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Friday, April 24, 2015

John Deere Wants To Be Able To File Copyright Claims Against The Way You Use Your Tractor

In the modern, digital economy, there are a whole lot of things you buy but still technically don’t own. Nearly all entertainment, for example: digital books, video games, music, and so on. Other software, too. But as basically everything continues to become some kind of computer in a specialized body, plenty of other goods are starting to be subject to licensing, copyright law, and non-ownership problems, too. Like tractors.

Famous farming machinery company John Deere is making the case that you don’t own your vehicles, Wired reports this week. In filings with the copyright office (PDF), the maker of the ubiquitous green and yellow tractor argues that because your tractor has a chip and some code in it, you don’t actually own it. You’ve just got an “implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”

We’ve been through this song and dance before — really, we’re still going through it right now — with specifically high-tech items. You might own the plastic, glass, and aluminum casing of your iPad but everything that runs on it, every single line of code that makes it go, is just something you have paid for the right to access until someone else takes it away or changes it. That affects your ability to unlock your phone, resell your used tablet, or in fact act in any way like you actually own the thing you went and bought and paid for.

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8 comments:

  1. Hello New Holland!

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  2. Eventually you wont be able to work, buy,sell, eat travel, without the mark..A chip I'm sure..this happens they take control of EVERYTHING we have in this modern age. Call your reps on this one...

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  3. The answer to this would be for everyone to stop buying John Deere products and find an alternative. If enough people do this then John Deere will back down or be out of business. The power of the people can do anything if they stick together.

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  4. GREED. One day people will wake up and realize you can't eat money.

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  5. I have a green lawn tractor. It says John Deere on it, but I'm sure it's just a relabeled MTD tractor, costing MUCH more because it's green and yellow.
    And I've had lots of trouble with it from day one. Parts cost twice what they should.
    I will NOT buy any more overpriced green stuff. Period.
    Especially after reading this.

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  6. There will be companies started, legal or not, to invent ECU's without all the side BS put in there by the manufacturers, and business will boom. Cash only, no taxes, you just try to find me!

    Perfect market. You can't train people in computers and expect them all to follow your stupid rules.

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  7. This sis why I stick with old cars,old tractors,and old cell phones.

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  8. Tractors are red.

    ReplyDelete

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