View Full Version : The concept of ownership is about to change.



kelroy55
04-27-2015, 02:32 PM
I'm not sure what to think of this. If I paid that much for some farm equipment I would want to own it.

These are the sorts of intellectual property "rights" the TPP intends to codify in member nations. Now you can't "buy" things, you can only rent them. Via Wired:

It's official: John Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership. Sure, we pay for their vehicles. But we don’t own them. Not according to their corporate lawyers, anyway.

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.

Several manufacturers recently submitted similar comments to the Copyright Office under an inquiry into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DMCA is a vast 1998 copyright law that (among other things) governs the blurry line between software and hardware. The Copyright Office, after reading the comments and holding a hearing, will decide in July which high-tech devices we can modify, hack, and repair—and decide whether John Deere’s twisted vision of ownership will become a reality.

Over the last two decades, manufacturers have used the DMCA to argue that consumers do not own the software underpinning the products they buy—things like smartphones, computers, coffeemakers, cars, and, yes, even tractors. So, Old MacDonald has a tractor, but he owns a massive barn ornament, because the manufacturer holds the rights to the programming that makes it run.

(This is an important issue for farmers: a neighbor, Kerry Adams, hasn’t been able to fix an expensive transplanter because he doesn’t have access to the diagnostic software he needs. He’s not alone: many farmers are opting for older, computer-free equipment.)

Over the last two decades, manufacturers have used the DMCA to argue that consumers do not own the software that powers the products they buy.
In recent years, some companies have even leveraged the DMCA to stop owners from modifying the programming on those products. This means you can’t strip DRM off smart kitty litter boxes, install custom software on your iPad, or alter the calibration on a tractor’s engine. Not without potentially running afoul of the DMCA.

What does any of that have to do with copyright? Owners, tinkerers, and homebrew “hackers” must copy programming so they can modify it. Product makers don’t like people messing with their stuff, so some manufacturers place digital locks over software. Breaking the lock, making the copy, and changing something could be construed as a violation of copyright law.

And that’s how manufacturers turn tinkerers into “pirates”—even if said “pirates” aren’t circulating illegal copies of anything. Makes sense, right? Yeah, not to me either.

bradh
04-27-2015, 02:50 PM
Just as big a deal in the automotive world as well, to the point where it might not be "legal" to do your own brake job on newer rides.

Dubya61
04-27-2015, 03:13 PM
Does that mean that if I use what I used to think of as "my" GM car to kill someone, the owner of the car is liable?

Achilleslastand
04-27-2015, 03:35 PM
This has been going on for quite some time with video games, as well as other types of software be it movies, operating systems, etc. You are purchasing a license or serial key just to use the product, but the product itself isn't yours.
Dumb........

Mel
04-27-2015, 04:00 PM
Another blow to independent Farmers while corporate farms don't care. Reminds me of the scene toward the beginning of "Interstellar". Sounds like a story plot co-authored by Stephen King and William Gibson.

traxx
04-27-2015, 04:05 PM
Yeah, I think automakers and tractor makers (as I'm sure other types of manufacturers) have seen what's gone on with software, videogames etc. and are now trying to make a case that you don't own any equipment that you buy. In reality it's a money grab. In the same way that with the cloud, everything is going to subscription based model. You used to buy a copy of Photoshop on disc and that was yours. Now you pay for a subscription but if you ever look at Adobe crosseyed, they'll remotely disable you product.

This is the wrong way to go about business. I don't agree with it at all. If a farmer tried to reverse engineer the software that's used in his tractor for his own personal gain, then you have a case. But a farmer just wanting to buy a piece of machinery to aid him in his work shouldn't be subject to such pedantic rules. Same goes for car owners etc.

zookeeper
04-27-2015, 04:30 PM
The entire TPP must be stopped for this and all kinds of reasons.
Flush the TPP! ? Stop the Global Corporate Coup! (http://www.flushthetpp.org/)

SoonerDave
04-27-2015, 06:13 PM
You want action on this? Go get Washington to gut the DMCA. The DMCA is one of the most obscene pieces of legislation to hit the books in a long, long time. It's a gut-buster to consumers in virtually every respect, and benefits them not at all.

Rover
04-28-2015, 07:20 AM
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Cars, tractors, whatever, can be owned and the software to run them licensed. This is how computers are sold. Because you buy a computer doesn't mean you own the code for for the software resident on it. We have accepted that model for a long time and it has protected scores of small and large software companies without changing concepts of hardware ownership.

SoonerDave
04-28-2015, 09:49 AM
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Cars, tractors, whatever, can be owned and the software to run them licensed. This is how computers are sold. Because you buy a computer doesn't mean you own the code for for the software resident on it. We have accepted that model for a long time and it has protected scores of small and large software companies without changing concepts of hardware ownership.

Appreciate your optimism, Rover, but I think the the whole point is that the DMCA and licensed software is being leveraged by some really evil lawyers to compromise and subvert the notion of ownership as we have come to know it. Yes, we've come to accept the you-own-the-computer-but-not-the-code, but lawyers are trying to one-up that notion that the entire entity is really only licensed. It's the same kind of asininity that has allowed cell phone manufacturers to make it "illegal" for "owners" to root their own phones.

Of all the things that get people to tilt at windmills, this is a huge one. Unfortunately, because it oozes over the border into the geeksphere, people tend to ignore it, glaze over, and think it doesn't apply to them, but it very much does. There are, fortunately, people trying to fight this nonsense, but it's an uphill battle. Consumers, right now, are losers in almost every respect. It's a *great* example of seemingly benign, appropriate law being written by people who didn't truly understand its implications, and lawyers leveraging it to the detriment of the lowest folks on the totem pole.

I generally don't get into the populist/big corp/little consumer side of issues like this, but this time, it's kinda hard not to. I can't see anything benefiting the consumer in the DMCA or how it's being used.

catch22
04-28-2015, 10:15 AM
The only thing that self-modification of property should be to void the warranty.

If I want to modify my own property I should be allowed to so long as it does not endanger others in the process.

SoonerDave
04-28-2015, 04:31 PM
The only thing that self-modification of property should be to void the warranty.

If I want to modify my own property I should be allowed to so long as it does not endanger others in the process.

Exactly.

A one-off of this issue, which I think was or is soon to go before the Supreme Court, involves what's known as the "first-sale doctrine." In effect, it covers the idea that I buy something, I can sell it. The fight? If I legally purchase a legal, shrink-wrapped piece of software, I have the right to sell it to someone else, just like it was a car or a boat or anything else you'd buy. The lawyers are fighting that idea, saying that even if you purchase the media, the license to the software on the media prevents you from selling the media itself. It's nothing more than a naked attempt to force people to buy more software.

Now, the advent of downloadable software and subscription-based service software (which is fairly absurd on its face) may obviate the value of a decision in this regard, but it's another demonstration of how licensing and DMCA is being used in our increasingly electronics-dependent society to abuse consumers at every possible turn.

Just the facts
04-28-2015, 05:47 PM
I am about 3 years away from being able to tell GM,and every other auto manufacturer - keep your car, I don't need it. This is just another reason to keep working towards that goal.