
We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership - klunger
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/?mbid=social_fb
======
apricot
Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen.

As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease
usage rights.

As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are
granted a license to use them.

When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software
and firmware in many different forms.

I remember reading Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" in the 1990s. I
found it alarmist and completely unrealistic. I read it today and am forced to
recognize that Stallman was exactly right.

~~~
api
This is getting meta and no longer directly responsive to the article, which I
don't wholly disagree with. A tractor and a book are different situations.

Books are hard to copy, while files are easy to copy. Writers have to get
paid, and people are cheap and don't want to pay them... even while they will
pay the same for a fancy cup of coffee. Hence a scramble for some way to set
up a toll booth that is hard to circumvent... DRM, streaming, proprietary
reading platforms like Kindle, etc.

Stallman is absolutely right and was a visionary for seeing this when he did,
but he doesn't get the full breadth of the problem. In his world, the creators
of things starve. People can't have freedom because they want "free," which
means slavery for the producers of content. (Someone who works for nothing is
the definition of a slave.) Stallman can ignore this side of the equation
because he is a tenured academic. It doesn't matter to him that nobody pays
for his work.

What we need is some kind of open digital rights tracking system that does not
rely on hardware locks and that lets certain bits of information behave like
physical objects with physical characteristics. It's a hard problem, but hard
problems get solved. I used to think cryptocurrency was impractical in
practice. Maybe something can be done with homomorphic encryption. Too bad
nobody is working on this because everyone still thinks we can make everything
"free" and (magic happens here) and the creators of things can somehow still
eat.

~~~
ploxiln
Many people who try to make a living making music or writing are unable to do
so, even if the music or the writing is pretty good, and that's due to
obscurity, not piracy. Historically, even fewer people were able to.

Pages and even chapters of books have been copied by photocopiers (found in
many libraries!) for decades. The only limit to the copying was how many
quarters you had.

You need to give up the idea that people need to get paid for the stuff they
get paid for today, that everyone who makes money doing something today, needs
to make at least that much on the same thing in the future.

People will have to do whatever they can get paid for, which is the case for
most people today anyway. Creators won't starve, they'll create less and have
a real job.

You think the problem of "creators starving" is so bad it justifies anything
and everything needed to prevent it. I don't.

~~~
api
"Create less and have a real job."

Wow.

I see lots of this kind of sentiment when I bring this up, but yours deserves
credit for being exceptionally honest.

~~~
elwin
The world probably needs less content creation. We're long past the point
where there are too many useful books to read in one lifetime. Even in narrow
fields, we're producing comedy television, historical fiction novels, or cat
pictures faster than one person could consume them all. You could spend a
lifetime just researching what's worth consuming.

With this kind of overproduction, it's no surprise creators can't make money.

~~~
harperlee
That is a ridiculous argument. The more content we produce, the more quality
and diversity you can get in the corpus that you will read; the more choices
that you can make. There might be infinite insight in the contemplation of cat
pictures. :)

Or from another angle: why don't we destroy half of the content of the world?
Surely we have enough with the remainings. If we were to find tomorrow another
intelligent species, would you be interested in their culture? Or won't you
have time to read it?

~~~
elwin
Yes, more content adds more value. But past a certain point of saturation, it
no longer adds enough additional value to compensate its creators. My argument
is that we are long past that point.

Which would be more valuable, doubling the world's content, or doubling the
amount of time and money to spend on it?

~~~
squidfood
You're solving the wrong problem here.

Let's say we cut "literary production" in half somehow. Is it better if
everyone writes a little bit, or if we all pay someone who's really good at it
to do it? I'd rather read a professional writer than my own ramblings, which
means I'd rather a subset of good writers were able to earn a living off it.

------
sologoub
An earlier article did a much better job layout why this is a huge problem for
independent farmers:

"The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a
better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the
onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least
two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So
for two days, Dave’s tractor lies fallow. And so do his fields.

Dave asked me if there was some way to bypass a bum sensor while waiting for
the repairman to show up. But fixing Dave’s sensor problem required fiddling
around in the tractor’s highly proprietary computer system—the tractor’s
engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast."

Source: [http://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-equipment-
ni...](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-equipment-nightmare-
farmers/)

So basically, the concerns are very reasonable - operations cannot rely on
systems that are put out of commission without a way to fix relatively minor
issues on the spot.

While the system is trying to protect the farmer for liability purposes, if
that farmer overrides the safe guard, liability shifts. The choice should be
with the farmer and not John Deere lawyers.

~~~
jimmytucson
Why doesn't the market handle this?

If John Deere is only willing to sell lifetime licenses to operate their
vehicles, thus putting the farmer at risk in ways like you described, why do
farmers still buy these "licenses"?

Naively, they must represent some advantage (despite their shortcomings),
otherwise John Deere wouldn't be able to sell these things.

~~~
toufka
John Deere was the Apple of tractors, 20 years before Apple was Apple. It's
killed off all the competition [1] for their tractors' ability to "just work"
\- even at a premium. Deere coupled high quality hardware with high quality
service, whereas most other tractors tried to compete on cost by dropping one.
Apple vs HP; Deere vs Case. It served them well in the long run, if made
things dicy early on. There is no competition any more. And the development
lead and capital required to compete with their machines, and their
repair/distribution network is immense.

[1] [http://www.tennesseetractor.com/assets/Uploads/jd-
timeline.j...](http://www.tennesseetractor.com/assets/Uploads/jd-timeline.jpg)

~~~
zzalpha
Put slightly more technically: there are natural barriers of entry to the
marketplace that make it tough for a disruptor to displace a incumbent
monopolist (or in this case oligopolist... Deere basically splits the market
with a few other competitors, all of whom collude on this issue).

~~~
wmeredith
Would this be considered cartel behavior?

------
grellas
_In a particularly spectacular display of corporate delusion, John Deere—the
world’s largest agricultural machinery maker —told the Copyright Office that
farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA
of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the
vehicle to operate the vehicle.”

It’s John Deere’s tractor, folks. You’re just driving it._

I don't have any sympathy for what John Deere is trying to to in using the
DMCA to restrict how people repair their own tractors.

But the legal issues need to be better delineated than this article attempts
to do.

1\. John Deere does not "own" your tractor when you buy it from them and it is
not asserting that it does. Software is automatically protected by copyright.
It is a tangible form of expression of something that is creative and, the way
copyright law works, a developer of software does not need to do anything
except his normal work in order to gain copyright protection. You code it, you
own it. That is the default. If you code it while being paid by someone else
as his employee hired to invent, then that someone else owns it. Or if you
code it as a work for hire paid by someone else, again, that someone else owns
it. The situations vary. But, almost universally, for commercial, proprietary
software, the customer almost never owns the software he uses when buying and
operating a piece of hardware operated by that software. We all take this for
granted when we buy a computer or mobile device. We own the hardware but not
the software. We license the software and that is it. That license gives us a
right to use the software for its intended purposes but it is almost
invariably accompanied by terms that restrict us as consumers from reverse
engineering the code or otherwise using the code for any purpose beyond the
limited scope of what the license itself allows. For example, we cannot
reverse engineer the software to attempt to create a competitive form of
software product. People may have philosophical objections to this - usually
falling under the "all information ought to be free" rubric - but, unless and
until that philosophy prevails and works to change the law, that is by no
means what the law is today. Today, when you have commercial software, you
have copyright protection and hence a lack of ability to use or do anything
else with that software without the permission of the copyright holder. And
that means a license.

2\. What John Deere is doing with its tractors is not claiming ownership of
them once you buy them. Just as when you buy a Mac, Apple is telling you, you
own the hardware and you have a license to use the software during the life of
the product, so too John Deere is saying the same thing with its tractors. You
own the tractor and you can do what you want with it until the product dies
but, in once it dies, you have no further license to use the software on
anything else besides that product. That is the legal effect of what a license
does. There is nothing whatever controversial about this unless you have a
philosophical resistance to the very idea of copyright (I realize many people
do, of course). Under the law, however, John Deere is claiming nothing more
here than what every computer manufacturer has claimed since the beginning of
modern computing. To say, as this article does, that John Deere is claiming to
own your tractor is wrong. Since the author is hardly ignorant of this, it
seems the above statement is inserted for emotional effect and not as part of
any reasoned argument.

3\. All that said, copyright law is not absolute and never has been. When one
gets a copyright, it is time-limited (or at least should be, notwithstanding
the absurdly long extensions granted in recent years under the Bono Act,
etc.). It also is not absolute even while the rights exist. The _huge_
category limiting its effect is that of fair use. In some cases, public policy
requires that certain uses of otherwise copyrighted materials be permitted
regardless of what a copyright holder might claim. Classic cases include
digital video recording, select permissible copying from books, etc. In the
case of the John Deere software, and that of every other vehicle manufacturer
that seeks to monopolize the market for repair of its vehicles through use of
the DMCA's non-circumvention rules, the issue is not whether its software
ought to be subject to copyright protection but rather whether they can use
that protection to prevent people from conducting basic repairs on the
vehicles they own. And that is a public policy question.

4\. So, what is the proper public policy: should the DMCA be allowed to be
used as a legal sledgehammer by which manufacturers can bludgeon owners and
thereby force them to do their repairs in ways that lock them forever in to
the manufacturer? It would certainly seem not. Indeed, when framed in this
way, the manufacturers' position becomes extreme and even outrageous. Well,
EFF, et al. are doing a good job of arguing this in the relevant places to try
to shape the law fairly on this point. They are to be commended for this and,
in this sense, what John Deere is arguing is pretty despicable.

5\. But none of this means that they own your tractor after you buy it. Nor
does it mean that copyright doesn't apply to the software they develop. It can
and it does. It is just that copyright has limits and, when pushed beyond
those limits, loses its salutary purpose and becomes obnoxious and damaging.

6\. As a final point, nothing in John Deere's position challenges the idea of
"ownership" as we know it. By framing the issue in this way, this article (in
my view) tries to play on common sympathies but does so in a very misleading
way. I believe this only weakens what is otherwise a sound position on
preventing misuse of the DMCA. It also misstates the law pretty badly. So here
are my two cents trying to correct this.

