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posted by martyb on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the tough-row-to-hoe dept.

Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.

Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.

Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.

"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.

Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @08:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @08:57AM (#941816)

    Manufacturers hands are in no way bound. This issue derives from manufacturers lobbying government to interpret the law in a way that is detrimental to society. The first-sale doctrine is, arguably, at the very heart of capitalism. You buy it, you own it. You can now sell it. Without it, those who own things would naturally collude to never truly relinquish their ownership. It actually is still this way in some places. For instance in my current country of residence I can't actually buy land. Instead I am only allowed to buy a 100 year lease. America used to be better than this.

    This new trend is of "licensing" over ownership is basically a government granted loophole to destroy the first sale doctrine. Working against it is not tying the hands of manufacturers, it's telling the government to stop selling out the entire nation for their god damn corporate "donations."

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