We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#291

Post by barrkel » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #262

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

> As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights... When will it stop? I don't want it to stop - I think it's a good thing. By making a book impossible to pass from one person to another, the publisher is able to extract an income that is closer to the total benefit people derive from reading the book. In short: authors make more money. And so more books will be written, an…

publisher is able to extract an income that is closer to the total benefit people derive from reading the book. In short: authors make more money

These two statements are not logically connected. Price is controlled by supply and demand. If publishers are able to make more money from scarcity of books, it does not follow that authors are able to get more money unless there is also a scarcity of authors and a surplus of publishers.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#292

Post by metaphorm » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

Stallman understands better than most the true nature of wealth and power. Concentrated wealth (in the hands of either individuals or corporations) becomes obsessed with maintaining the concentration of wealth. The most straight-forward way to do this is to never actually sell anything, but rather to collect rent on it. However, the right to collect rent is a legal right that must be enforced by the state (or by force of arms, otherwise).

Stallman's focus on copyright law and intellectual property law is focused on precisely the mechanism by which our society grants rent-collection privileges to concentrated wealth. His core principle is that we must proactively ensure that concentrated wealth is not permitted to collect rent on EVERYTHING in the world, or else we will all be made their serfs forever.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#293

Post by nate_meurer » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #52

I don't see how this is different than anything else software-driven. I "own" my iPhone, but I don't "own" iOS--I just have an implied license to use iOS with the phone.

You've missed the point, and erected a strawman in the process. No one claims to "own" John Deere's software. No one is claiming the right to redistribution.

This fight is about the legal restraints preventing the owner of the equipment from modifying or repairing it.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#294

Post by metaphorm » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

therandomguy wrote: post #223

chacham15 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem here isnt that we're leasing things (we have leases for cars, houses, and many other physical goods). The problem is that the manufacturers mix leasing and owning. I.e. you own the device, but lease the software. I think that everyone would be radically happier if you either leased everything or owned everything. This is partly because when we buy something at a store, we expect to own it, not own pa…

Price is set by the market. The lease cost will match the purchase price today. It will all be the same for the consumer.

[citation needed]

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#295

Post by specialist » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #244

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

Yeah, I remember back before ebooks, we could all just Xerox the books we owned, bind them together, and sell or give away the copies to anyone we wanted to, and they could do the same. It was a lot more work than just copying a file, but everyone was perfectly fine with people doing it. Oh wait a minute, that's not at all what it was like. It's very easy to latch onto people like RMS who make everything seem so blac…

people like RMS who make everything seem so black and white

aka: Ultimatist.

Just like the EFF, ACLU, NRA, NARAL, etc.

The job of the ultimatist is to expand the Overton Window, challenge assumptions, highlight hypocrisy, ask uncomfortable questions.

Agree or disagree, our public discourse would be less healthy without ultimatists like RMS.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#296

Post by sologoub » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

Qworg wrote: post #84

icebraining wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't a manufacturer partner up with a financial company to provide the bundle?

They can and do at the low end, but the upper end market is dominated by Deere and a few others in a way that is hard to understand. The manufacturer has to have the deep pockets and stomach for a protracted battle - lots of folks "bleed green" and will only buy Deere. Deere is everywhere in the countryside - big marketing campaigns. Deere and others also have large dealer networks. That is where the sales are made.…

Also, don't forget that this is a relatively new development in situation. Historically, Deere has been a very reliable brand-name for farmers.

Long term, they may do significant damage, but it will take time to erode the built-up good will.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#297

Post by jordigh » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:28 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #292

apricot wrote: post #48

Richard Stallman spent the last 30 years telling us this would happen. As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights. As soon as tractors contain computer code, you don't own them anymore, you are granted a license to use them. When will it stop? More and more everyday objects are incorporating software and firmware in many different forms. I remember reading Stallman's sh…

Stallman understands better than most the true nature of wealth and power. Concentrated wealth (in the hands of either individuals or corporations) becomes obsessed with maintaining the concentration of wealth. The most straight-forward way to do this is to never actually sell anything, but rather to collect rent on it. However, the right to collect rent is a legal right that must be enforced by the state (or by forc…

> Stallman's focus on copyright law and intellectual property law

Channeling Stallman here, there's no such thing as "intellectual property law". There are a bunch of laws that work in very different ways, evolved under different circumstances, and have different purposes. Copyrights are for ensuring authors retain economic and/or moral rights on their work, patents are so that inventors will disclose their inventions instead of keeping them as trade secrets, and trademarks are so that consumers don't get duped into buying the wrong product. There are other sets of laws that have other purposes and histories, such as regional designation or shipwright designs.

Lumping them all together as "intellectual property" promotes oversimplication and confusion.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#298

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #195

sliverstorm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mega corporations have economies of scale on their side for production costs, and likely much better interest rates on the land. So they can farm the land for cheaper, and the cost of the land on a per-annus basis is cheaper too.

Plus they have more access to getting government subsidies and price controls.

Maybe not. Much of that stuff is designed to help family farms in particular.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#299

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:47 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #266

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, yes, you absolutely are allowed to rewrite a book if you keep the copy yourself.

I think you could argue that it is fair use, and maybe it is, but you are creative a derivative work. That is copyright infringement, unless the fair use exception fits.

No, distributing the derivative work is a violation of copyright. Creating it isn't.

(Disclaimer: IANAL. This is my understanding of the law, but is not legal advice.)

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#300

Post by bsder » Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

declan wrote: post #248

bsder wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was living in Washington, D.C. and following the DMCA when it became law in 1998 -- I can assure you that nobody expected sec. 1201 to morph into the creature it has become today. I shake my head at this. Everybody in tech with 2 brain cells predicted this. The DMCA isn't buggy. It is functioning precisely as designed--protecting big businesses.

>Everybody in tech with 2 brain cells predicted this. Cite, please? Claiming, somewhat rudely, that was the case doesn't make it true. If you were prescient enough to publicly criticize the anti-circumvention sections of the DMCA in 1996-1997, you were virtually alone. The lone voices of criticism I remember came from the American Library Association and American University's Peter Jaszi. By 2000 or so, sure, some pe…

Well, "The Right to Read" was published in February of 1997 in "Communications of the ACM".

So, it was enough of a problem that a mainstream computer research publication (which normally has a lag of 6-12 months) published it. In early 1997.

Please do remember that you cannot rely on Google for history prior to about 1998. (Try hunting for information about VB6 programming for a concrete non-controversial example).

Also, please do remember that we were fighting things on multiple fronts. Encryption was still a munition. The web was still in its infancy. DVD's had just come out in 1995 and file sharing was just reaching critical mass. Many of us were coordinating by email and Usenet(gasp) and long-distance phone(GASP!).

In addition, many people had an attitude that we didn't need to fight since it was impossible for the law to touch the Internet (damage and routing around it and all that hooey). Boy were they wrong.

To top it off, a bunch of companies that were the DotCom sweethearts were happy to sell out our rights in order to help their bottom lines. They were quite happy to support the DMCA, and many are now successful venture capitalists (they learned from Steve Jackson to sell out to the government). These folks are quite happy to whitewash their involvement in lobbying for the DMCA.

So we were there. And we were fighting against it. We were just heavily outgunned.