~~~
anaptdemise
Your logic is sound. Point 4 is the real argument about what the actual intent
of these companies is; The fact that these companies are using the DMCA as a
thinly veiled attempt to limit consumer choice and destroy competitive
secondary markets. Both of which are repeatedly upheld when legislation or
courts take action. Hence the the banning of "Tie in Sales" provisions in
warranties on goods.

>Generally, tie-in sales provisions are not allowed. Such a provision would
require a purchaser of the warranted product to buy an item or service from a
particular company to use with the warranted product in order to be eligible
to receive a remedy under the warranty. The following are examples of
prohibited tie-in sales provisions.[1]

Regardless of how the DMCA arguments play out, at least the automakers will
have difficulties moving forward as there is a long fought battle over not
releasing service information on in-car computer and diagnostic information to
third-party repair service provides. There hasn't been legislation over the
issue because automakers volunteered to release information on service and
tools required to service in car computer systems.[2] It would most likely be
easy to build a legal case against an auto company that required you to take
your warrantied car to a franchised dealership for warrantied replacement of a
defective circuit board. So in a not too hard to imagine hypothetical scenario
where a bug in the car's cam timing software cause mechanical failure, but the
auto manufacturer refuses to sell the replacement part (replacement software)
or tools required to perform service to third-party service providers because
of software licensing, would that not fall under Magnuson-Moss Act if the
repair would be warrantied?

[1][https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/bus...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/businesspersons-guide-federal-warranty-law#Magnuson-Moss)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Vehicle_Owners'_Right_to_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Vehicle_Owners'_Right_to_Repair_Act)

[edit] spelling/format

------
Loughla
The people who have the money to buy the mega-tractors you see in the article
don't care. That's why, unless someone outside the industry makes a stink,
nothing will happen.

These are giga-corporations who are 'family owned' in name only. If they don't
rent, they operate that machine for a few years, play the tax game, and trade
it even-money for a new one. To them, ownership doesn't matter. Their service
contracts with implement dealers let them not worry about who owns what. All
they care about is whether or not it works.

(Off topic now) Between this and the stupidly high price for land, it's small
farmers who are getting left in the dust. I say this in every thread related
to farming; I am in my early 30's and I guarantee I live to see the death of
the actual family farm.

~~~
hharnisch
Disagree. The family owned farmers care too. For the big equipment, like
combines, there's a handful of people everyone pays to have their fields
harvested. This person get's compensation in the form of money and other
services (someone else will plow their field for instance).

People own their own tractors and share time to get things done, otherwise
you'd have to own all of the equipment (which is only justified when you've
got a giant factory farm). More of the small farms own new tractors, as the
70s era tractors have been overhauled to the point of junk.

This is the current status of small town Iowa at least.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Iowan here. There are almost no family farms left at all. My neighbor would
desperately like to be a farmer. But the scrubby 40-acre field across from his
house just sold for $400,000. He'd get maybe 120 bushels of corn off of it.
Current price per bushel: $3.80. So $456 income per acre == $18,240 per year.
That's half the mortgate payments. Not to mention the cost of working the
field. So a lost cause.

The 13 farmers that lived and worked on my road when I was a kid are ALL gone.
City folks rent those houses; corporations farm those fields.

~~~
mcguire
One wonders how the corporations farm them. The situation you describe doesn't
sound like it would be any more economically feasible for them to work than
your neighbor.

(Hm. Random calculation: 120 bushels of corn at 56 lbs per bushel, per acre,
is about 11 metric tons per hectare[1]. According to the FDA[2], the US
average projected production for 2014/2015 is 10.7 metric tons (the world
average is about half that), so your field is pretty decent.)

[1] Thank you, units! You have: (181 * 56) pounds per acre You want:
metrictons per hectare * 11.360947 / 0.088020829

[2]
[http://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf](http://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf)

~~~
sliverstorm
Mega corporations have economies of scale on their side for production costs,
and likely much better interest rates on the land. So they can farm the land
for cheaper, and the cost of the land on a per-annus basis is cheaper too.

~~~
talmand
Plus they have more access to getting government subsidies and price controls.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Maybe not. Much of that stuff is designed to help family farms in particular.

------
vfrogger
I noticed a different flavor of this same logic with edited DVD's back in the
2000's. In Utah, there was a thriving edited DVD rental business during this
time. Essentially, Mom and Pop shops would buy a DVD, take out the sex,
language, and violence, and rent the edited version.

Hollywood complained that these companies were illegally making copies, so the
mom and pop rental stores started to include the original copy as well with
the edited copy, to prove that they were not making illegal copies.

Ultimately, all of these companies were put out of business because the courts
ruled that just because you bought a DVD, you don't have the rights to modify
it because it causes "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression
in the copyrighted movies". I find it interesting that the issue was harming
the creative artistic expression, not financial at all, since, they were not
pirating the films, so in truth, Hollywood was selling more DVD's since people
who wouldn't normally watch a movie with 75 f-words in it, might actually
watch the edited version.

