Massachusetts Senate Passes Resolution To Do In-Depth Study On Right-To-Repair (vice.com) 108
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On July 25, the Massachusetts Senate approved a Resolution that would create a special commission that would research the feasibility of forcing device manufacturers to treat customers and independent repair shops the same as officially licensed repair outlets. According to the proposed study, that means providing customers and independent repair shops with "repair technical updates, diagnostic software, service access passwords, updates and corrections to firmware, and related documentation." Gay Gordon Byrne, executive director of The Repair Organization, helped push the bill in 2012 and has been working to extend the law to tech companies ever since. "This is just one step in a series of steps that will end Repair Monopolies for technology products. I'm thrilled," Byrne told me in an email about the pending study.
The Resolution to create the study group still needs to pass the Massachusetts House, but the session ends July 31 so right-to-repair watch dogs won't have to wait long to see if it goes forward. The proposed makeup of the study commission shows that the legislature is serious about the issue and also reveals how big tech's repair monopoly is about much more than just being able to open up your iPhone without voiding the warranty. The legislature wants the study commission to include 23 members, including various members of the legislature but also a wealth of experts in various tech fields. They want someone from the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, a medical device manufacturer, an expert on electronic waste recycling, someone who repairs complex medical equipment, an intellectual property lawyer, a cyber security expert, a local farmer, and various other experts and citizens affected or knowledgeable about the right-to-repair.
The Resolution to create the study group still needs to pass the Massachusetts House, but the session ends July 31 so right-to-repair watch dogs won't have to wait long to see if it goes forward. The proposed makeup of the study commission shows that the legislature is serious about the issue and also reveals how big tech's repair monopoly is about much more than just being able to open up your iPhone without voiding the warranty. The legislature wants the study commission to include 23 members, including various members of the legislature but also a wealth of experts in various tech fields. They want someone from the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, a medical device manufacturer, an expert on electronic waste recycling, someone who repairs complex medical equipment, an intellectual property lawyer, a cyber security expert, a local farmer, and various other experts and citizens affected or knowledgeable about the right-to-repair.
Right to repair? (Score:5, Funny)
Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is a right to repair... if your devices are glued shut?
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Next will be heat resistant glue and ultrasonic welding
Re:Right to repair? (Score:4, Insightful)
glued shut *and* no replacement parts available other than chinese knockoffs that are never quite right.
a 'right to repair' law needs to go 'bigger'. not only should you have the right to repair your own stuff, but manufacturers need to make stuff that *can* be repaired, can be taken apart. can be put back together... AND have actual factory original or equivalent parts available.
ya know: design and build stuff to last, not just to last-until-the-warranty-expires. REDUCE is the first step of reduce-reuse-recycle. companies have forgotten that first, and very significant bit in the chase for bigger profits. replacing your phone every year isn't helping. having a phone that lasts 5+ years, than another 3 as someone else's refurbished used phone, would.
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glued shut *and* no replacement parts available other than chinese knockoffs that are never quite right.
a 'right to repair' law needs to go 'bigger'. not only should you have the right to repair your own stuff, but manufacturers need to make stuff that *can* be repaired, can be taken apart. can be put back together...
Government should largely stay out of the free market, save where staying out clearly makes things worse.
There are four areas that come to mind:
1. Areas that will cost the average consumer significantly more money in the long term without government interference. For instance, if a house was built without any codes at all, and it requires 50k work the day after you move in, well that is bad. Building codes are a reasonable interference by government. Now you could argue how far they need to go. That is
Re:Right to repair? (Score:5, Insightful)
You list 4. but how is a military normally a 'free market' item? If you include it, what about other things like infrastructure and utilities? Surely they are better handled by some form of co-operative or government?
What about regulation of shared resources to avoid tragedy of the commons (so indirect involvement in markets via environmental protection for eg)?
And here I'm not just talking about things that cause direct health impact, but indirect problems like overgrazing common fields or destroying parkland.
If the latter, then why not legislation that seeks to limit the waste inherent in manufacture of unrepairable products.
