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posted by CoolHand on Friday April 24 2015, @05:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-mine-is-yours dept.

Wired has an article which responds to the view of John Deere and General Motors on what the people who buy their vehicles actually own, which was expressed during comments on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):

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.
...
General Motors told the Copyright Office that proponents of copyright reform mistakenly “conflate ownership of a vehicle with ownership of the underlying computer software in a vehicle.” But I’d bet most Americans make the same conflation—and Joe Sixpack might be surprised to learn GM owns a giant chunk of the Chevy sitting in his driveway

Also covered by Techdirt.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Friday April 24 2015, @10:48AM

    by gallondr00nk (392) on Friday April 24 2015, @10:48AM (#174597)

    Joe Sixpack might be surprised to learn GM owns a giant chunk of the Chevy sitting in his driveway.

    I imagine Joe Sixpack really doesn't give a hoot. He buys it, drives it, takes it into the garage, and when he's bored of it he'll sell it, same as before.

    I did like the John Deere comment about "implied license". It always seems that manufacturers are incredibly reluctant to clarify the issue - here, as in other fields, the assumption is that you own it, unless the manufacturer decides you don't.

    I imagine what would really upset them was if their John Deere tractor was legally considered a lease.

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