Of course, in today's world, there's not many products that we can buy that
did not have artistic expression involved in building that product. My house
was artistically designed by an architect, if I don't like the kitchen, would
I offend his artistic expression by remodeling? My phone was definitely
"designed", but maybe I don't like showing off the apple logo on the back, so
I put a cover on it, am I offending the artistic expression? If I'm not able
to modify a product, do I really own it at all?

~~~
pluma
> My house was artistically designed by an architect, if I don't like the
> kitchen, would I offend his artistic expression by remodeling?

Depends on the contract you signed. I'm not sure how this applies to private
homes or the US, but I recall architects preventing functional modifications
of public structures in several cases in Germany. Also, copyright also covers
architecture (and also, look up the legal situation of taking pictures of the
Eiffel tower at night for a laugh).

> do I really own it at all?

Again, depending on the legislature, no you don't. And because Americans value
their freedom so much, you also have the freedom to cut down your basic rights
by entering into a contract. In other countries the nanny state protects us
from doing that, preventing the free enterprise from creating a situation
where you might have to do so involuntarily (e.g. if you need a phone and all
phone contracts are ridiculous).

------
declan
The linked article is good as far as it goes, but it fails to take the next
logical step and call for the simple _repeal_ of the anti-circumvention
section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

I was living in Washington, D.C. and following the DMCA when it became law in
1998 -- I can assure you that nobody expected sec. 1201 to morph into the
creature it has become today. It was sold to Congress as a non-controversial
way to implement a pair of (yawn) WIPO Copyright Treaties. The DMCA was
approved unanimously in the Senate and by a process reserved for non-
controversial legislation in the House; there was not even a recorded vote.

This is federal law as buggy and outdated code, which is badly in need of
refactoring. I wrote about a proposed law to defang the DMCA back in 2003,
once some of the 1201 problems became clear: [http://news.cnet.com/Congress-
mulls-revisions-to-DMCA/2100-1...](http://news.cnet.com/Congress-mulls-
revisions-to-DMCA/2100-1025_3-5211674.html) But because of the influence of
the copyright lobby, no amendments have ever succeeded.

I wrote more about a better way to approach 1201 and, more broadly, federal
DRM policy in this law review article here:
[http://mccullagh.org/misc/articles/michigan.state.drm.0605.p...](http://mccullagh.org/misc/articles/michigan.state.drm.0605.pdf)

While letting people know about John Deere's comments to the Copyright Office
is great, the only reason the Copyright Office has a role here is that 1201
authorizes them to set exemptions. But why should we have to beg the Feds for
exemptions when the underlying logic of 1201 is suspect?

At the very least 1201 deserves to be debated in Congress with an
understanding of what it actually does and how it affects modern technology.
When it was introduced 18 years ago, nobody could have known, and that debate
has never happened.

~~~
bsder
> I was living in Washington, D.C. and following the DMCA when it became law
> in 1998 -- I can assure you that nobody expected sec. 1201 to morph into the
> creature it has become today.

I shake my head at this.

 _Everybody_ in tech with 2 brain cells predicted this.

The DMCA isn't buggy. It is functioning precisely as designed--protecting big
businesses.

~~~
declan
>Everybody in tech with 2 brain cells predicted this.

Cite, please? Claiming, somewhat rudely, that was the case doesn't make it
true.

If you were prescient enough to publicly criticize the anti-circumvention
sections of the DMCA in 1996-1997, you were virtually alone. The lone voices
of criticism I remember came from the American Library Association and
American University's Peter Jaszi. By 2000 or so, sure, some people had
realized the problems, but what I'm talking about is what happened _before_
1201 became law.

Here's one example: the DMCA was approved by both chambers of Congress and
became law in October 1998. EFF's home page in October 1998 _doesn 't even
mention the votes_ or the DMCA at all:
[https://web.archive.org/web/19981201054106/http://www2.eff.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/19981201054106/http://www2.eff.org/)

Of course, the EFF has arguably done more than any other single group to fix
DMCA 1201 since then. But, again, I'm talking about when the legislation was
still in Congress.

~~~
bsder
Well, "The Right to Read" was published in February of 1997 in "Communications
of the ACM".

So, it was enough of a problem that a mainstream computer research publication
(which normally has a lag of 6-12 months) published it. In early 1997.

Please do remember that you cannot rely on Google for history prior to about
1998. (Try hunting for information about VB6 programming for a concrete non-
controversial example).

Also, please do remember that we were fighting things on multiple fronts.
Encryption was still a munition. The web was still in its infancy. DVD's had
just come out in 1995 and file sharing was just reaching critical mass. Many
of us were coordinating by email and Usenet(gasp) and long-distance
phone(GASP!).

In addition, many people had an attitude that we didn't _need_ to fight since
it was impossible for the law to touch the Internet (damage and routing around
it and all that hooey). Boy were they wrong.

To top it off, a bunch of companies that were the DotCom sweethearts were
happy to sell out our rights in order to help their bottom lines. They were
quite happy to support the DMCA, and many are now successful venture
capitalists (they learned from Steve Jackson to sell out to the government).
These folks are quite happy to whitewash their involvement in lobbying _for_
the DMCA.

So we were there. And we were fighting against it. We were just heavily
outgunned.

~~~
declan
We're talking about two different things, really: You're saying that RMS was
concerned about copy protection and locked-down devices in general back in
1997. That's true, and nobody has said anything to the contrary.

But RMS and the FSF didn't, as far as I remember, oppose the DMCA! It's not
because they were in favor of it, but because few people in the tech community
outside of the DFC were paying attention.

If you look at the FSF's web site a few weeks after the DMCA became law, it
talks about the fixing the (bad) Communications Decency Act, fixing (bad)
software patents, and fixing (bad) crypto laws, but it doesn't even mention
the DMCA:
[https://web.archive.org/web/19981206082742/http://www.fsf.or...](https://web.archive.org/web/19981206082742/http://www.fsf.org/)

BTW, late 1998 wasn't exactly exclusively Usenet/phone coordination days.
Slashdot with its Your Rights Online section had launched a year before, and
Wired had already been publishing its Netizen section, including my
contributions, for about three years. EFF had been around for almost 10 years,
and there was VTW, CDT, EPIC, ACLU, etc. also in the mix. Even my Politech
mailing list.

We were there. I was there. We were indeed outgunned. But also the politicians
voting for the DMCA's "anti-circumvention" language never intended it to be
wielded against farmers with John Deere tractors.

~~~
bsder
Well, I suspect that you have a better feel for general sentiment given that
you ran Politech.

I was sitting with folks that had been making chips and systems which were
compatible with other systems. They pretty much all recoiled in horror at the
implications the moment they found out about the DMCA. It was clear that
anybody who made a computer system was going to wield this to prevent
compatible competition (our own management even proposed it for our systems,
too...) irrespective of how big or small that computer system was.

As for coordination, I was thinking more along the lines of 1996 rather than
1998. In 1996, broadband communication was just starting to hit general
availability (1996 Telecom Act) when the WIPO treaties originally were signed
(late 1996).

The big problem was just that there was so much money being thrown against so
few who actually understood the implications.

20 years later and we still haven't unwound all the damage. :(

------
chainsaw10
I am not a lawyer, so I'm probably wrong on some of the finer points here, but
I'm going to postulate an analogy here.

Why can't we equate the software inside a computer inside a vehicle with the
mechanical equivalent? What then would our rights be?

It obviously doesn't require permission to move a valve or a gear around.
Therefore, it shouldn't require permission to move a few bits.

It also doesn't require permission to draw a diagram of your changes and tell
your neighbor what you did.

On the further extreme, one could potentially draw a diagram of the entire
vehicle. At some point you're copying the entire idea, and the lawyers can
fill in how this is protected. In this analogy, the computer code replacing it
should then be protected the same way?

~~~
sanderjd
I always wonder whether the legal framework for software has ended up
different than other things because of its fundamental differences, or whether
it's because it was invented in a different era. Is it software that is
different or is it the modern legal structure that is different?

~~~
cylinder
Nothing has changed, licenses have always been in the law.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Always? I don't think so. Copyright is a few hundred years old at most.

~~~
cylinder
License predates copyright.

------
Lawtonfogle
Why can't we simply ask if this could be done for 'mechanical programming' and
apply the same logic.

You don't own that full mechanical engine's construction, you just have a
license to use it for the lifetime of the vehicle.

If that wouldn't stand, then how is it any different than code except that
code is on a much smaller and and more detailed level. At the end of the day,
it is still physical components following the laws of physics to render some
result. Does the fact it is more complicated allow for it to stand? In which
case, how complex when the fully mechanical engine need to become for the same
logic to be applied?

~~~
bsimpson
The intangibility of code makes the marginal cost of a copy $0, which in turn
raises the spectre of copyright law.

