repair monopoly – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "repair monopoly"

Colorado Passes Its Third ‘Right To Repair’ Bill

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

Despite the best efforts of automakers and companies like Apple, states continue to push forward with popular “right to repair” reforms that make it easier and more affordable for consumers to repair tech they own.

While they vary in potency, New York, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota have all now passed some flavor of right to repair reforms. Colorado just got done passing its third such bill. The first two ensured that consumers had access to the parts, tools, and documentation they needed to repair agricultural equipment and powered wheelchairs.

This latest bill broadens the state protections considerably, ensuring that consumers have the tools, parts, and manuals to be able to repair everything from blenders and refrigerators to laptops and cell phones to appliances and IT equipment. Unsurprisingly, right to repair activists are pretty happy about it:

“Everything breaks at some point and when it does, we should have the freedom to fix it,” said Danny Katz, CoPIRG executive director. “Right to Repair gives us options when our products fail. This bill empowers consumers, letting us choose when, where, and how we fix our products. And having options saves us time and money while reducing the amount of waste that we produce.”

Again, the quality of state right to repair legislation can vary greatly. Many state bills intentionally carve out many of the worst offenders when it comes to efforts to monopolize repair (game consoles, cell phones, medical equipment, agricultural gear, cars). New York state’s bill was watered down post-passage by Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul almost to the point of uselessness.

But while numerous companies (like Apple) keep trying to claim that these reforms pose significant new privacy or security threats to consumers, they’re not having much luck. While U.S. consumer protection is generally on the ropes, right to repair reform efforts aren’t slowing down, and continue to see widespread, bipartisan support from annoyed American consumers.

Filed Under: colorado, consumer protection, hardware, reform, repair, repair monopoly, right to repair, state law

Activists Call On FTC To Craft Tougher ‘Right To Repair’ Rules, Repairability Scoring System

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

Tue, Dec 5th 2023 12:02pm - Karl Bode

On one hand, the Lina Khan FTC has been the toughest agency in history when it comes to “right to repair” reform — or efforts to let you affordably repair your own tech. On the other hand, given past regulatory actions have been minimal, that’s not historically saying much.

Still, the FTC under Khan’s leadership has taken consistent aim at companies that unfairly claim that using third party parts and repair services violate warranties. The Khan FTC also crafted a useful report debunking many of the dumber industry excuses for efforts to monopolize repair (such as claims that affordable, easier repair poses a serious security and privacy risk to consumers).

Still, activists say there’s a lot more the FTC could be doing if the agency crafted slightly tougher rules. So organizations like iFixit are calling on the FTC to beef up their rules to include the industry’s use of things like proprietary screws and parts pairing software blocks (both things Apple is a big fan of).

They’re also calling on the FTC to implement a repairability score system to better educate customers, similar to systems already deployed in France:

“We also are suggesting that they develop a repairability scoring system, which in the case of appliances covered by the FTC-administered Energy Guide program, could go on that yellow label that appliances must have. After all, the energy impact of an appliance has at least as much to do with how long it lasts (and how easily it can be repaired) as with its energy consumption during use.”

The FTC has consistently had its funding, staffing, and authority stripped away by industry lobbying under the well-documented pretense that zero government oversight of industry results in Utopian outcomes. The agency also consistently has a tiny sliver of the staff of overseas regulators when it comes to major issues like privacy, much less smaller reform efforts like right to repair.

Whether the FTC heeds the calls of activists and doubles down on right to repair enforcement remains to be seen. But as ongoing legislative victories in states like Maine indicate, the widespread, bipartisan support for such reform shows no sign of slowing down.

Filed Under: consumer protection, environmental waste, ftc, lina khan, repair monopoly, right to repair, warranties

‘Right To Repair’ Reform Passes CA State Senate, 38-0

from the fix-your-own-stuff dept

Thu, Jun 1st 2023 03:31pm - Karl Bode

Reform efforts aimed at making it easier and more affordable to repair technology you bought and paid for continue to see progress. California’s SB 244 this week passed in the California State Senate with a vote of 38-0, a notable retort to the lobbyists that had been trying to kill the bill:

The bill still needs to pass the State Assembly, but activists tell me they feel good about their chances given this unanimous vote.