The idealised free market doesn't work well for long term costs. We have cognitive biases that discount long term costs vs short term gains. This is an area where an individual, with multiple pressures for limited expenditure may choose a cheaper, non-repairable product because the cost to them is only going to be realised over a term that makes it hard to properly assess on a personal level, but which is distinct at a social or governmental level.
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You list 4. but how is a military normally a 'free market' item? If you include it, what about other things like infrastructure and utilities? Surely they are better handled by some form of co-operative or government?
Interestingly in the US when electric utilities first started they were not monopolies. The strung their own wires, resulting in multiple sets serving the same area. The utilities pushed for regulation since they couldn't make a lot of money when you had multiple providers competing for the same customers. In exchange for a monopoly they limited their service area and could not sell across the boundaries except to the other utilities to handle excess demand.
Phone companies competed early on as well, resulti
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You list 4. but how is a military normally a 'free market' item? If you include it, what about other things like infrastructure and utilities? Surely they are better handled by some form of co-operative or government?
In the United States, basic infrastructure was included as part of the role of the federal government. In a time before the Internet, telephones, and electricity, communication consisted entirely of written letters. That was pretty much the only basic infrastructure that existed in the late 18th century (water supply and sewers were starting to show up, but they were still highly localized systems), so the Constitution includes post offices and roads as part of the federal government.
When asked why the f
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A free market has been proven through history to not function without regulation. A free market cannot exist without it also being a fair market, and companies have rarely offered the "fair" part voluntarily. The goal of corporations is to maximize profits by any means necessary that they can get away with, and laws step in to make sure that they can't get get away anything.
When left to their own devices we have seen in the past the common sale of unsafe and dangerous products including products that have
What if there's another way to look at it? (Score:2)
Re: Right to repair? (Score:2)
Where can the consumer buy an easily repairable smartphone that runs an operating system with a large variety of applications?
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One thing to consider with "right to repair" movements, is that they usually don't address "non-repairable" items - things where manufacturing decisions make repair difficult or impossible, though that's certainly worth addressing, especially in the long term.
Usually the primary target is "dealer-only repair" - cars, farm equipment, appliances, etc., where they *are* designed to be repaired, but access to the necessary parts and tools is restricted to those who have preferential relationships with the manuf
Government interference is what CAUSED the problem (Score:2)
Well, that won't ever happen, because usually the biggest barrier to repairing things is copyright law with the bonus twist of DMCA. The government is already neck-deep in preventing a free market from happening.
It is silly to suggest the government should abstain from putting loaded guns in manufacturers' faces saying "make it maintainable" ..
..Unless you're going to stop putting a loaded gun in consu
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Non-repairable products can cause harm, thus a government has a vested interest in paying attention. Non-repairable means you have to buy new products, and increased economic burden. If a consumer has purchased a product, then that product belongs to the consumer and all rights by the manufacturer have ceased in this regard; preventing the consumer from repairing is an attempt by the manufacturer to continue owning the product. Being unable to replace batteries, the most commonly needed repairs, causes u
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John Deere initiated the violence (Score:2)
John Deere went crying to mama and enacted state violence first, by using DMCA.
Consumers are just asking to use retaliatory violence. The escalation to the use of force was initiated by John Deere.
Don't go around punching people! But if someone punches you, you should strike back, and harder.
You ban those (Score:4, Informative)
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the study's the first step to that. They'll run numbers showing the cost to the taxpayer of devices that crap out on the user after a year or two and that can't be repaired by design
Excellent.... the more studies on this subject, the better... We need the public and legislators to more clearly see a mounting pile of evidence; especially discussing the history of new manufacturer "security" measures and anti-analysis tricks (Consumable/limited-life components and storage media soldered on, replacement
Good point (Score:2)
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What did you buy?
Just the item, or should there exist an obligation by the manufacturer to provide information to assist others in repairing the device they sold? Like specifications, data sheets, codes etc.
