Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have to Fix Copyright Law

Agreed. To expound a bit...

There is a perspective/philosophy* in which humans under anarchic/natural-law are born with 100% rights. E.g., if you were washed ashore with a number of ship-wreck-mates on an otherwise uninhabited island, there'd be nothing to stop you from implementing works copyrighted in other lands. Further, there'd be nothing to stop you from violating the terms of any contract or even murdering anyone--you'd have unlimited rights.

But let's say we're wiser than that. When we wash ashore, we all agree that it's in everyone's best interest to avoid killing each-other. Therefore, we each give up a measure of our unlimited rights and grant them to each-other in the form of governmental 'powers'--if someone kills one member of our new tribe, the other members will kill (or otherwise deprive the rights of) the one who initiated the aggression.

In it's ideal form, the government's purpose is to maintain the largest possible sphere of individual rights without allowing individuals to infringe upon the rights of others. It can only exist inasmuch as each individual condones and supports it's actions. To the degree it becomes imbalanced towards one party or another, the aggrieved parties retain the right to withdraw the powers they've delegated--in extreme cases they may fight the other party's government to reclaim their inalienable rights.

With this scenario in mind, imagine that you see me building a sand castle on my side of the beach. You like the design so you copy it on your side of the beach. I'm not flattered by the imitation but you haven't really deprived me of any rights either--I'm still free to do as I wish on my side of the beach. Since I'm not really harmed, I don't have an inalienable right to monopolize the castle's design. In fact, if I storm over to your side of the beach and knock your copy down, I'd be depriving you of the right to make that kind of sand castle should you see fit to do so.

Given such a dispute, the tribe (including yourself) might agree to relinquish the right to manipulate sand in particular ways and create a new governmental power. The creation of this power appeases and incentivizes me to continue voluntarily beautifying the beach with fresh and innovative sculptures and promotes continued peaceful cooperation. This a matter of policy, there are no higher laws or anything set in stone about the validity or duration of my claims, etc.

* I tend to agree with this philosophy but want to take a more objective tack for the sake of the great-grandparent poster.

50 years back, to 1966, is still very much preferable to 150 years back, to 1866.

As huge a gulf in technology as that may be, retracing over ground that has already been surveyed once is much easier than blazing a trail through wilderness. It only takes 50 years to advance that far in technology the first time you try it. The second time around, it goes much faster and less expensively, especially for everything with lapsed patent protection.

That particular tractor is supposed to be a bootstrapping device, so that in the unlikely circumstance that we do lose the benefit of modern infrastructure, it can mostly be rebuilt before anybody forgets how or why.

With the benefit of the modern manufacturing infrastructure, anyone else could copy a 1995 model of Deere tractor and just leave off the trademark elements.

The LifeTrac is designed around the resources that a self-sustaining OSE community could likely produce or scavenge. It's basically what two people and a rudimentary machine shop could build in a reasonable period of time.

Again, given the run-up in prices for used, owner-repairable tractors, there may be a market for copying the most popular models for new manufacture, and leaving out anything still patented or trademarked. Serious farmers won't build their own LifeTrac unless it is impossible to get a factory-built tractor.

> try to negotiate a deal before you buy a tractor

This is part of the problem. "Contracts" have become one-way rights-limiters which perverts their original intent: For two parties to negotiate terms of a transaction. What we have today are contracts being abused to limit consumers' rights, limit their use of court to challenge them (arbitration clauses), and absolve the corporation of all legal liability that may ever come out of that transaction.

I think that in our age where consumers have no rights, its perfectly ok to enter into one-sided "contracts", then violate the spirit of those contracts by appealing to lawmakers to give consumers their rights back.

Why do you have "democratic" in scare-quotes? That action is completely democratic. If a bunch of jerks buy up 60% of a town and move in, and now comprise a majority of the population, then they have every right to vote for horrible new laws (assuming they don't get trumped by state or federal laws of course). That's the nature of democracy. If you're opposed to that, then you're by definition opposed to democracy.

Luckily, modern democracies involve multiple layers of government (town/city, county, state, federal) to serve as a moderating effect to prevent some little town full of jerks legislating blatantly horrible stuff, but those jerks do have the right to move where they want, buy property, and to vote. To deny them those rights is undemocratic.

>Imagine a group that believes it should be able to practice virgin sacrifice, ..... Do the rest of us just sit by and say, .....

Well, it depends. Are they in a town within your country? Then obviously higher-level laws are going to prevent that kind of thing, and the feds have the right to send in the National Guard and take over the place for violating state and federal laws so blatantly, then prosecute everyone involved. However, if they're a separate country (and the group is the country; i.e. the country as a whole believes in this crap), then it's a little trickier. What is your proposal about how to deal with this screwed-up society? Invade, and install a puppet government? When has that ever gone well in the past? Not recently. Turn it into an imperial possession where the citizens there have no rights except what the imperial governor decrees? Maybe, but this also means you opposed democracy. Apply pressure from outside with things like sanctions? That seems to be the modern method, and doesn't seem to work too well either (look at the wonders it's done for North Korea). Honestly, this is something you could debate all day long, there's no easy answer.

Someone wants to live like that, or it wouldn't exist.