SB 244 (Right to Repair Act) requires that every manufacturer of consumer technology products make repair documentation, parts, and tools available to consumer and independent repair shops on “fair and reasonable terms.” The goal: lower consumer costs and annoyance, and reduce environmental waste.

Nathan Proctor, Director of PIRG’s right to repair campaign, says lobbyists had been working hard to kill the bill, to no avail:

“Manufacturers thought they could distract us with half measures, with MOU “pinky swear” agreements … all while their political machine tried to paint us Right to Repair advocates as ne’er do wells, sketchy weirdos. It didn’t work.”

There were some concessions made to get the bill to this point. SB244 doesn’t include technology like game consoles, where repair monopolization by Sony and Microsoft has been common. It also only applies to consumer products, which excludes a whole bunch of sectors (medical, agricultural) where the problem is every bit as bad. And the bill only applies to products sold after July 2021.

Still, progress is progress.

Companies from Apple to John Deere have worked fairly tirelessly to try and find ways to frame right to repair as dangerous to consumer safety and privacy, with the auto industry even going so far as to falsely claim that such reform would aid sexual predators. In some states, like New York and Minnesota, lobbyists had notable luck watering down protections either before or after bill passage.

Still, the progress on right to repair reform is remarkable, and one of the few bright spots in the otherwise grim state of competent U.S. consumer protection reform.

Filed Under: california, consumer protection, freedom to rinker, independent repair shops, repair monopoly, right to repair, SB244

DOJ Supports ‘Right To Repair’ Class Action Against John Deere

from the fix-this! dept

Thu, Feb 23rd 2023 03:42pm - Karl Bode

U.S. consumer protection in general has had an ugly few decades. One bright spot however has been the shift in the “right to repair” movement from niche nerdy fare to the mainstream.

Not only have corporate efforts to monopolize repair resulted in a flood of proposed state and federal laws, the Biden Administration’s executive order on monopoly power and competition urged the FTC to tighten up its rules on repair monopolization efforts, whether it’s ham-fisted DRM, or making repair manuals, parts, and diagnostics hard to come by.

At the receiving end of much of the movement’s ire has been John Deere, whose draconian repair restrictions on agricultural equipment often result in customers having to pay an arm and a leg, or drive hundreds of additional, costly miles to get their tractors repaired.

Last week, the DOJ announced it had filed a “Statement of Interest” (pdf) in a class action lawsuit currently waddling through the Northern District of Illinois, alleging John Deere of illegally monopolizing the repair of its tractors. In it, the DOJ makes clear that “right to repair” is lodged squarely in the heart of the government’s painfully inconsistent interest in antitrust reform:

“Consistent with Supreme Court precedent, the policy of the United States is ‘to enforce the antitrust laws to combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuses of market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and monopsony—especially as these issues arise in . . . agricultural markets, . . . repair markets,’ and elsewhere too.”

Regardless, right to repair activists like U.S. PIRG say they appreciate the help:

We thank the DOJ for standing up for farmers and pointing out something that should be common-sense: We should be able to fix our stuff. Farmers rely on this equipment to grow our food, and make a living doing so. Selling farmers equipment and then refusing to allow them to access the materials necessary to keep it running is simply unacceptable. The facts continue to show that is the case, and so Right to Repair continues to move forward. This filing sends Deere a strong signal.

Granted not all is well in the right to repair movement. The federal effort to pass a new right to repair law appears stuck in neutral, and in states where a law has been passed — such as in New York State — lobbyists have shown how easy it was to get NY Governor Kathy Hochul to water down the legislation after it passed, rendering it little more than a performative victory.

Filed Under: consumer rights, doj, repair monopoly, right to repair
Companies: john deere

Activists Blast NY Governor Hochul For Screwing up State’s Right To Repair Efforts

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Fri, Jan 20th 2023 12:08pm - Karl Bode

The good news: New York State recently passed landmark right to repair legislation that should improve consumer access to independent repair options. The bad news: despite passing the state assembly 147–2 and the senate 59–4, lobbyists managed to convince NY Governor Kathy Hochul to dramatically water down the legislation before it was passed, rendering it largely useless.

Needless to say, right to repair activists aren’t amused.

