Do farmers have the right to repair their own equipment?(albertafarmexpress.ca)
albertafarmexpress.ca
Do farmers have the right to repair their own equipment?
https://www.albertafarmexpress.ca/news/do-farmers-have-the-right-to-repair-their-own-equipment/
41 comments
Why is this even a question?
Because profits. There is a business model and a lot of profit to be made forcing people to constantly a) pay for new equipment/devices, b) pay for any repairs or upgrades, and c) locking everyone into a single ecosystem.
For some reason it carries over to cars a lot. If you lease a 2021 BMW M5 through BMW North America/Financial and you want to make a warranty claim for a defect, is your warranty void if you did some of the work yourself prior?
I think it's something like that. I could be wrong.
I think it's something like that. I could be wrong.
Part of the incentive of leasing a car is having the dealer take care of repairs. Why would you risk your warranty to do the repair yourself?
Also, you don't own the car.
If you BUY a tractor, you should be legally allowed to repair it yourself.
If you BUY a tractor, you should be legally allowed to repair it yourself.
You're probably in breach of your finance agreement. A UK youtuber a couple of years back financed an M4, got some mods added, BMW finance called him up and said he had to pay the balance of the finance in 28 days.
He clearly didn't have the funds and was at risk of losing the car with all the added mods.
Nobody should consider they own a car if it's financed. But they are liable for the bad things that can happen.
He clearly didn't have the funds and was at risk of losing the car with all the added mods.
Nobody should consider they own a car if it's financed. But they are liable for the bad things that can happen.
Financed vs lease are two different things. If you leased the car, then you don't own it, simple as that. If you took out a loan and bought the car, you do own it. There's a lien on it, sure, but that doesn't convey ownership unless you default and the car is repossessed.
It has nothing to do with warranties. This issue currently didn't carry over to cars at all (well not exactly) for the most part you are able to do your own car repairs. Parts exist, both oem and after market. You can even find instruction manuals. But this is not true for tractors.
When a society does not have any problems, it creates some new ones.
Society doesn’t have any problems? What planet are you spending your time on?
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Headlines.
The answer is clear. Of course they should.
The answer is clear. Of course they should.
The last paragraph of this article just turns into a "we must protect corporate profits at all costs" argument
I think the answer is yes. But why should this be framed as farmers?
I think everyone should have hte right to repair their own equipment. I think that right should be extended to rental and leased equipment too.
I think everyone should have hte right to repair their own equipment. I think that right should be extended to rental and leased equipment too.
They have the right if their contracts with the manufacturer say they have the right, or if the laws give them the right.
There are ways to have both of those things do what you want -- go and change them.
There are ways to have both of those things do what you want -- go and change them.
In most systems of western ethical thought that I'm familiar with the "right" to do something exists whether or not the law says you are allowed to do it.
Well then we need to quibble over what "right" means in this context.
You may have the right to try and repair your equipment. No one is stopping you from doing that. Whether or not you will succeed depends on whether the manufacturer has enabled that. That last part is not a natural "right". It is a responsibility that you want the manufacturer to undertake.
That responsibility is determined by contracts and laws.
You may have the right to try and repair your equipment. No one is stopping you from doing that. Whether or not you will succeed depends on whether the manufacturer has enabled that. That last part is not a natural "right". It is a responsibility that you want the manufacturer to undertake.
That responsibility is determined by contracts and laws.
Ok well, it looks like the word you should be using here is capacity. I would agree that they do not currently have the capacity to repair their equipment, even though they probably have the right to do so.
>That last part is not a natural "right"
or it may be a natural right that the manufacturer is preventing your from exercising. I agree that the opening up of the capacity to exercise that right will have to be achieved through the courts via right to repair laws and similar strategies.
>That last part is not a natural "right"
or it may be a natural right that the manufacturer is preventing your from exercising. I agree that the opening up of the capacity to exercise that right will have to be achieved through the courts via right to repair laws and similar strategies.
Quibble?
Fact is the vast majority of these contested repair scenarios are not necessary. Nor is the revenue they generate.
This is not a "you" thing at all.
It is about the necessary.
And that will drive people, who despite the mess our body politic is in right now, will ultimately see law changed, and with that the scope of permissible contracts change, and with that, be better able to accomplish the necessary.
Farmers, in particular, are necessary, and what they produce is necessary.
All that makes this a "we" problem.
Fact is the vast majority of these contested repair scenarios are not necessary. Nor is the revenue they generate.
This is not a "you" thing at all.
It is about the necessary.
And that will drive people, who despite the mess our body politic is in right now, will ultimately see law changed, and with that the scope of permissible contracts change, and with that, be better able to accomplish the necessary.
Farmers, in particular, are necessary, and what they produce is necessary.
All that makes this a "we" problem.
Not really. In law you can do as you please with your own property, so you have the "right to repair" by default.
A problem is that this may not be feasible in practice, which is fair game in general.
Another problem, which I think is more serious and unfair, is that manufacturers might actively prevent you from repairing by, e.g, requiring software to be reset by them only when you change parts.
A problem is that this may not be feasible in practice, which is fair game in general.