You can't copy an engine made of steel, so copyright law is moot.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
But you can. The cost is higher, but you can make a copy. So if the cost is
really small (not $0, but small) it changes? Also to note, in these cases, we
are talking about both the code and the rest of the machine. Is this to say
that if any part of the machine can be copied for close to $0, we can remove
ownership? Any single piece of that engine can be easily and cheaply copied,
so once again, why the difference?

~~~
bsimpson
Copyright law is an exception.

The laws of the physical world mean that, if you give/sell an object to
another party, you no longer have access to it yourself. This is where
concepts like the first sale doctrine come into play - it's your one tangible
thing, and you can do with it whatever you like. You control that one, and
only that one, instance of the thing.

Intangibles can be given/sold to another party without relinquishing your use
of the original (because copies are free). You can buy one CD and gives copies
of the music on it to 1,000,000 people without cost, and without giving up
your right to the original. Even if you could copy an engine for relatively
cheaply, the same economics do not apply.

Therefore, an exception exists to our physical property laws to cover this
edge case: copyright law. As userbinator notes, there are other areas of
intellectual property law that may apply to physical goods (e.g. patents), but
you asked what the difference is between digital programming and mechanical:
the difference is that digital programming is intangible, so it can be copied
ad naseum, so the ownership exception we call copyright law applies.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
But what makes it intangible? The really cheap (but still non-zero) cost to
copy? In which case, why would this not apply to any physical machine that has
a really cheap cost to copy?

It seems the answer is 'Because it doesn't.' at which point I see copyright
law needing to be overhauled.

For example, why can my painting be protected by copyright but my engine
design not? And if they are both protected by copyright, then why can't I just
give a license to use the engine design while selling them the actual physical
material (N kilos of iron, M kilos of carbon, etc.)?

------
skywhopper
If Deere and GM prevail, then we need to change the laws to recognize that
these vehicles aren't being purchased, but leased. There are accounting and
tax implications for the lessor and the lessee that need to be resolved.

~~~
6stringmerc
Also, due to the notion that is being put forward that the reason for this
distinction is for _safety_ then all maintenance liabilities for the life-span
of the vehicle should rest with the manufacturer. That means all fluids,
wipers, brake pads, tires, emissions equipment...I'd like to see that
condition tacked on.

~~~
brudgers
Triple Net leases in real estate are an example of well established precedent
contrary to the belief you are expressing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_net_lease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_net_lease)

~~~
6stringmerc
Okay, but when's the last time a piece of real estate ran over a child? I'm
being a bit drastic, sure, but we're talking about a mobile, several thousand
pound object. As your link shows, the notion of casaulty with respect to
liability still engages the owner / lessor with obligations with respect to
legal standards. The NNN lease may exist, but it's not a very palatable
notion, IMO, especially when applied to something like a vehicle.

~~~
praneshp
A running over a child equivalent would be falling down unexpectedly or a
small portion caving in.

When I was 7, all the bricks in one corner of the kitchen fell down. Just
randomly (probably decaying, but unnoticed because of the paint) The lady
taking care of me was less than 5 feet away.

------
fixxer
This is what happens when lawyers run your company.

I was funded out of a John Deere Technology Innovation Center (JDTIC) during
my PhD. Their approach to data was what ultimately pushed me to quit the
program and go back to work. Everything was priceless and proprietary, yet
nothing ever was done with it.

They insisted all research conducted by students was performed on their
computers, which in itself was only annoying. The part that killed it (in
addition to the promise of field data that never came after several years on
the project) was that every library installed had to be approved by their IT
security team.

I kid you not: the datetime library in Perl was not allowed.

On the upside, quitting the PhD has been an awesome decision, so I guess I
should thank them.

------
orbitingpluto
Let's go reduction ad absurdum with this:

Imagine that this also applies to medical equipment and that you do not own
your own mechanical heart beating in your chest. Furthermore, only franchised
doctors will be allowed the encryption key to tweak your heart settings.

Will the company that provided you with your heart reserve the right to
terminate the software license, and consequently your life, at will? Will they
be allowed to stop tweaks of the software that could save your life? Will the
unfranchised paramedic be legally forced to not save your life because to do
otherwise would result in a DMCA violation?

Another point is that what if everything goes to hell? What if all of our
tools are worthless as soon as communication infrastructure goes down? Imagine
having the landscape littered with machines so productive as to easily end
oncoming starvation while we pull plows with our bare hands. Short term gain
for long term misery.

~~~
Confusion
Nothing absurd about it: there have already been cases of closed source
pacemakers that had security vulnerabilities that won't be fixed by the seller
(arguing they can't replace the firmware) and can't be fixed by the buyer.

------
slg
I think it is interesting to frame this debate in terms of the near future of
self driving cars. The true benefit of those cars will only be realized when
they dominate the road and can freely communicate with each other. That could
lead to crazy things like stop lights and stop signs disappearing and cars
flying through intersections at nearly full speed. But what happens when
individual owners start altering the software of these machines? Let's say
they "overclock" their speed to travel at 105% of "normal". That would put not
only themselves, but everyone on the road at risk. It would threaten to
prevent the whole system from realizing its potential. Should that person
still have the right to alter the car they own? I simply don't know.

~~~
nfriedly
The article touches on that a bit and the point they make is that speeding and
changing emissions settings are already illegal and we already have
enforcement agencies in place. So additional copyright-based restrictions
don't make a lot of sense here.

I'd also point out that driving on public roads is a _licensed privilege_ (at
least in the USA) - so it is conceivable that a car owner could loose the
rights to drive their vehicle on public roads (potentially putting others at
risk) _with out_ loosing the rights to modify their vehicle.

------
petercooper
Well that's fine. You license me the tractor for $X per month and let me
cancel that license and return it on a reasonable period of notice, and you
have a deal. If you're going to license things, you can sell licenses, but if
you're going to sell an object, I own the object.

~~~
notahacker
I'm not sure that legal innovation obliging people to pay monthly for
everything that comes with a EULA is really the most consumer-friendly way
forward here...

------
paulornothing
This article is really interesting to me as I just bought a John Deere (sure
it is just a lawn tractor). During the course of the sale I was chatting with
the salesman about their larger agriculture tractors as this store mostly does
sales for farmers. He informed me about all the technological advances, soil
sampling they do and data they collect and give to the farmer. Then the farmer
can load this in their tractor and the sprayer or whatever attachment they are
using can adapt based on the gps coordinates. So a previously identified area
can be treated with a different mixture on the fly and the farmer does nothing
but ride along.

The article mentions that farmers are opting for non-software based vehicles.
However from the way things seemed when I spoke with the salesman it is the
very opposite.

~~~
Loughla
It is fantastic to watch.

Custom farming was the wave of the future in the early 2000's, when you had to
have special equipment to do it. Now anyone can do it themselves with this
equipment. You can spot apply chemicals and fertilizer, reducing cost and
environmental impact. There is a literal overhead map with red-zones, for when
you get bored and want to watch something. Combine this technology with gps
guided auto-steer, and the machine operator becomes a bag of meat sitting
there to turn it on and off as needed. I have a long-time friend who does
custom farming. He's really good on his PSP and Gameboy something-or-other.

As for "However from the way things seemed when I spoke with the salesman it
is the very opposite." That's a salesman. He wants to sell whatever he has; if
he had old equipment, the market would be swinging that way if you asked him.
His impression will always be that people want what he's selling. . . .

------
pragone
Very interesting. I did not know this issue extended all the way to farming
equipment. At the same time, I can't say I'm terribly surprised given the
state of things currently.

Thread hijack: Am I the only one who finds Wired's... "unique"... styling of
links absolutely obnoxious?

~~~
MrZongle2
In support of your hijacking: no, you're not. I find it annoying. It has the
stink of "we've got to do something _different_ but we don't know what...let's
mess with something that isn't broken!"

As abhorrent as I find John Deere's anti-ownership approach, I say let them
continue down that road. It will provide another entrepreneur the opportunity
to create and sell a more easily maintainable, you-bought-it-so-you-own-it
alternative.

