FTC Sues Deere Over Farm-Equipment Repair Restrictions (ftc.gov) 34
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued Deere & Co on Wednesday for allegedly monopolizing the repair market for its farm equipment by forcing farmers to use authorized dealers, driving up costs and causing service delays.
The lawsuit, joined by Illinois and Minnesota, claims Deere maintains complete control over equipment repairs by restricting access to essential software to its dealer network. The action seeks to make repair tools available to equipment owners and independent mechanics. FTC Chair Lina Khan said repair restrictions can be "devastating for farmers" who depend on timely repairs during harvest.
The lawsuit, joined by Illinois and Minnesota, claims Deere maintains complete control over equipment repairs by restricting access to essential software to its dealer network. The action seeks to make repair tools available to equipment owners and independent mechanics. FTC Chair Lina Khan said repair restrictions can be "devastating for farmers" who depend on timely repairs during harvest.
Re:Complete with the EU (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is trying to compete with the EU in the competition for fostering an anti-business climate.
Hurry for fuckheads!!
I sense that you're trolling, so OK, I'll bite. "Business" is not homogeneous, and businesses sometimes screw each other over. So which "business" do you want your government to support - the one that provides your food, or the one that helps to bankrupt farmers?
Take your time - I realize that this may be a difficult concept for you to grasp.
On a side note, an old advertising slogan needs updating. How about "Nothing scams like a Deere"?
Re: (Score:1)
which "business" do you want your government to support - the one that provides your food, or the one that helps to bankrupt farmers?
False dichotomy. Most of the food is now provided by megaconglomerates. They became as "mega" as they are now by bankrupting farmers.
Re: (Score:2)
Incidentally, the megaconglomerates use John Deere and with their economies of scale are able to handle the high costs of John Deere. It's just a coincidence that the ones who can't give piles of cash to the tractor company are getting locked out of the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Incidentally, the megaconglomerates use John Deere and with their economies of scale are able to handle the high costs of John Deere. It's just a coincidence that the ones who can't give piles of cash to the tractor company are getting locked out of the market.
Posts like yours, and drinkypoo's above, make me realize that I need to think a little longer before I start typing a comment. Thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
which "business" do you want your government to support - the one that provides your food, or the one that helps to bankrupt farmers?
False dichotomy. Most of the food is now provided by megaconglomerates. They became as "mega" as they are now by bankrupting farmers.
You're absolutely right - I should have realized. Thanks for pointing it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Poor old John Deere https://www.deere.com/assets/p... [deere.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Poor old John Deere https://www.deere.com/assets/p... [deere.com]
I'm sure paying those taxes on income just makes them cry constantly. We should start a "GoFundMe" for them... so sad...
Next up McDonald's Ice-cream machines (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
They already addressed those, and we discussed it here.
It's all about payload files (Score:5, Interesting)
The crux of the whole issue is that while parts are readily available, anything with an ECU in it comes blank and requires a payload file installed, which is coded to work only with your tractor's serial number. It's basically a form of DRM. Even dealerships cannot generate the payload files. They have to request them from Deere headquarters, where they are generated and coded to the specified serial number. And dealerships are charged for each one. Even something as simple as the armrest controller circuit board requires a payload file. These payload files go back decades, so even my old, "classic" tractors require them when replacing circuit boards. There's little reason Deere couldn't allow any third party to request (and pay for) a payload file to get a replacement board going. But they like cashing checks even more than they like producing machinery. They recently have changed the way their computer monitor and autosteer is paid for now, requiring annual fees for basic things like autosteer activation, which formerly was a one-time fee.
Fortunately there are farmers out there who are making their own autosteer (AgOpenGPS is the most well known), and recently a lot of work has been done to implement an open-source ISOBUS task controller and virtual terminal that can interface with AgOpenGPS. It's kind of exciting, honestly, as these are the things that are very useful, but OEMs like to charge rent for.
DMCA Grants Circumvention Exemptions for repair (Score:2)
so just clone and hack away.
Add if the only way to make it work is to set it to unlock all then deere is about to be run over.
Re: (Score:2)
Replace the software enforcing said requirement.
Re: (Score:3)
Good luck with that. I worked at a place which used a Jetson CPU module. This module had fuses which could be blown during the manufacturing process. One of these fuses would prevent any updates to the bootloader without having a signing key.
You'd have to remove the CPU and replace it with a brand new CPU, but that might not even be possible if the CPU was extensively customized and only sold to the company who paid for the customizations.
You'd end up redesigning a drop in board with a different CPU to get
Re: DMCA Grants Circumvention Exemptions for repai (Score:4, Informative)
Clone as in just copy and distribute the firmware payload files? Deere's a little smarter than that. They are DRM'd to the tractor's serial number using some sort of cryptography. Also in the last few years Deere has started encrypting the CAN messages on the bus itself (keyed to the serial number again). While all of this could be broken and reverse-engineered, very few hackers are really interested in playing with this stuff. Part of that might have to do with coming up with the hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy machines to reverse-engineer. And most farmers aren't able to hack this sort of thing.
The other manufacturers are not as paranoid as Deere, but they don't make their machines a whole lot easier to repair and aren't too interested in providing a lot of information to third parties either. But Deere is certainly the worst.
So why would I buy Deere? Depends on the deal I guess. My dealer support is top notch. All machines break down, but Deere machines are built well and they are the most comfortable to operate of all the brands, typically. Spending many hours a year in the seat, this is more important than you'd think. I've got machines of all colors now and they are all not too bad as far as comfort goes, and all are reliable. I still prefer spending long hours in the John Deere tractors to all the others. Mind you my green tractors are now getting older now (like me), the newest being 14 years old now.
Re: (Score:2)
what about cloneing the old part number onto an new part?
Re: (Score:2)
Most commercial microprocessors are protected from reading the firmware off of them. Not sure about Deere. Might be possible, if the ECU was functioning. Usually they are replaced because they are non-functioning.
right to repair should allow the end user to have (Score:2)
right to repair should allow the end user to have the pairing tool to reset there own device.
And no you can say that giving that will allow end users to unlock paid modes for free.
Re:It's all about payload files (Score:5, Informative)
Long time right-to-repair campaigner Willie Cade (also a former Deere tech I believe) has spoken at length about the payload file issue. Here's one of his videos on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
As a recent owner of a Mercedes Sprinter...I am finding out that this it how Mercedes works too.
However, as is also possible with John Deere....I have found the workarounds, and have the full suite of software I need.
People just have a fixation on Deere "because farm".
Re: (Score:2)
>These payload files go back decades,
There's the hole. If it's decades old, the cryptography will be bad and all it will take is some enterprising hardware hackers to work with some farmers to reverse engineer it and recover the signing keys.
Weird link on Deere's web page (Score:3)
Something about "self repair" and "availability of software"?
https://www.deere.com/en/our-c... [deere.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like they give individuals and independent repair shops access to diagnostic tools but not to parts or pairing capability. So a repair shop can identify the issue, but they'd be no more capable of fixing it. It's just a way to refer people back to the dealer.
We are not demanding new rights (Score:3)
The right to repair has existed for thousands of years. The restrictions are new.
We want to return to what was standard for all of the history of technology and manufacturing
Why do they not understand "OWN", "BUY" and "SELL" (Score:3)
If you buy something the seller has given up all rights to it. You should be able to do whatever you want with it, including repair. That is what the ownership means.
Licenses are for Intellectual Property, not Physical Property.
If you do not want to let people do things to your products, rent them rather than sell them. If no one wants to rent your junk, then go bankrupt and let someone else actually sell people things.
Claiming to sell something when you are really renting it is fraud.