This kind of circles back to some of the original reasons for encouraging patents - so that inventions didn't remain a mystery when the inventor died, but that their ideas could go on to be developed. In exchange, they are granted a limited period to monopolise that invention or idea and are protected by
Nonsense. (Score:1)
It is never illegal to repair anything you own. You may void the warranty by doing so, but that's not illegal.
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For any other car, I can legally buy OEM, remanufactured or third party parts.
There's lots of cases where that's not true, and there are parts that they won't sell you. Automakers discontinue parts before the suppliers are allowed to sell them directly on occasion, and before remans are generally available. Automakers have agreements with suppliers as to when they are allowed to sell the same parts to someone else. Sometimes there is little enough demand that everyone discontinues a part, and it's not particularly repairable, and then you have to wait for someone else to make a worka
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Wow. You are literally 20 years out of date [cornell.edu] .
Hey everyone, this guy hasn't even lived through Y2K yet!
20 years. Oh boy, are you going to be in for a wild ride as you catch up. Remember that scene in Back to the Future when the kid tells the doc who the president is in 1985? Well, wen I hit you with the 2018 news, you're going to call me a liar, and I'll just be smugly smiling, temporarily forgetting my troubles because I got to meet a time traveler.
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Because physical repairs fall under the purview of copyright.
You seem to have no idea how law works.
How the car industry does it? (Score:2)
I honestly don't know. If I establish my own repair shop for Teslas, can I freely buy all the required HW and SW from Tesla Inc?
Thanks!
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A: You can diagnose and repair any car but Tesla because of overpriced proprietary features.
B: A is a moron you can't diagnose and repair a Tesla because of overpriced proprietary features.
See the problem?
Better include cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Most modern cars store their configuration in encrypted CCF files - usually over the CANbus network in the engine management unit - and you have to buy a decryption key for hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars if you want to change anything.
e.g.: Want to replace the pathetic factory fitted halogen headlamps with HID or even laser-phosphorous headlamps? The new ones won't even turn on until you update the encrypted CCF to tell it what type of headlamp they are.
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"Most modern cars store their configuration in encrypted CCF files - usually over the CANbus network in the engine management unit - and you have to buy a decryption key for hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars if you want to change anything."
by encryption you mean hexadecimal? or do you mean the mapping as to which byte refers to which setting? Ive been able to pull the configuration hex files from most european cars since 2000 the trick is finding an accurate mapping of the variables when you dont have
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TLDR: you can already repair your own vehicle as parts are readily available as well as manuals. Giving access to the electronics to everyone would cause more problems than it would solve.
There is still room for improvement here. Changing settings in various computers requires secrets; to get into modules far enough to change interesting settings you typically need a dealer ID and a password. Or, someone has to dump the rom, disassemble it, etc. Nobody should have to go that far to make some legal changes to their vehicle.
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renting = landlord pay for repairs that will fix (Score:3)
renting = landlord pay for repairs that will fix it.
Hardware based monopolies need to go also (Score:5, Insightful)
Take for instance, hardware that is more than capable of running other things (take a nintendo switch for instance. Without the locked boot loader, it can run Linux just like any other tegra based system. Works great doing it too.) that is crippled by its retailer/OEM to only run a single ecosystem, designed to be locked down hard, where there is no viable alternative market space for software.
I am picking on Nintendo here, because of how they chose to combine hardware IDs with user IDs for their services. (Each console has a unique console certificate that is used to encrypt the eMMC module, preventing you from simply replacing it, even though it is modular-- for starters. This certificate is also used to ban the console if it is modified in any way nintendo does not like, even if those modifications are redacted/expunged.)
suppose for a moment that you purchase a second hand switch from say-- ebay, or a used item from Amazon. The console works perfectly fine, but has a banned certificate. (Or, it does not work properly, and has a bad eMMC module, which again, is modular.) You might have the right to repair the console, but you do not have access to the digital keys needed to replace or restore the eMMC's contents to factory defaults, and you do not have a means of compelling Nintendo to unban the console if they did so after doing the restoration.
These kinds of things are direct consequences of hardware based distribution control mechanisms, and are wholly incompatible with right to repair, and first sale doctrine type protections.
