- Thread starter ScoutB
- Start date
Ultradog MN
Well-known Member
- Location
- Twin Cities
There was a thread on this a couple of days ago on tractor talk.
I don't like it either but there's a lot of differences between a 2015 JD and an N.
I think seed companies have been doing that for years.
You lease the seed - not own it.
Here is the link.
I don't like it either but there's a lot of differences between a 2015 JD and an N.
I think seed companies have been doing that for years.
You lease the seed - not own it.
Here is the link.
TheOldHokie
Well-known Member
- Location
- Myersville, MD
I've been involved in the hardware and software contracting business for over 40 years - everything from PC's up through 100 million dollar plus mainframe systems. The idea that you don't own the code running inside your "machine" is nothing new and has been around for two decades or more. You buy the hardware but not the software. All you get with the software is a license to use it on your machine. It's a fuzzy legal area, particularly when it comes to transfers of ownership of the "machine". Some hardware/software companies have been known to require new licensing fees from the new machine owner. Most times they don't get it ;-)
I am not a lawyer but if John Deere wants to claim their "sale" of the "machine" is actually a hardware and software lease they better make that clearly explicit in the actual contract along with any lease cancellation and transfer provisions they intend to enforce. I suspect they are more interested in protecting their digital ownership rights than claiming ownership of the tractor itself. They don't want to share their software secrets with third parties - something the automobile industry has been doing for several decades.
TOH
Ultradog MN
Well-known Member
- Location
- Twin Cities
Good explanation/analogy TOH.
Thanks
Thanks
NoNewParts
Member
interesting legal question arises one day after the warranty expires.
If I 'lease' something and it fails,....fix it free or give me another one.
I agree with the other posts, it's all about the money.
Manufacturer lawyers find laws that they can use for their own ends.
Which is against us, the retail buyer.
I imagine the manufacturers that are actually after the technology, get a chuckle over it when they buy one to reverse engineer.
side question,
with a software license 'agreement'
in the future when the maker ends support and updates,
which breaks their half of the 'agreement'.....
Can we now do whatever we want with it?
If I 'lease' something and it fails,....fix it free or give me another one.
I agree with the other posts, it's all about the money.
Manufacturer lawyers find laws that they can use for their own ends.
Which is against us, the retail buyer.
I imagine the manufacturers that are actually after the technology, get a chuckle over it when they buy one to reverse engineer.
side question,
with a software license 'agreement'
in the future when the maker ends support and updates,
which breaks their half of the 'agreement'.....
Can we now do whatever we want with it?
TheOldHokie
Well-known Member
- Location
- Myersville, MD
In the computer world it doesn't terminate the user agreement . It ends their support but not their copyright ownership. By that time most OEM's have lost all interest in their legacy product and are not likely to pursue anybody "pirating" old copies of it. And in many cases they will have changed something crucial in the new product that makes the old version highly undesirable or even non-functional.
For example I am sure you can find plenty of old copies of Windows NT Workstation - I have one in my CD file right now. If I install it on a new machine I will be required to accept the end user license agreement and enter the product authorization key for my copy to get the installation to proceed. By accepting that EULA I am bound by it despite the fact Microsoft hasn't supported or updated WNT for 20 years.
If I were to produce a thousand copies of my distribution CD and sell the copies complete with the product authorization key on eBay I MIGHT get their attention but not likely. And not likely to get a lot of buyers either since it probably won't run and/or support the features of a lot of new PC hardware ;-)
TOH
Here's a reply I posted to the thread on "Tractor Talk". Just my thoughts.
Why are there no "intellectual property rights" on engineering drawings (like software engineering) and therefore on the products made from them like cars and machinery and tractors (or application programs)?
Using the same "intellectual property rights" arguments then we couldn't re-sell our used vehicles or even drill holes in them to mount accessories to. Doesn't it cost millions and millions of dollars to design and re-engineer new cars (tractors) every year? It's not only the software engineering that costs money.
Maybe this is more about power. Power corrupts so maybe the people who run the software companies are just using whatever excuse they can get away with to weld some arbitrary power over others.
Shouldn't somebody be paying royalties to whoever "created" the car whenever one is sold? Or maybe we should be paying the "bootleg" taxes (like on blank DVD's or CD's) on machinery in case we use it to make a copy of something?
Why are there no "intellectual property rights" on engineering drawings (like software engineering) and therefore on the products made from them like cars and machinery and tractors (or application programs)?
