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John Deere responds to ownership article

john deere 2014

 

A spokesman for John Deere says he wants to make it clear that if a farmer buys a tractor from John Deere, they own it.

Barry Nelson, Deere’s media relations director, tells Brownfield the question of who owns their equipment past the point of purchase has been in the news lately after a recent editorial in Wired Magazine.   “It was an opinion piece,” Nelson says,  “which inaccurately described Deere’s position concerning the intellectual property rights of software code.”

Nelson claims the headline also made it seem like John Deere was destroying the very idea of ownership.  But to Nelson, the issue is with the equipment’s computer software, “A lot of the software is protected and there are very good reasons for that: safety, emissions standards, and overall performance.  We don’t want just anybody to be able to go in there and hack the computer code.”

He says that doesn’t mean someone can’t repair their own tractor or work with a dealer and uses the analogy of  buying a book at a bookstore, “you own that book, but you still do not have the right to copy the book, modify the book or distribute copies to others.”

Nelson says copyright laws also exist with other vehicles and computers themselves.

  • Interesting bit of backpedaling since they have joined with auto makers in a law suit that will eventually go to the Supremes. If the auto makers and Deere win it will be ILLEGAL to preform repairs on your own vehicle if it involves any link to any of the computerized components / functions of the vehicle. In most newer vehicles this means the whole vehicle. So you may own it but only to drive it. Don’t know which article J D rep is referring to but the article I previously read was not an opinion piece. Just straight reporting on the facts of the law suit.

  • Today is Wednesday the 6th of January 2015. I’ve tried to find the fault with the transmission in the owner’s JD 310SJ. Can’t buy a manual. JD Macon, GA refuses to answer questions about which solenoid does what, but with a $5,000 hold on the owner’s credit card will consent to send someone out to look at the tractor . . .

    If you can’t work on it yourself (if you want or need to do so) then you don’t really own it.

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