If the US government is going to start championing for consumer rights in the forms of right to repair type regulations, they are going to have to put a foot down on hardware based DRM mechanisms, which imply a fixed ecosystem for that hardware, and a sole point-of-authority on legitimate repair and return to service.
That means:
No locked boot loaders
No hardware unique certificates or identifiers
No hardware encrypted storage (software encrypted is fine)
Good luck getting companies like console makers to abide by those. They will tell you all about how those restrictions are absolutely required for their industry, and the like.
In short, the government has to either decide to shit or get off the pot on that. There is no compromise. Either those things are made illegal, and right to repair rules-- or right to repair dies, and locked hardware stays a thing.
Re:Hardware based monopolies need to go also (Score:5, Insightful)
I should probably clarify--
Hardware unique identifiers that are used as a supply chain or service identification lockout.
A simple identity tag is not what is intended. A tag that gets automatically interrogated by a fixed and central authority for the purposes of denial of service/blacklisting-- that is what I mean.
A VIN number is fine, as long as the VIN number is not part of a centrally enforced denial of service/tamper detection system.
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A VIN number is fine, as long as the VIN number is not part of a centrally enforced denial of service/tamper detection system.
But it is. It's just not remotely enforced. If the government notices that your VIN doesn't match then they can get quite upset. There is a procedure for re-VIN, if you are swapping parts around. For example, dropping a body from one truck (which is where the VIN is recorded) onto another truck's chassis (which is where the emissions equipment is located — the powertrain is considered a chassis component, not a body component, for relatively obvious reasons.*) If you don't follow the legal procedure,
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Hardware unique identifiers that are used as a supply chain or service identification lockout.
Why? They are needed for anti-theft and to discourage trafficking. If someone steals my cellphone; I am happy that I can get my cellphone carrier to add the IMEI to a blacklist, which means no end user will benefit from my device having been stolen.
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Take for instance, hardware that is more than capable of running other things (take a nintendo switch for instance. Without the locked boot loader, it can run Linux just like any other tegra based system. Works great doing it too.) that is crippled by its retailer/OEM to only run a single ecosystem, designed to be locked down hard, where there is no viable alternative market space for software.
The solution is simple; don't buy a Nintendo console if they won't do what you want. Buy one that does. I do not like DRM either and avoid whenever possible buying stuff that has it. As for single ecosystems, it's again a choice to be made - lock in or go elsewhere?
first sale doctrine type protections.
First sale does not mean that whatever you sell still has all the features available to the original buyer, unless the manufacturer specifically states so such as a transferable warranty, etc. Even the doctrine of first sale is not absolute, b
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I buy some products specifically because they are locked down, which means I can trust what is on them to a greater degree than something that can be reprogrammed. I push some family members towards the products that are restricted in functionality because I know they can't mess them up -- not by some accidental button pushing, not by downloading something from the network. And for
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The only way consoles can be sold for their current (loss leader) prices is to have consumers make up the difference buying games. The manufacturers need to be able to predict that X consoles + Y games per console = profit. If you remove Y, then X consoles = loss. That's why they don't want you using your console for anything but licensed games.
So how about we keep that system, which works well for millions of consumers, and add a system where you can purchase a legitimate hardware unlock for Z. It woul
Some manufacturers do have a point sometimes (Score:1)
There ARE cases where manufacturers have valid reasons to want to withhold information.
Example:
If I loose the keys to my car, in most cases I can go to the dealer (which depending on the car may involve having the car towed there), prove that I am who I say I am and that I own the car, pay a nice chunk of money and get a new set of keys made and programmed and paired to the car.
If the car manufacturers are forced to release all the info to people other than dealers, it becomes possible for criminals to buy
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If that's possible, then they've designed a bad keyless entry system. The security should be contingent on a secret held in the key dongle, not the process to pair it.
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The pairing process is generally what puts the secret into the key dongle (or alternately, the corresponding secret into the car)
If the secret is hard-wired into the dongle, then there would be no way to make a duplicate key at all.
