US farmers are still trying to win the right to repair their own John Deere tractors

In order for the owners to repair their tractors, you need to change the US copyright law

Photo: oticki / Thinkstock

About a year ago , an article was published on Geektimes about an American farmer, Dave Alford, who has worked on his own ranch for many years. The total area of ​​the ranch is about 400 hectares. For processing all this land, Alford uses a large amount of equipment that breaks down regularly. Dave prefers to repair everything that has failed independently.
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For three decades, the rancher has repaired more than a dozen tractors. Not so long ago, he bought another one - a modern John Deere 8520T tractor. There is air conditioning and even on-board computer. It can show, for example, the state of the engine. If something fails, the computer immediately shows what kind of system is broken. It is very convenient - you can fix everything, knowing where and what needs to be repaired. But this is where the convenience ends, since the farmer does not have the right to repair the tractor himself.

The fact is that the software of the on-board computer of the tractor is protected by the manufacturer. The farmer has no right to crack DRM digital protection (although Alford knows how to do this, he says), since he will immediately be subject to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. For violation of the DMCA, the court may order the farmer to pay half a million US dollars or imprison him for several years. So far there have been no such precedents, but everything is possible.

That is why, with every tractor breakdown, Dave has to wait for a company specialist, or take the equipment to a service center, which is 65 km from the ranch. All this time work is worth it.

John Deere argues that the buyer’s independent repair of tractors by the fact that unqualified repairs can even disable the system and the self-appointed wizard could harm himself. It is clear that farmers do not agree with this point of view, believing that once a tractor is bought, all rights to it belong to them.



The conviction of farmers that they should have the full right to repair their own equipment, is supported by many representatives of other professions - lawyers, technicians, electronics specialists. But support in words is one thing, and lobbying interests is another. Someone was supposed to lead the team protecting the rights of farmers. This man was Kyle Wiens, founder of the iFixit community.

“I am not a lawyer. I am a master in repairing my occupation and a specialist in developing software for education. I repair things - especially those related to computer technology ... When my farmer friend wants to know if there is a way to “set up” the protected software of his tractor, I know that this is wrong. The only way to overcome the limitations of the DMCA is to ask the Copyright Office (United States Copyright Office) to introduce an exception to certain articles of the law ... Last year 27 proposed exceptions were considered - and one of them concerned the repair of equipment and software for agricultural systems, ” writes Vinay.

According to him, any person can submit a request for consideration of an exception to the law. After the submission of the request, the development of the situation can only be observed, it is impossible to influence the process. Vinh did everything in his power. He supported several exceptions, helped prepare and correctly file all the documentation, collected about 40,000 reviews in support of the reform of copyright law. In addition to all this, the Copyright Office requires legal arguments for the proposed exemptions. A whole team of lawyers found by Vine worked on this issue for about a year.

Ordinary people can not hire an army of lawyers specializing in copyright law. The main problem is money. Lawyers are a very expensive pleasure, and good lawyers can cost a fortune. In the case of copyright reform, an entire army of well-trained and paid lawyers-professionals who work in the interests of the Grand Copyright is opposed to society. Behind the DMCA stands the Motion Picture Association of America . Members of this association are the six largest Hollywood studios: The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. The union also includes the Recording Industry Association of America, the American Software Manufacturers and Entertainment Association, and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

All these organizations are making every effort to prevent the reform of copyright law. Every proposed exception to the law is challenged by professional lawyers. For this reason, exceptions to the law are extremely rare.

Last year, however, things did not go according to the usual scenario. A huge team of copyright experts decided to help the public “push through” amendments to the law. Organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Institute of Intellectual Property of Southern California and many others took part in this process. Efforts succeeded - the US Copyright Office approved more exceptions in 2015 than ever before. One of the exceptions was the repair of tractors.

It would seem that all is well, you can celebrate the victory. But it was far from complete. Yes, exceptions have been approved. But in relation to tractors there is an interesting nuance - only the farmer himself, the owner of the tractor, can repair them. Not a mechanic, not a hired specialist - but a farmer. Some of them are really able to do something on their own (if we are talking about setting up on-board computer systems), but there are also ordinary users who are well aware of how the tractor works, but are not aware of what the on-board system is. That is - you have to call a certified specialist in repair of tractors John Deere.

And most importantly - in three years everything will return to normal. The amendments are valid for only three years. After three years, exceptions to the law will have to be “pushed” again. And even in the case of another success, the cycle will be repeated. Here, you need to ask for help not from the Copyright Office; you need to change the legislation from the US Congress. Until Congress changes the DMCA law, nothing will change.