“companies such as John Deere have vertically integrated the entire ecosystem for equipment, requiring customers to purchase repair services exclusively from dealers and using software to prevent independent repairs.
Whenever software has been used to prevent the owners of products from altering or repairing their property, groups of ideologically driven individuals have used their skills to circumvent such constraints. Agricultural equipment is no different, and hackers have taken it upon themselves to “jailbreak” or open up the closed software systems that prevent independent repairs. In the words of one such hacker, “We want farmers to be able to repair their stuff for when things go wrong, and now that means being able to repair or make decisions about the software in their tractors.”
Hackers have now developed tools that would give power back to the owners of farm equipment, allowing farmers unversed in handling software to circumvent manufacturers’ software locks and independently make repairs and service their equipment. There’s only one problem with this movement to liberate the tractors: It’s a violation of federal copyright law.”
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“The ways in which John Deere and other corporations have used the copyright system is a glaring example of regulatory capture in action, highlighting the absurdity of a system where owning a product doesn’t necessarily convey the right to fully control it. There are certainly circumstances where the manufacturers are justified in protecting their products from tampering, but such cases should be handled through warranty nullification and contract law, not through exorbitant fines and lengthy prison sentences.
With the Farm Bill up for reauthorization, Congress is in a perfect position to reform Section 1201 of the DMCA, giving farmers, hackers, and the owners of all types of tech the freedom to repair. “