God knows the home appliance space needs that kind of alternative.

~~~
pdxgene
I'm in violent agreement with you here -- the notion of a smart home platform,
for example, that allows me to customize it via an API, or, if I choose, by
tinkering with its basic software, sounds awesome to me.

But I'm a programmer, and a tinkerer.

In order for this to be a viable mainstream reality, some enterprising company
will need to establish a platform or system of consumer-grade components that
bridges the gap between "general population computer literacy" and "ability to
tweak one's electronic things".

In reality, that may be (for now) an unbridgeable gap. Maybe the only route to
digital freedom is deeper digital literacy on the part of the average
consumer.

But one thing is for sure -- as long as laws like the DMCA are in place, the
deck is stacked against evolution towards DIY utopia.

------
fsloth
Funny, when DRM first came on the radar over a decade ago enlightened
individuals noted that the same principles of deny-of-ownership could be
extended to physical objects ... precisely in the way described on this
article.

~~~
dboyd
This was my first thought as well. Why is it that people have no issue with
your laptop vendor "claiming ownership" of your laptop, but are so alarmed
when the same principle is applied to a larger machine?

Yes, I realize that this is not an entirely fair comparison. However, the
parallels between this article and the "war on general purpose computing" seem
relevant...

[http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html](http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html)

------
jpitzo
Bell did this with their telephones in the 60's and 70's. Customers could not
own their own phone while using Bell's service. They even went so far as to
stamp "BELL SYSTEM PROPERTY" into the molding. Even after they allowed 3rd
party phones, they still charged a monthly fee for the privilege. It wasn't
until their divestiture that they began allowing their customers to use their
own phones without incurring a fee. Though it seems that was due to
competitive pressure more than legal pressure.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone#Ownership_and_AT.26T_divestiture)

------
fsloth
Open source answer
is:[http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)

(I'm not saying it's a viable answer at this point but the work they are doing
is intrguing.)

~~~
jackreichert
It's really just a matter of time until such manufacturing has a viable open
source mainstream alternative. Then we can look forward to small dev shops
building affordable custom robots for everyday use.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
"Affordable" and "custom" tend to not go hand in hand. There are many people
building tractors from scratch right now, just hop on YouTube for a look.

Want a custom accounting package for your small business? I'll build you a
simple one for $30,000. In the meantime, you can go buy QuickBooks for $199
right off Intuit's site.

------
briantakita
Here's a plug for Open Source Ecology. One of their designs is for an Open
Source tractor, made from inexpensive commodity parts. The advantage is the
plans are open & maintenance is also open.

[http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)

------
jaegerpicker
Articles like this always push me towards the Stallman way of thinking that
all software should be open source and everyone should have the right to
modify/fix/change the software in any way they see fit as long as they aren't
trying to resell it as their own work. It's a tough subject, I make an
extraordinarily good living from writing closed source software but I
constantly feel as though I should support open source software more.

------
derpleplex
> GM went so far as to argue locking people out helps innovation. That’s like
> saying locking up books will inspire kids to be innovative writers, because
> they won’t be tempted to copy passages from a Hemingway novel.

This is one of the best analogies I've heard.

------
jkot
Article is just wrong. One does not own software on device he buys. Software
ownership means that one can issue new licenses, which is clearly not a case
here. One can not just start selling Windows, because he bought laptop where
they are installed. You just get license to use software.

But other side is customer protection. One buys tractor with expectation to be
able to fix it and modify it. If that is not true, John Deere is selling
broken stuff, and customers should get their money back.

~~~
vonmoltke
> Article is just wrong. One does not own software on device he buys. Software
> ownership means that one can issue new licenses, which is clearly not a case
> here. One can not just start selling Windows, because he bought laptop where
> they are installed. You just get license to use software.

This idea needs to die. _Copyright_ ownership means that one can make and
distribute copies of software. _Software_ ownership means you own one or more
copies, which you should be able to with as you wish within the bounds of
copyright law. You do not need a license to use a book; you do to copy it.
Software should be the same, and that companies like Deere, GM, and 8,476
software companies are trying to assert the validity of this "license to use"
is a perversion of copyright law.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Exactly. If I buy a book, I can write on the pages. I can fold, spindle, and
mutilate. I can rip out a page. I _own_ that book.

I can't sell a copy, though - not even a copy of my modified, ripped up
version. Not without a license from the author/publisher of the original.

~~~
rhino369
John Deere would say that you can reflash, smash, or replace the eeeprom if
you want. But you can't create a new piece of software based on the old one.

I think you should be able too, because what is the harm, but I don't think
the book analogy holds.

You aren't allowed to rewrite a book, even if you keep the copy yourself.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
If I understand correctly, yes, you absolutely are allowed to rewrite a book
if you keep the copy yourself.

~~~
rhino369
I think you could argue that it is fair use, and maybe it is, but you are
creative a derivative work. That is copyright infringement, unless the fair
use exception fits.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
No, _distributing_ the derivative work is a violation of copyright. Creating
it isn't.

(Disclaimer: IANAL. This is my understanding of the law, but is not legal
advice.)

~~~
rhino369
"to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;" 17 U.S. Code §
106

The mere act of preparing it is enough.

I am a lawyer, but this is still not legal advice.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Hmm. All right, contrary to the law, but wouldn't the damages be zero if you
don't distribute? That is, while technically illegal, wouldn't there be no
penalty?

[Note well: still not legal advice.]

------
markbnj
The thing that strikes me, having read a couple of articles on the topic, is
that the OEMs in these cases think the ownership of the code is valuable
enough to jump through these legal hoops and take the hit for any negative
reactions or PR that ensues. On the face of it the software would not seem to
be a big component of what a farmer buys a John Deere tractor for. It has to
be there, to run the thing, but does it really add that much proprietary value
to the product? I don't blame the OEM for stumbling over how to deal with the
ownership issues, but if I'm correct and the software is not a big part of the
value prop for the equipment then just open source it and call it a day. Whats
the downside of that? Someone will copy your code and start making their own
tractors? Deere must feel their code is that much better than their
competitors, but it's hard to believe that is really true in a practical
sense.

------
mathattack
What's really wrong with this? As a provider of goods or services, I should
have the right to say, "I'm only renting you this, not selling it to you. If
you want to buy it, go see someone else."

If I build a house, I should be able to rent it out, and not sell it if I want
to keep it. If the market demands builders to sell it, some will find a way.
There's no intrinsic right to forcing people to have an option to buy.

If I make something that requires tedious upkeep, and will hurt my reputation
if it breaks down, shouldn't it be ok for me to say, "I'm only going to rent
this to you, and will take care of the upkeep myself."? (Example: A piece of
machinery in a factory)

Uber is selling rides. Should they be forced to sell cars too? (ok, that may
be a little stretch, but it's along the same line of thought)

If enough people want to fully own cars and trucks, they'll go somewhere else
and drive JD and GM out of business.

~~~
hackuser
> What's really wrong with this? As a provider of goods or services, I should
> have the right to say, "I'm only renting you this, not selling it to you. If
> you want to buy it, go see someone else." ...

It's a good question, but an important consideration is whether your customer
has the option of saying no. For example, if you are a small farmer, you can't
really negotiate with tractor manufacturers because you lack the market power;
you just take what they give you. If they all deny you ownership, you're
stuck.

Consider someone who wants a smartphone that doesn't track them, a credit card
without waiving legal rights ... I was thinking the other day of people who
might have been opposed to lead in gasoline (I assume there must have been
some), but they had no choice. Their fate was determined by those who had the
market power to control the technology.

Also, most people don't undertand the implications of what they are buying.
Nobody has time to study and learn all that.

~~~
mathattack
Do we really want to force companies to give the option, rather than the
market? I'm not 100% Ayn Rand, but my tendency is to let consumers drive what
they want to pay for. If there is profit in giving people what they ask for,
someone will generally do it.

This isn't to say that market failures don't exist - they do. I'm just
skeptical when people with agendas point them out without proof.

~~~
hackuser
> If there is profit in giving people what they ask for, someone will
> generally do it.

Ideally, yes, but: 1) Much that is valuable to poeple or to society does not
maximize profit and is not provided by the marketplace [1] 2) the market isn't
really free; for example, companies use their power (politically and in the
market) and collude (explicitly and implicitly) to protect their profits and
marketshare, and 3) consumers can't be educated about everything they buy;
there simply isn't enough time or available resources; therefore vendors,
staffed with industry experts, can easily take advantage of them.

> Do we really want to force companies to give the option ...

