and an EPA mandate (which are generally evil) that "engine control code must be unmodifiable by the end-user" to construct this legal fiction that the entire TRACTOR is "Licensed not Sold".
Someone needs to test this in Court. I believe the Doctrine of FIrst Sale should prevail.
The problem here is that people conflate capitalism with free market. You are correct that it is not socialism that is causing this. It is socialism's brother. fascism that is doing this.
In either case, it has nothing to do with capitalism as most people understand the term. Most people consider the terms "free market economy" and "capitalism" to be synonyms, not realizing that "capitalism" is Karl Marx's term for a straw man economic system that does not exist.
First let me address the Karl Marx part. He did not coin the term, it was around before his work. And if I am reading you correctly, capitalism certainly does exist. Maybe you could clarify what you mean by that if I read you wrong.
As for "free market economy" and "capitalism" not being synonymous. Capitalism emerges from the idea of a free market economy. The idea of a free market economy can't even exist on it's own.
Lastly, the connection between fascism and socialism only really exists in the heads of people who don't understand either. You can just as easily say capitalism leads to fascism and have it make just as much sense.
It's freakin food, why wouldn't you want tightly controlled quality?
I mean "Tightly controlled", like "each tomato shall be between 4.05 and 5.25 inches in diameter".
My point is not that competing with John Deere would be easy - it is hard, but not mainly because of anything the government is doing.
I think you missed the point of the article. Competing with John Deere is ILLEGAL due to the way they've taken refuge under the DMCA.
People could reverse-engineer the parts and mechanisms and figure out how to fix the tractors themselves, no manuals needed. My Saab 9-3 never had any jouneyman's manuals printed because the manufacturer didn't allow it, but GM didn't wield the DMCA like a club to prevent any kind of repairs — so there is still a thriving market. The same cannot be said for John Deere or their tractors.