[Tom Shwarz] If you buy something,
whether it's a tractor or a cell phone or a computer,
you would think you have the right to fix it.
Unfortunately, the companies would like
to maintain a monopoly on repair.
[Gay Gordon-Byrne] It's the core problem that crosses all these industries
is that you don't own what you think you own,
and you don't have the rights you're supposed to have.
[Kevin Kenney] We take offense to that.
And we're trying to get our rights back.
The basic consumer right to fix something that you own
and not to be locked out electronically.
And so right now, we're just hovering around in a gray zone,
importing hacked software from different countries,
trying to fix our junk.
We're forced into the gray area,
we're forced into hacking,
'cause we're just not going to put up with this monopoly.
(soft music)
[Tom Shwarz] We'll make a u-turn right up here
and I'll take you by the field, we're cutting,
we're cutting peas over here.
You know, in agriculture, we run things till they're dead,
and then we run them a little bit more after that.
There's a tractor sitting in the shop here
that was built in 1943.
We don't dispose of things on the farm.
We keep them running forever.
And it's important to us as farmers
in order to keep our costs down,
when we buy something,
we need to run it a long time to make it pay out.
From this model on, you know,
everything's basically run by the computer in the tractor.
Companies feel that all the programming
and the technology that's in the tractor,
they continue to own after they sell me the tractor.
So you're saying I have to pay for this, but you own it.
I mean, there's some really fuzzy things that happen there.
At this point in time, if I want diagnostics done,
I have one option and that's to call my dealer.
If a farmer out here,
through his own ingenuity can fix something,
I think he should be able to do so.
And bluntly, I think that's the way it should be
whether we're talking about
tractors or cell phones or computers.
(suspenseful music)
[Kevin Kenney] So on that truck,
you can get all the software you need for that.
[Jeremy Davis] Yeah trucks, cars, automotive,
you can buy whatever you want.
[Kevin Kenney] Okay. But just can't get it for the tractors.
So if you had a brand new tractor sitting here,
you couldn't do anything with it, could you?
[Jeremy Davis] No. If the check engine light was on,
I couldn't even tell you why,
why the check engine light was on.
[Kevin Kenney] So an independent mechanic can buy
the software to work on a new car.
You can't do that in agriculture.
What farmers find themselves doing
we're stuck in a gray area
where we're using hacked software from Europe or wherever
Timbuktu.
In the old days, you needed basically
a wrench and a hammer and a pry bar.
Today, they have embedded firmware
all over these equipment systems.
So you'll need to have software just to get it started,
activated and calibrated.
So I guess hacking and fixing to me is the same thing.
All of these things have to be looked at
to protect not only the farm community
and the people out here,
but to protect food security.
It's a huge issue.
And that can only come with legislation.
[Gay Gordon-Byrne] It is legal to tinker with your stuff.
It's legal to tinker with the software in your stuff.
People think that it's not legal, but it is.
But when you get into more complex products,
you probably need to get some help from the manufacturer.
And that's where it starts going horribly wrong.
Manufacturers aren't being honest with their customers.
Customers are signing agreements that they cannot understand
and cannot negotiate,
which is the fundamental problem
that legislatures can solve.
They can say, okay, you can put
any of the stupid shit you want
in your end user license agreement,
but that cannot remove the rights of
the owner to repair their equipment.
And that's basically the way the legislation is framed.
It's about two sentences wrapped with a lot of definitions.
Ultimately you own something
and you should be able to decide what to do with it.
And that includes how long you want to use it,
how much help you need using it and being able to fix it
or customize it or do whatever you want with it
'cause it's yours.
It doesn't really matter what the product is.
If Nebraska does a bill for farm equipment,
people will be able to say, they did it for tractors,
why can't they do it for refrigerators?
This fight is all about ownership.
That's why I'm involved.
I get up in the morning wanting to fight this every day
and I'm not afraid of a big fight.
Why fight the little fight?
Life's too short, fight the big fight.
What are they going to do? Kill me twice.
(soft music)