I don't mean to play down this concern, which is a serious one for me too.

[1] As examples: The technology you are using to read this posting, from
protocols to your possibly FOSS browser; almost all knowledge generated at
academic institutions, from the theory of relativity to vaccinations to
knowledge of society; the security provided by soldiers; our political system,
etc.

------
Thiz
The only reasonable way to stop that is do not buy shit from them.

I had an HP printer that wouldn't run if the ink cartridge wasn't original HP,
which are expensive as hell, so I dumped it and never bought HP again.

Now Epson is selling printers with refillable cartridges. Guess who's gonna
get my money if I ever need a printer again?

Free market in action.

------
kenrikm
It's pretty clear to me what a reasonable solution to this would be. If you
buy a laptop you don't "own" the OS you have a license to it and you can
install another OS on it you just won't be able to get tech support for the
non-standard OS. If you buy a tractor you should be able to do the same and
the manufacturer should be required to provide enough information about the
hardware systems and their functions that if someone wants to write a open
source tractor OS they could. (Think DDWRT, for Tractors)

------
belorn
I don't understand how the concept of EULA's and licenses bundled with
physical products you buy can cooperate with the legal concept of fit-for-
purpose. If I go to the store, see advertisement or get a sale description of
a thing and then buy it, shouldn't the thing then be usable without having to
go through a second agreement at some late date?

From a consumer protection side, it sound obvious that whatever the deal is
between buyer and seller, it should be made clear at the point of purchase. If
you can't use the machine, the car, the ithingy without being limited by a
untold second contract, then its not fit for purpose and should not be sold.

Worse, from a market perspective, tricking customer in this way makes for
broken competition and horrible incentives. Any companies that do not use DRM
and licenses to limit unofficial repair parts and similar consumables goods
will loose to those who permits its. The more you can trick the consumer, the
more you can earn money on products after sale, money which the competition
has to earn by making a more expensive competitive product.

------
Bouncingsoul1
I wonder what we would found if we got a look into the source of these
systems. As far as I know BMW's software heavily depends on Free/Open Source
Software and for the other'S since we are in the embeded enviroment I could
imagine the same. Would make my day if these companies would suddenly get the
tables turned and instead of Copyright it would be a Copyleft issue.

------
dm2
They are doing it to protect the millions that they've invested into the
autonomous driving software.

Imagine this scenario, deep inside of a random 3rd-party firmware was an
obscure piece of code that allowed complete remote control of the tractor.
Several remote killdozers is what you would then have to deal with. With
access to the ECU(s) the hackers could even disable John Deere and the farmers
control of the tractor.

Even a small bug would result in huge damage or loss-of-life.

Google and Tesla will for sure not allow access to their proprietary firmware
/ system code.

Just think about installing a custom Android ROM on a device with a very small
community and then imagine that on a car or a tractor.

Stick with stock John Deere firmware and purchase from a competitor if you
don't agree with their policies.

I remember this story from a couple of years ago. I was impressed that farmers
are some of the first people to use autonomous vehicles and drones to manage
and watch crops. Amazing times we live in.

------
mcguire
As an aside, this is not the first round of this particular fight, and it has
been won by consumers before. See the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act[1], for
example.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act)

------
typedef_struct
I understand the outrage, but soon enough they'll just move the software to
the cloud and then they'll really own it.

------
tomswartz07
I'm not a lawyer, and I have a fairly pedestrian grasp of the DMCA.

My understanding is that the law, created in the Internet's infancy, is meant
to protect and prevent direct copyright infringment.

Can anyone explain why they're allowed to (seemingly) abuse this act? They're
not selling pirated copies of the tractor control software?

~~~
Nursie
Under the DMCA anyone breaking a digital lock, no matter how trivial it is,
has broken the law, regardless of whether the sell their results.

For a good example of how it has been abused in the past, look up Lexmark and
how they tried to use crypto code to lock out competitors from providing
third-party ink refills. I'm not sure what the eventual outcome was there.

~~~
userbinator
Fortunately Lexmark lost that one:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc).

------
lotsofmangos
Looks like a perfect time for someone to open a nice tractor business. There
is lots of money in tractors and while it takes a lot more than making a new
iphone app, it certainly is less effort than floating cities or going to mars,
which on here are propositions that are regularly treated seriously.

------
larrys
Side issue parent article claims that passages can't be copied because the pdf
is locked. Other than workarounds to that (I don't know any but I am sure they
exist) you could simply run OCR on screengrabs of the pages using something
like adobe acrobat or similar.

------
JustSomeNobody
If they are allowed to tell us we don't own our vehicles, they should be
forced to remove words such as "own", "sale", "sell", etc from any and all
communications. Period.

------
rayiner
I don't see how this is different than anything else software-driven. I "own"
my iPhone, but I don't "own" iOS--I just have an implied license to use iOS
with the phone.

~~~
randomdata
Fundamentally there may be little difference, but there are definitely
cultural differences. _Every_ farm has a repair shop. While some HN readers
might also try to fix their cell phones, the vast majority of the population
are not comfortable with that idea in the first place. In fact, telephones
were typically the property of the telephone company back in the day, so there
has never really been an expectation of being able to fix your own phone.

Having farm equipment that you cannot repair yourself is a significant
deviation away from the status quo. Farm equipment breaks down frequently -
more frequently than you might even imagine - so not being able to repair said
equipment does raise alarms for some people. For field crops, you often only
have a window of days to plant/harvest, so downtime can cost a fortune.

------
brudgers
[IANAL]

The big play isn't about ownership. It's about liability.

If you own the tractor and something bad happens, it's product liability. Our
intuitions of responsibility go back to the Code of Hammurabi.

 _If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly,
and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder
shall be put to death._

If you license the tractor, well that's not quite so intuitive and there's
lots of room to argue over the terms of the license rather than the arguing
over legal precedent.

~~~
cylinder
Ownership vs license doesn't really have much to do with negligence/torts

~~~
brudgers
[IANAL]

It does in regard to who can have standing. A license can prohibit transfer to
a third party by the purchaser.

A license also moves what is provided from product toward service and
consequently from defects toward errors and omissions.

The applicable case law is different. The applicable statutes are different.
People can't usually sue Microsoft every time Windows crashes.

------
nnf
Is this really the will of John Deere, or just that of its corporate lawyers
coming up with something new to justify their own continued employment?

This is not a defense of John Deere or any other corporation that twists the
law in ridiculous ways in their favor, but a genuine question. If you could
pin down a higher-up at one of these places to find out what they really
think, and ask whether this approach is actually good for their company, would
anyone besides the lawyers say "yes"?

------
fnordfnordfnord
The USPTO is currently taking "reply" comments on this very matter (and other
similar matters) [http://copyright.gov/1201/](http://copyright.gov/1201/)

Proposed exemptions: [http://copyright.gov/1201/docs/list-proposed-
classes-1201.pd...](http://copyright.gov/1201/docs/list-proposed-
classes-1201.pdf)

The initial comment period has lapsed. (Reply Comment Period Closes May 1,
2015)

>>USPTO Solicitation for comments on proposed rulemaking:

>>Section 1201 Exemptions to Prohibition Against Circumvention of
Technological Measures Protecting Copyrighted Works: Second Round of Comments

>>The comments below were filed by parties who oppose the adoption of a
proposed exemption. The initial round of comments were filed by proponents and
other members of the public who support the adoption of a proposed exemption,
as well as parties that neither support nor oppose an exemption.

[http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/](http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/)

>Due Dates for Public Comments and Associated Evidence

>The first round of public comment closed on February 6, 2015, and was limited
to submissions from the proponents (i.e., those parties who proposed
exemptions during the petition phase) and other members of the public who
support the adoption of a proposed exemption, as well as any members of the
public who neither support nor oppose an exemption but seek only to share
pertinent information about a specific proposal. Any associated documentary
and/or multimedia evidence was due by this date.

>The second round of public comment closes on March 27, 2015, and will be
limited to members of the public who oppose an exemption. Opponents should
present the full legal and evidentiary basis for their opposition. Any
associated documentary and/or multimedia evidence must also be submitted by
this date.

>The third round of public comment closes on May 1, 2015, and will be limited
to proponents and supporters of particular proposals, and those who neither
support nor oppose a proposal, in either case who seek to reply to points made
in the earlier rounds of comments. Reply comments should not raise new
matters, but instead be limited to addressing arguments and evidence presented
by others. Any associated documentary and/or multimedia evidence must also be
submitted by this date.

------
enlightenedfool
"He’s not alone: many farmers are opting for older, computer-free equipment."
What's the percentage? That's actually the solution and it can extend to any
device. Unfortunately, a majority of users don't seem to care. We can refuse
to buy music, iPhones etc so we can force them to not do these nasty things,
but the technology is irresistable and government(people) more often than not
sides with corporations.

------
jeena
I work in IT in the car industry and we are part of the GENIVI aliance, see
[http://genivi.org/](http://genivi.org/)

> GENIVI® is a non-profit industry alliance committed to driving the broad
> adoption of specified, open source, In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) software.

GENIVI is getting some traction and perhaps this is the an answer to problems
like the OPs link explains.

------
brlewis
The company argues that allowing people to alter the software—even for the
purpose of repair—would “make it possible for pirates, third-party developers,
and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique
expression and ingenuity of vehicle software.”

Next step: weld the hood shut so competitors can't see the parts.