Using the same "intellectual property rights" arguments then we couldn't re-sell our used vehicles or even drill holes in them to mount accessories to. Doesn't it cost millions and millions of dollars to design and re-engineer new cars (tractors) every year? It's not only the software engineering that costs money.
Maybe this is more about power. Power corrupts so maybe the people who run the software companies are just using whatever excuse they can get away with to weld some arbitrary power over others.
Shouldn't somebody be paying royalties to whoever "created" the car whenever one is sold? Or maybe we should be paying the "bootleg" taxes (like on blank DVD's or CD's) on machinery in case we use it to make a copy of something?
Tall T
Well-known Member
As a tractor rookie and after watching countless tractor auctions since buying my Ford, I'm still wondering what the fascination or fixation is for the green and yellows. I pull the progress bar thumb across auction videos until the endless green and yellow stops so I can enjoy all the other tractors.
they are no doubt good machines, but to me someone would have to be seriously musically challenged to find a Poppin' Johnny "music to their ears" all day out in the field.
I listened to an 85 year old man 40 years ago talking about steam trains. He said when they went through the cotton fields the workers would put their tools down and sing and clap to the chuff of the steam train, but that when diesels came in, "they put they fingers in they ears".
The other day, my new neighbor said he loves the sound coming through the trees when I fire up the Jube; he says, it is a very calming and relaxing sound.
Give me the purr power of the Jube any day.
T
The problem is that software is covered by copyright laws instead of patents.
The copyright law was designed to protect authors, songwriters, and others who published intellectual works.
In those days printing was relatively cheap and an easy way to steal someone else's idea. Copyrights were
long-lived in order to protect income for an author past his working lifetime.
Patents were intended to protect designs. At the time the patent laws came into being, physical designs were
the way technology advanced. Patents were fairly short-lived, under the premise that the patent gave a
limited monopoly to the inventor's design in order to ensure he could recover his development costs, plus a
profit. The patent was intended to run out and become "public" in order for the technology to be distributed
far and wide to benefit the public as a whole.
Software should be patented, rather than copyrighted. The government really dropped the ball on this one!
The copyright law was designed to protect authors, songwriters, and others who published intellectual works.
In those days printing was relatively cheap and an easy way to steal someone else's idea. Copyrights were
long-lived in order to protect income for an author past his working lifetime.
Patents were intended to protect designs. At the time the patent laws came into being, physical designs were
the way technology advanced. Patents were fairly short-lived, under the premise that the patent gave a
limited monopoly to the inventor's design in order to ensure he could recover his development costs, plus a
profit. The patent was intended to run out and become "public" in order for the technology to be distributed
far and wide to benefit the public as a whole.
Software should be patented, rather than copyrighted. The government really dropped the ball on this one!
Software can be patented and/or copyrighted.
Patents usually include the phrase "method and apparatus for" which covers how you do something as well as any specialized equipment for doing the something. Patents don't cover the actual implementation (the source code or the binary file) -- that's where copyright comes in.
If I have a patented method of doing something, you can't write software to implement that method until the patent expires or you license it from me.
If I write a piece of software, you can't legally copy it until the copyright expires or you license it from me (even if it doesn't implement any patented methods). However, you can write your own software to implement my method if it's not patented or if the patent has expired.
Copyrights last far longer than patents. A piece of software is typically discarded long before either a patent or a copyright expires. There are a number of hobby developers that would like to take over development and support for games that are no longer sold. They can't, because the software is typically still covered by copyright -- even if the original copyright holder is defunct. Some successor owns the copyright, even if they don't know it.
There's software and there's digital media. To an easily confused politician trying to score points with a rich media mogul it's easy to overlook that. I can understand to some extent the digital media argument because that stuff is mass market and easily copied but how many copies of the operating system for a tractor could you sell or random people would want to download? The argument about competition stealing it is bogus because the Chinese or Russians aren't so stupid that they couldn't figure it out on their own. If you don't think so, remember Russians are ferrying NASA astronauts to the ISS and they couldn't do that if they couldn't figure out how to program tractors. If they want to duplicate some feature of a Deere they are perfectly capable of writing their own code. Anyone who's studied even trivial code (me) knows there are a hundred ways of accomplishing the same thing so as not to contravene copyrights.
As for liability all they have to do is state that 'unauthorized' access to the code base would invalidate any warranty and that they would not be held liable for anything that might happen. They could even code a switch that could tell them if the code had been accessed.
As for liability all they have to do is state that 'unauthorized' access to the code base would invalidate any warranty and that they would not be held liable for anything that might happen. They could even code a switch that could tell them if the code had been accessed.
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