Paul Roberts is the founder of SecuRepairs, a coalition of IT and cybersecurity professionals who advocate for consumers’ right to repair. In an op-ed over in the Times Union, he lambasts Hochul for falling victim to industry’s claims that improved repair options and more transparent access to tools and documentation poses a threat to U.S. consumers:

As they have done on the road to burying more than 100 proposed pieces of repair legislation in 40 states since 2014, anti-repair groups argued – without evidence – that such information, if made available to owners and independent repair providers, would lead to cyberattacks and the theft of consumer data.

Had the governor and her staff had no other information to guide them in making their decision, we might forgive them for erring on the side of caution. But the governor and her staff knew that the manufacturers’ arguments were bogus. I should know: My group told them.

The original Digital Fair Repair Act required that manufacturers that already provide security codes and passwords to their authorized repair providers to also provide them at a reasonable price to the owners of covered devices and to independent repair providers.

Industry has long claimed that manufacturer-authorized repair options are more reliable and secure than independent repairs or repairs carried out by technology owners. Hochul bowed to these concerns, despite a recent FTC report making it clear these claims are completely false. Worse, non-transparent repair options make it more likely security threats won’t be noticed before they’re a problem.

Hochul listened to repair monopolists instead of experts, activists, and her constituents, and completely pulled the requirement that manufacturers provide device owners and independent repair providers with “documentation, tools, and parts” needed to access and reset digital locks that impede the diagnosis, maintenance or repair of covered electronic devices.

This is, as they say, why we can’t have nice things.

Filed Under: independent repair, kathy hochul, lobbying, new york, repair monopoly, right to repair, third party repair

Dismantling The Repair Monopoly Created By The DMCA's Anti-Circumvention Rules

from the tractor-liberation-front dept

One of the biggest victories of the copyright maximalists was the successful adoption of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, implemented by the DMCA in the US, and the Copyright Directive in the EU. Its key innovation was to criminalize the circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms. That strengthens copyright enormously by introducing yet another level of legal lockdown, and thus yet another powerful weapon for copyright holders to wield against their customers. But as Techdirt has reported, the anti-circumvention laws are now being used to prevent people from exploring or modifying physical objects that they own.

The DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules not only strengthen an old monopoly — copyright — they create a new one. Because it is forbidden to circumvent protection measures, only the original manufacturer or approved agents can legally repair a device that employs such technologies. Motherboard has an interesting profile of efforts by the wider repair industry to dismantle that new monopoly before it spreads further and becomes accepted as the norm:

> Repair groups from across the industry announced that they have formed The Repair Coalition, a lobbying and advocacy group that will focus on reforming the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to preserve the ?right to repair? anything from cell phones and computers to tractors, watches, refrigerators, and cars. It will also focus on passing state-level legislation that will require manufacturers to sell repair parts to independent repair shops and to consumers and will prevent them from artificially locking down their products to would-be repairers.

The advocacy group is not exactly new, more of a re-branding and re-launching of “The Digital Right to Repair Coalition”, which was formed in 2013. Its aims are ambitious:

> The Repair Coalition will primarily work at a federal level to repeal Section 1201 of the DMCA, which states that it’s illegal to “circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the DMCA].” Thus far, activists have tried to gain “exemptions” to this section — it’s why you’re allowed to repair a John Deere tractor or a smartphone that has software in it. But the exemption process is grueling and has to be done every three years.

Given the power of the industries that support Section 1201, it’s hard to see it being repealed any time soon. However, the other part of the Repair Association’s strategy looks more hopeful:

> On a state level, the group will push for laws such as one being proposed in New York that would require manufacturers to provide repair manuals and sell parts to anyone — not just licensed repair people — for their products. The thought is that, if enough states pass similar legislation, it will become burdensome for manufacturers to continue along with the status quo. At some point, it will become easier to simply allow people to fix the things they own.

As software is routinely added to yet more categories of everyday physical objects, so the issue of the repair monopoly created as a by-product of the DMCA will become more pressing. It’s good that there is now an advocacy group focussed on solving this problem. Let’s hope it succeeds.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright, dmca, dmca 1201, repair monopoly, right to repair
Companies: eff, ifixit