~~~
pdxgene
The label "no user-serviceable parts inside" springs to mind...

------
urza
Very good book on this topic: Against Intellectual Monopoly can be read online
[http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm)

------
dataker
Sorry if it upsets people, but Ownership has been gradually been destroyed
over the years and this is just another example.

I could go on a Libertarian rant, but I'm sure you've already heard about cars
being raided without a reason or private data being exposed.

Sad to live in a world like this.

~~~
rhino369
It isn't really gradual. Real estate has traditionally allowed for
restrictions on property. You can sell your House with a condition that if the
person ever builds a fence.

Hell, whole neighborhoods had restrictions on selling to black people.

If you own a condo, there are tons of restrictions on it.

------
MarkMc
Does this really have anything to do with copyright law? Imagine I offer to
sell you a tractor that contains no software, but comes with the condition
that you hire me to fix it if it ever breaks down. Have I just 'destroyed the
very idea of ownership'?

------
oldmantone
Does this mean they have to insure the tractors against loss and liability? If
the farmers are just operators, they shouldn't be responsible for repairs and
maintenance either? Seems like they could have opened Pandora's box.

------
JustSomeNobody
Why do people farm?

John Deere owns your tractor. Monsanto owns your seed. The Bank owns your
farms.

~~~
LLWM
Why do people develop software? Your employer, assuming WFH, owns the software
you write. Microsoft owns Visual Studio. Amazon owns the AWS servers.

------
realrocker
What about the legal implications of this? If a vehicle is in a collision and
there is indication that the software might be responsible, who takes the
blame? This is going to get really bad.

------
potatoman2
If there's a demand for unlocked tractors, wouldn't some company somewhere
grow to fill that demand? Or is the tractor world an anti-competitive
monopoly?

------
VikingCoder
For anyone interested in the concept, and looking for a techno-thriller novel,
I highly recommend "Daemon" and "Freedom(TM)" by Daniel Suarez.

------
afinlayson
I think we just need to convince gun owners that gun companies are saying this
about their guns. And then this problem goes away.

------
throwawaykwik
__throwaway account __

Introducing Tesla Electric Tractor Co.

------
anigbrowl
_The company argues that allowing people to alter the software—even for the
purpose of repair—would “make it possible for pirates, third-party developers,
and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique
expression and ingenuity of vehicle software.”_

In fairness, this is perfectly true, and they have a legitimate economic
interest in making it difficult for people to do that - although I don't agree
that this should extend to being able to use the DMCA. I feel like tinkering
with your own machine is an obvious case of fair use, and the DMCA should be
used in cases where large chunks of one firm's software turn up in the
equipment of some other firm without an appropriate license.

On the other hand, If GM or John Deere were to respond with a shrug to reports
of people bricking their vehicle through firmware experimentation - a risk
which I think should fall firmly on the shoulders of the hacker - then there
would be howls of outrage about the gear being engineered to fail, tinkerers
held hostage, lives being put at risk and so on.

 _[unsanctioned modifications could alter their vehicles in bad ways.] They’re
right. That could happen. But those activities are (1) already illegal, and
(2) have nothing to do with copyright. If you’re going too fast, a cop should
stop you—copyright law shouldn’t. If you’re dodging emissions regulations, you
should pay EPA fines—not DMCA fines._

Hmm, that's true as far as the fines go, but the reality of our litigous
society is that when other people become the unwilling victim of a negative
externality, they'll go after whoever has the greatest ability to pay, so GM
will get sued for _allowing_ these things to happen. If they're legally
protected from such suits, then every vehicle accident investigation will
start with a software audit and if there's any deviation from the official
firmware whatsoever the manufacturer will eschew all liability. If nobody can
be sued, the the negative externality will fall upon the public.

And saying that this or that branch of the government should enforce
prohibitions on illegal activity is facile; this overlooks the cost of
detection and enforcement, since we can't track every vehicle. Experience
shows that when people know there is a high probability of getting away with
some anti-social action, there are enough trolls out there that it will become
a fad; for example, look up 'coal rollers' on youtube - people who modify
their pickup trucks to produce as much dirty exhaust as possible, and amuse
themselves by making their vehicles belch smoke at people they don't like.
Offsetting this tendency at the legal level would require one of two
mechanisms; either lengthy sentences designed to offset the low probability of
detection (which we have now, with dire consequences), or an _a priori_
assumption of liability where vehicular misbehavior is reported and a vehicle
is found to be running non-standard firmware (which would rightly be seen as
an attack on due process). Since neither of these are palatable alternatives,
the likely actual response is that either prices will be raised to offset the
increased tort liability claims that will be brought against the manufacturer
of the original equipment, or manufacturers will invest more and more in
locking down their systems by physical and digital means, which will push
courts (and especially juries) closer and closer to treating modification as
evidence of criminal or tortious intent.

Basically the author is acknowledging the fact that there will be problems,
but handwaving them into being 'someone else's problem'. Sorry to say so, but
this is a common blind spot in the hacker mentality: when the marginal costs
of modification fall asymptotically towards zero (because once you have
knowledge and access, modifying one bit of code is as easy as any other in
labor terms), the economic incentives for abuse rise, and so the probability
of abuse taking place (not by _you_ , dear reader, but by your less-scrupulous
friend in the black hat over there) asymptotically approaches 1. When that
abuse results in economic loss, the costs tend to land on other people as
described above, _and_ lots of hackers heap blame on the original manufacturer
for not making the product sufficiently secure (the 'burglars are doing you a
favor by showing you how easy it is to break into your house' argument, which
is advanced with depressing regularity here).

 _Meanwhile, outside of Bizarroland, actual technology experts—including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation—have consistently labeled the DMCA an
innovation killer._

Indeed, but this argument depends on a hypothetical - that there would be even
more innovation going on if not for the DMCA. By historical standards we
already live in a period of astonishing innovation, so it's just as easy to
make the argument that the DMCA has been followed by an increase in
innovation. Look at the expansion of the internet, communications services,
and the fact that many millions of people carry around smartphones and tablets
that are far more powerful than state-of-the-art workstations were in 1998
when the DMCA was passed. One could argue that the time was right for _Star
Trek_ reboot when affordable personal technology became so good that the
original TV show didn't look futuristic any more.

 _Thankfully, we aren’t alone. There’s a backlash against the slow creep of
corporate product control._

Wow, talk about biting the hand that feeds you. A purely market-based response
would be _not to buy_ products that are sold this way, ie to do like those
farmers who prefer older tractors, albeit somewhat less efficient ones. But
realistically that's not going to happen because farmers are squeezed by debt
cycles and automation pressures as much as anyone else, so if they don't use
the latest technology sooner or later they end up having to sell the farm to
an AgBiz conglomerate - which is, honestly, what I think this story is really
about, although the writer isn't aware of that.

