In Rural America, Right To Repair Laws Are The Leading Edge Of A Push Back Against Growing Corporate Power

[TTL News 307]

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As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs.

A new memorandum of understanding between the country’s largest farm equipment maker, John Deere Corp., and the American Farm Bureau Federation is now raising hopes that U.S. farmers will finally regain the right to repair more of their own equipment.

However, supporters of right-to-repair laws suspect a more sinister purpose: to slow the momentum of efforts to secure right-to-repair laws around the country.

Under the agreement, John Deere promises to give farmers and independent repair shops access to manuals, diagnostics and parts. But there’s a catch – the agreement isn’t legally binding, and, as part of the deal, the influential Farm Bureau promised not to support any federal or state right-to-repair legislation.

 

Read the rest here. 

[MsKreed 1,173]

The whole issue of "ownership" of anything that may fall under the umbrella of intellectual property is a growing phenomenon that could have worrisome effects across just about every sector of society.

It sort of makes one ponder if  “Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing....” might be more prescient than we thought. 

Sure, it seemed like a somewhat superficial, trivial and abstract matter when Bruce Willis questioned the “ownership” of his iTunes music collection a decade ago.  But it leaves open the question of when/if the corporations that “own” digital media may simply delete books or media from ones library if they decide it suits them.  In light of corporate discretion to grant or deny a consumer's "Right to Repair".....these "philosophical" questions are becoming more tangible. 

The license agreements inherent in technology, that the public has casually taken for granted over several decades, has led to an increasing trend toward “subscription based” usage.....of everything. 

Did you think your small business owns the Excel spreadsheets it uses to track payroll, sales, expenses and inventory? Nope. You just paid a fee to license that software. And as Microsoft pushed upgrades to newer versions, you didn’t expect that they’d eventually require an annual fee to continue to access your data. In theory, the license agreements on the whole operating system of any device we "own" could be held for ransom by the company that "owns" the intellectual property that makes the device work.