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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: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:02PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:02PM (#941626)

    Digital restrictions management denies users their freedoms and, in these cases, leads to planned obsolescence and waste. Everyone should have a Right to Repair. It's like inputting a hole into a rubber mat and then inserting your manhood into the floor sandwich. Is it rape, or is it Controlling a Swept Object?

    Likewise, we must also insist on Free Software.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:15PM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:15PM (#941637)

    It's like inputting a hole into a rubber mat and then inserting your manhood into the floor sandwich.

    Well, if that manhood is the one from the manufacturer, then it may be a good move. We can then all walk on that rubber mat and trample the manhood into proper proportions, flat, wide and elongated, just like the mat itself. And, of course, he has no right to repair. So that will prevent any further procreation of no-right-repair manhoods from that specific manufacturer.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:28PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:28PM (#941645)

    So you're demanding to make sure the manufacturers hands are bound that they cannot make demands.

    Interesting.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:59PM (#941660)

      Yes. Sometimes allowing people to do whatever they please does not lead to the greatest amount of freedom, such as when companies dump toxins into water supplies, or do other things which harm people. A far greater number of people would have freedom if DRM were banned.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @02:55AM (#942138)
        Very true, but you missed the best example: allowing people the "freedom" to own slaves. That is in a sense is essentially what DRM is designed to do: it basically enslaves what should be hardware you bought and paid for to the whims of some other master besides you, which in turn enslaves you to their whims insofar as your life depends on that hardware.
    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday January 10 2020, @06:50AM

      by sjames (2882) on Friday January 10 2020, @06:50AM (#941796) Journal

      Yes, the same way I support laws that (hopefully literally) make sure muggers' hands are bound.

      Put another way, their right to swing their fists ends at my nose.

    • (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."

    • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday January 10 2020, @09:31PM

      by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <axehandleNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 10 2020, @09:31PM (#942042)

      So you're demanding to make sure the manufacturers hands are bound that they cannot make demands.

      Yes. There have to be consequences for not playing nice.

      Look on the bright side: small consequences now may well result in fewer manufacturers (and the politicians they own) dangling from light poles later on.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Unixnut on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:47PM (2 children)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Thursday January 09 2020, @10:47PM (#941655)

    > It's like inputting a hole into a rubber mat and then inserting your manhood into the floor sandwich. Is it rape, or is it Controlling a Swept Object?

    +1 Seriously tortured analogy

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @01:11AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @01:11AM (#941722)

      Oh, it's torture all right, but maybe that's their thing?

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday January 10 2020, @06:52AM

        by sjames (2882) on Friday January 10 2020, @06:52AM (#941797) Journal

        Read the analogy again. It's definitely THEIR thing.