# Fixing your tractor might require a lawyer.



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Ummm....

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/01/13/copyright_law_shouldn_t_keep_me_from_fixing_a_tractor.html

Lawyers: You gotta love 'em....'cause you can't shoot 'em!

Ralph


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

NG.

Regards, Mike


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

It would be nice if all the lawyers jumped off a cliff....with a politician under each arm

Good read, if for no other reason than to know what's going on with the crooks

73, Mark


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Just increasing the value of the older tractors


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

What a joke. Neighbors have a lot of new stuff. Greenmark there almost daily fixing things involving software and computer problems. I always what would happen on a beautiful May day if ISIS hacked into and shut down the GPS autosteer. Imagine thousands of tractors veering into roads ,ditches and buildings.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

steve IN said:


> What a joke. Neighbors have a lot of new stuff. Greenmark there almost daily fixing things involving software and computer problems. I always what would happen on a beautiful May day if ISIS hacked into and shut down the GPS autosteer. Imagine thousands of tractors veering into roads ,ditches and buildings.


I would think the person sitting in the seat should be able to turn the tractor off pretty quick if they are awake. I'm also pretty sure that ISIS or anyone isn't targeting tractor GPS systems.


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

You have more faith in this next generation than I do. I have met very few that I would call fellow farmers.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

I would apply the SSS theory. Shoot, shovel, shut up. If no one knows you did it, did it really happen?

What I don't understand is why copyright law is so worried if you alter your own property. Is a publisher going to come after me if I rip out the last chapter of a novel and write my own fairytale ending just for my own copy?


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

SSS. We would run out of ground .


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

What I don't understand is why copyright law is so worried if you alter your own property. Is a publisher going to come after me if I rip out the last chapter of a novel and write my own fairytale ending just for my own copy? - Gearclash

As an engineer, I can see both sides. The worry from the manufacturers is someone ripping off their software code and using it for other stuff. (My personal opinion is that until that actually happens, no crime has been committed.) Once some other company has actually stolen and used the original manufacturers code, the manufacturer can send their lawyers after the company that is illegally using their product. However, in cases like this, it can get very difficult to prove guilt since one of the conditions that must be met is that the information in question must have been properly protected by the original manufacturer... it gets confusing very quickly - that's how the lawyers make their money.

With all this in mind, I will happily keep farming with tractors that are older than I am and wrench away when I need to. I'm happy to have the most complex electronic component on my tractor be the alternator.


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## longmeadow farm (Jun 26, 2009)

I told my children and grandchildren.. " you can be anything you want... except a sports announcer or lawyer..two of the most worthless professions on earth." so far so good. During my business career as a software engineer I was often challenged by "copyright lawyers".. I generally ignored them and went about my business....I discovered that it was more bark than bite. When you give leadership to a company like John Deere to a financial dweeb instead of an engineer you get the crap we see today.. protecting short term stockholder equity ..and suggesting that farmers really don't own the equipment they supposedly purchased. The legal software copyright crap is not worth the paper it's written on.. it's intimidation pure and simple.. you can work on and modify anything you bought/own..just don't resell it. In the final analysis the courts have determined you can't use copyright laws to thwart a better idea... I left that crazy world for the infinitely more sane world of farming. Mankind's progress is built on the accumulation of knowledge .. or the body of knowledge produced/accumulated by many and ultimately owned by the commonweal. Copyright laws, in part, appear to deny that reality and are based on greed... perhaps a terminal condition in this present age of self.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

longmeadow farm said:


> you can work on and modify anything you bought/own..just don't resell it. In the final analysis the courts have determined you can't use copyright laws to thwart a better idea... I left that crazy world for the infinitely more sane world of farming. Mankind's progress is built on the accumulation of knowledge .. or the body of knowledge produced/accumulated by many and ultimately owned by the commonweal. Copyright laws, in part, appear to deny that reality and are based on greed... perhaps a terminal condition in this present age of self.


Good points, well stated.

I left that crazy world as well. Threatened with a law suit one time because I used the same colors (red and green) as a competitor. Just Plain Stupid!

Ralph


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I can understand that they might be needing to protect their patented intellectual property from plagiarism, but no "reasonable" set of 12 jurors should be able to conclude that, instead of a planned plagiarist buying the replacement computer from the dealer and dissecting it in a computer lab, would buy a farm, start farming, farm for a bunch of years until it was not "suspicious" that they bought the specific tractor, used the tractor until it broke down, then FINALLY go to the shed (or in the field) and start hacking a computer... now that's a conspiracy theory for ya.
This gummint won't protect the US patents or the patent holders from China and their reverse engineering (actually now from what I understand, they use FOIA to get copies of the patents to use as blueprints and know what's coming out before it comes out)...and that IS within one of the enumerated powers of the constitution, but will rake some poor farmer over the coals 'cause his crappy purchase broke down and he was fixn to fix it.

73, Mark


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## steve IN (Jan 13, 2010)

Sounds eerily similar to Monsanto's bogus patent and copyright clains


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

That's the sick world we live in nowdays...

You bought it, you paid for it, but it's not REALLY *yours*...

The combine or tractor you bought is "yours", just not the "code" they put in all the computers to make it run...

The seed you bought is "yours", just not the "genetic code" they put in it to make it work...

I just don't go for that kind of thinking... why I only grew GMO one year, then quit and went back to regular stuff...

I guess I'm horribly old-fashioned, but I have a problem with the concept that WHAT I BOUGHT AND PAID FOR is NOT REALLY MINE...

Why I quit farming cotton... when a "private foundation" can get itself endowed with GOVERNMENTAL POWERS to impose a MANDATORY tax on independent, individual farmers and PUT LIENS ON THEIR LAND AND/OR CROP, impose "penalties" for late payment and charge you $20 bucks an acre (h3ll, that's all the friggin' PROFIT right there!) for planting cotton, and set it up so that you MUST have a "signed letter of permission" to sell YOUR OWN [email protected] COTTON CROP at the end of the year from them saying that you're "in good graces" and "paid in full" with them, that's just too farkin' much for me...

Here I was thinkin' slavery went out in 1862...

When you don't "own" your own crops, you're nothing but a serf on your own land... (and the Russians emancipated the serfs before our US Civil War).

That's saying something, IMHO... Really makes me want to jump up and wave the flag and get all warm and fuzzy about how "free" we all REALLY are...

BUT, that's America in the 21st century for ya... we're only as "free" as the amount of leash they give us...

Later! OL J R 

PS... BTW, even if you've NEVER planted GMO stuff or signed away all your rights with one of their "grower agreements" (anybody ever read the small print in there?? Our grandparents would be spinning in their graves over such terms), they STILL have the right to come into your fields and "take samples" to test for "THEIR" GMO traits in order to sue you and take your farm if any shows up...
Yep, but it's a 'free country'... LOL Yeah, right...


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