Another problem, which I think is more serious and unfair, is that manufacturers might actively prevent you from repairing by, e.g, requiring software to be reset by them only when you change parts.
Everyone wants to buy (cheaply) other people's work but want to only rent or lease (the products of) their work to others. I suspect this is in essence rent-seeking. John Deer "sells" these equipments but would love to just rent them and tries to achieve that anyway they can. They want to capture as much as possible of the value that is produced with their equipment. Making the farmers dependent on them for repairs is just a hidden rent.
posit for fairness:
Manufacturers can keep the right to repair to themselves. But are then liable to pay the cost of any downtime caused by faulty hardware.
I’m really conflicted on this issue. On one end you have a provider that has an end to end solution and has spent a lot of resources providing a quality product, but on the other hand there are solutions that the end user can solve without intervention of the copyright holder. This article provides a great argument but it’s still a hard one.
Yes. Wtf kind of clickbait question is this?
I agree with the sentiment of “yes”. But I think the title/question reflects reality:
>But these days it’s dealerships — via sales and service agreements with manufacturers — that have legal access to these diagnostic tools. So when an error message pops up, farmers and independent mechanics are out in the cold, sometimes literally.
>But these days it’s dealerships — via sales and service agreements with manufacturers — that have legal access to these diagnostic tools. So when an error message pops up, farmers and independent mechanics are out in the cold, sometimes literally.
It's probably the same answer as cars and cell phones. Not sure why there needs to be a farmer angle.
Should farmers have the right to force manufacturers to provide parts, schematics, tools and software?
Since we give manufacturers an artificial monopoly over the ability to provide those parts, schematics, tools, and software, it seems reasonable that we might give them some responsibilities along with that privilege.
It's less about forcing manufacturers to do something, and more about saying to them, "if we give you permission to take away other people's rights and make it a felony for other people to build businesses around flashing firmware on your tractors without your permission, then in return you have to give people better avenues for repair."
Copyright and DRM laws create artificial monopolies that we grant companies because (for better or worse) we've decided that market intervention into creative industries and granting people limited legal monopolies over ideas is sometimes in the best interest of the market/society. But copyright is a privilege that we grant companies for pragmatic reasons, it's not a constitutional right or a natural property right. Copyright is a market intervention by the government, and it's fine for that intervention to come with caveats and conditions.
It's less about forcing manufacturers to do something, and more about saying to them, "if we give you permission to take away other people's rights and make it a felony for other people to build businesses around flashing firmware on your tractors without your permission, then in return you have to give people better avenues for repair."
Copyright and DRM laws create artificial monopolies that we grant companies because (for better or worse) we've decided that market intervention into creative industries and granting people limited legal monopolies over ideas is sometimes in the best interest of the market/society. But copyright is a privilege that we grant companies for pragmatic reasons, it's not a constitutional right or a natural property right. Copyright is a market intervention by the government, and it's fine for that intervention to come with caveats and conditions.
I don't see this as drastically different than the extreme push to force migrate everyone to SaaS on most software. Most business plans appear to be migrating to rent seeking.
I don't know, should corporate executives be allowed to feed themselves with a fork? This turning purchases into dependency business model is sickening, and I look forward to companies who practice it slowly decaying, especially Adobe who is getting their lunch eaten every single day by small competitors.
yes
No idea.
This “newsletter” is not available to readers in the EU apparently.
I’d take that as a sign it’s full of horrible trackers and malware.
Blocking it is probably for the best.
This “newsletter” is not available to readers in the EU apparently.
I’d take that as a sign it’s full of horrible trackers and malware.
Blocking it is probably for the best.
They block you because European readers aren't going to generate enough revenue to justify the ongoing cost of keeping the site compliant. If I were running a site for Albertan farmers I wouldn't give a damn about European readership either.
I take it as a sign of EU politicians writing laws that make a lot of content publishers on the internet making a choice of either walking on bureaucratic eggshells or simply blocking EU access altogether.
Also California.
Also California.
If they block me because their business model is dependant on tracking me without my consent, then I'm quite happy with said politicians' work. The ones in California apparently aren't half-bad either.
In the case of the GDPR the easiest way to comply is to not track any private data, and if you do that you don't even need to ask permission!
Not tracking people is quite hard when things like an IP address in a server log is considered personal data. You need to switch off a lot of the standard default logging on your servers, or work to configure it to not record any "personal identifiable data" after your lawyers have told you what that means in the context of your app, to not track people. In any significant website that's a lot of work and you lose a lot of useful stuff like effective error logs as well as tracking information. It's not hard to understand why people just block the EU instead.
Note: It is only when you venture into third-party tracking and sharing collected information that you need a warning.
You do not need a warning for cookies which are just used for site preferences, the IP address being stored in access.log, or any other things used for "normal site operation" and not potentially identifying the user.
You do not need a warning for cookies which are just used for site preferences, the IP address being stored in access.log, or any other things used for "normal site operation" and not potentially identifying the user.
Well, the easiest way to comply is to simply not serve EU folks. Chances are finding new advertising partners and changing up all their software is much harder, especially for what looks like a relatively local newspaper.
Even if you don't do anything the EU wouldn't like, hiring specialists to follow their process proving it is an expense that never ends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHfE_k1a0xQ