The pièce de résistance in John Deere’s argument: permitting owners to root around in a tractor’s programming might lead to pirating music through a vehicle’s entertainment system. Because copyright-marauding farmers are very busy and need to multitask by simultaneously copying Taylor Swift’s 1989 and harvesting corn? (I’m guessing, because John Deere’s lawyers never explained why anyone would pirate music on a tractor, only that it could happen.)
And, somehow, the notion of actually owning the things you buy has become revolutionary.
Kyle Wiens: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership, In: WIRED 04.21.15