Farmers fight for the right to repair their own tractors

Farmers in Nebraska, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York are staging something of a mechanical revolt. They're attempting to get legislation passed in their states that would enable them, for the first time since the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to repair their own tractors or get an independent mechanic to help. At the root of the morass is the software that helps run modern tractors and their sensors, diagnostic tools, and other high-tech elements. If farmers so much as open the metaphorical hood to check out the computers they could be violating the federal act.  Mick Minchow, a Nebraska farmer for more than 40 years, is among the many who are fed up. As it currently stands, any problem with his John Deere 8235 R requires a trip to the dealer and costs him important time. What he'd like to be able to do, per the paper, is something as simple as looking up the system code to determine if it's a serious problem or something as mundane as replacing a filter.