The reality is that everyone wants the latest and greatest technology (because
more often than not it's objectively awesome even when it's not perfect), but
few people have access to the increasingly vast sums of capital required to
develop it. Fortunately the ever-increasing R&D costs of ever-shrinking
hardware are offset for the hacker by the ever-increasing quality and
accessibility of the software stack, so modern tinkerers can do at their desk
what their grandparents used to do in the garage, so to speak. This is a Good
Thing, but whereas previous generations of tinkerers and innovators tended to
get a working prototype and then offer it to the existing manufacturers, new
investors, or the public in order to raise capital to go into production,
software hackers are in the novel position of having near-zero marginal costs
of production and distribution, and don't seem to recognize that this creates
a major economic disincentive for the manufacturers who develop the underlying
technology platform in the first place, since any floating liability is likely
to fall upon them.

There's been a fundamental economic dichotomy emerging with increasing clarity
on HN over the last few years. Corporate and institutional actors that act as
capital stores are regarded as oppressive when they deploy technical or legal
security measures (DRM, DMCA being two obvious examples), but also blamed for
security failures that result in breaches of custodial responsibility
(personal data theft* or allowing their IT infrastructure to be used as an
attack vector by malicious actors). I would argue that it's this increasing
technological asymmetry that is driving the increasing economic asymmetry in
western capitalism. To put it in a nutshell, when you are only one hack away
from seeing your profit margins collapse to zero, you have every incentive to
suck up as much cash as you possibly can on the front end before your
incentive to produce any given product disappears.

We don't have a good theory of digital economics yet, and we're not going to
get one as long as stakeholders on different sides of this complex question
refuse to acknowledge any other interests but their own. Producers and
manufacturers must respect their customers rights to adjust and adapt the
high-value capital items they've paid for to the individual problems they were
purchased to solve. And hackers need to recognize that every new hackable box
of tricks that appears on the market actually involved a large collective
effort by other people, and stop conflating discovery of how-it-works or how-
to-copy-it with authorship.

* Funny how nobody has a problem with calling it personal data theft even though they strenuously object to use of the term as regards piracy. after all, when your personal data is stolen from BigCorp and resold to identity thieves, it's not like BigCorp has lost their copy of your data. I have yet to see anyone speaking up in favor of 'identity sharing' when it comes to their own data.

------
jokoon
Come to think of it, linux and gnu don't come from the US.

So isn't open source bad for the US economy ?

~~~
unwind
Linus is from Finland, but of course RMS is from the US. So you're right, and
wrong. :)

~~~
bsimpson
And he lives in Portland.

------
venomsnake
Here is a simple solution. Licence of software gives you the right to reverse
engineer and modify it for your use, but not distribute copies of it.

You sell software in US - you are mandated to give your customer that rights.

------
rimantas
Why do you think that the very idea of ownership is so good?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The abstract answer: Legally enforceable protection for private property turns
out to have some significant benefits for a society. It helps society develop
past the warlord stage.

The concrete answer: The article gives some ways that the John Deere idea is
_bad_. In particular, a tractor isn't just a _thing_ that I buy. It's a _tool_
, and I need it to work so that I can plant and harvest my crops. This
"ownership" question isn't just a matter of me strutting around announcing to
the world that I own it. The question is whether I have the right to repair it
in order to get it back to work, or whether I have to wait for the authorized
person to do the work.

~~~
twobits
"The article gives some ways that the John Deere idea is bad."

"Bad", is relative. "Bad" for whom? Deere or the farmer? Follow the money /
power.

------
briantakita
> John Deere may be out of touch, but it’s not alone. Other corporations,
> including trade groups representing nearly every major automaker, made the
> same case to the Copyright Office again and again.

In Capitalism, the game is to make monetary profit & control the market, above
all else. It makes sense what John Deere is doing. They are just being good
Capitalists.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
> the game is to make monetary profit & control the market

What you describe, basically is monopolism. It is well known, that monopolies
are killing a free market.

> They are just being good Capitalists.

When this is true, than something is very wrong with Capitalism itself.

~~~
briantakita
> It is well known, that monopolies are killing a free market.

In ecology, there's a concept call Ecological Succession. Likewise, in
Capitalism, the free market is a stage in a succession toward monopoly.
Capital tends to pool, leading to monopolies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession)

~~~
PythonicAlpha
Applying concepts from one scientific discipline to other disciplines does
seldom fit. I think it is more a sign of pseudo-scientific trickery to back
the own thinking, that is most often used in unsound economical theories.

It is a fact, that while monopolies are good for the monopolists, it is bad
for societies at large. And no "ecological" concepts can convince me from the
opposite. One example: While bigger banks are good for the bankers, because
countries have to rescue them, it is very bad for those countries, as
everybody (except politicians) can see since 2008.

With your "ecological" theory, someone also could argue, that dinosaurs are
better than mammals.

~~~
briantakita
> Applying concepts from one scientific discipline to other disciplines does
> seldom fit.

I find analogies useful. I also find the utility of Science to be valid but
limited at times, particularly in complex systems that evolve.

> I think it is more a sign of pseudo-scientific trickery to back the own
> thinking, that is most often used in unsound economical theories.

You are assuming that my motivations are different from what they actually
are, but yes, I agree it does happen... I'm also not trying to make a "sound
economic theory". Observations & analogies are still valid & useful, though.
YMMV.

> It is a fact, that while monopolies are good for the monopolists, it is bad
> for societies at large. And no "ecological" concepts can convince me from
> the opposite.

I'm making an observation that the "free market" is an unstable system. It
probably only exists in theory. IMO, the difference between the theory &
reality limits the utility of Capitalism, or any imposed economic model for
that matter.

> With your "ecological" theory, someone also could argue, that dinosaurs are
> better than mammals.

It's hard to find "better" in all circumstances. It usually depends on
context. i.e. Dinosaurs were pretty well adapted for their environment &
lasted millions of years (much longer than humans). Too bad they didn't
consider that asteroid...

~~~
PythonicAlpha
> I find analogies useful. I also find the utility of Science to be valid but
> limited at times, particularly in complex systems that evolve.

So, it very much sounds to me, that you prefer just unproven theories, that
one can draw from arbitrary analogies over sound science.

~~~
briantakita
> So, it very much sounds to me, that you prefer just unproven theories, that
> one can draw from arbitrary analogies over sound science.

You are entitled to your opinion. IMO, "Sound science" is quite limited.
Sortof like the lowest common denominator of knowledge.

Reductionistic thought tends to cause issues like "not seeing the forest
through the trees". It has led to a number of cultural issues that we face
today.

People also cling to "sound science" like it's a religion. And your
accusations make you sound like you are straight from the inquisition. It's
quite ironic...

------
dto-games
The way to end this nonsense is to write and distribute a worm that bricks
every single iDevice on Earth.

~~~
allannienhuis
No, the way to end it is to build an alternative that is better in the eyes of
the people willing to pay money for the devices. Spend your energy on building
something rather than tearing down.

~~~
twobits
In that case, there would never have been war.

What you say, is the "correct" solution. The good, the improving, what helps
society. I agree with you. But it's slow, fragile, and you should acknowledge
that your established, strong, opposition, may play dirty.

------
JoeAltmaier
Huh. So, like an iPhone, you don't get to see or modify the software on a
tractor. What's new about that? Its the same with my desktop computer, come to
think of it.

~~~
jasonlotito
Are you saying you can't install the software you want on your computer? You
can't replace the OS? Are you suggesting that this should be acceptable?

~~~
maxerickson
I don't think people should accept it, but I'm not hugely convinced that it
should be enforced by the government.

Assume that John Deere has good analytics about the things that impact the TCO
of these super tractors. Assume that some sensors are very effective at
lowering that TCO. Assume that John Deere puts interlocks into the vehicle and
prices it competitively based on the calculated assumption that those
interlocks will lower their warranty costs.

Why should I have to pay extra so that you can have the freedom to hack your
tractor?

------
mromanuk
This is boring, these guys are talking about software that existed (briefly)
between the 80s-90s before the open source era. All this make the necessity of
a stronger open source hardware. At least the automakers should let you
replace their SW stack with an open source alternative.