If the process for pairing the two is public, what stops me from walking up to your car with a new key, pairing the two, and driving it away?
You could design a process that requires a valid key to clone, but that tends to make it extremely expensive to create a new key when the l
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I Iost one of my car key dongles and found I had a choice. I could go to the dealer, pay a lot of money for a replacement, and pay a lot more for the programming; or, I could go to an auto locksmith, pay less for the replacement, and have the programming thrown in at no extra charge.
Going to a dealer is almost always a poor choice if an alternative is available.
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So, spend a minute with your new car and make a third key, what's the problem?
Once upon a time, new computers came with reinstall discs to get it back to factory settings when the hard drive eventually failed or was upgraded. Nowadays it tends to be just a hidden partition on the disk instead - which is lost along with the rest of the drive in the case of a hardware failure (or sufficiently severe software one) They (usually) offer a convenient route to make your own physical discs, though I've seen syste
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This example shows the main reason manufacturers don't want to release repair information. Do you really think it costs $90 to make the new key (even $30 would be highly stretching the manufacturing costs)? Is it really so hard to program a new key that it should cost $100 to do it? If the manufacturer didn't have a monopoly on these items I'm sure the cost would be significantly less.
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it becomes possible for criminals to buy all the tools, parts and manuals to do the exact thing as above minus the ID checks and then use that to access and steal cars.
No..... They can be secure about those things without making it hard for drivers to program their own keys, after having it cut by a professional.
The ability for a service center or locksmith to make keys to your car stems from the fact that the manufacturers have a global database containing each vehicle they manufactured AND the keyco
Patents (Score:2)
I believe that at the very least in exchange for a patent the patent holder should be required to provide complete documentation and detailed schematics. That alone would go a very long way to help people repair their own devices and I believe it also fits perfectly with the spirit of patent law.
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I believe that at the very least in exchange for a patent the patent holder should be required to provide complete documentation and detailed schematics.
In theory, they do. In order to be granted a patent, the inventor is required to include in the patent description everything that a person in the same industry ("person of ordinary skill in the art") would need to know to build the invention.
Whether or not that requirement is being properly enforced by the USPTO, well, that's a separate question.
Let's not confuse it with actually doing something (Score:2)
This is a resolution to initiate a study: the government equivalent of your parents saying "sure, we'll think about it".
That's all.
The anti-repair lobbying money won't start substantially until the study is completed.
And let's be totally candid here. The people cheering this study only look forward to it because they expect to be validated. Largely, they don't want simply to reveal facts...unless those facts agree with them.
What if the study actually determines that the best net economic result is to bloc
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This is a resolution to initiate a study: the government equivalent of your parents saying "sure, we'll think about it".
That's all. The anti-repair lobbying money won't start substantially until the study is completed.
It's doubtful that the lobbying would matter. When Right to Repair for cars went to a referendum, it got 86% support. I don't think they could spend enough advertising dollars to get 40% of the voters to change their minds.
And let's be totally candid here. The people cheering this study only look forward to it because they expect to be validated. Largely, they don't want simply to reveal facts...unless those facts agree with them.
What if the study actually determines that the best net economic result is to block private repair? Today's ardent supporters will just say it was rigged anyway.
That would be the bigger concern. Not the rigged part, that's just your paranoia and/or projecting, but ignoring the results of the study. The results won't just be about out-of-pocket costs, though, but will include things like environmental impact. This is Massachusetts, where there's a
Should be called FSF Act (Score:4, Informative)
The idea that the client or purchaser of a product should have access to repair or to modify a product is the foundation of the Gnu Public License, the software licensing model published by the Free Software Foundation, whose business offices are in Massachusetts. It's also a state where the legislature mandated that government documents be in open formats That was around 2005, and led to profound political hardball, such as the creation of the mislabeled "Open Office XML" format, created by Microsoft by get past the new laws and which, functionally, Microsoft ignores to continue with proprietary and unstable document formats in its flagship "Office" products..
It will be fascinating to see this play out in a state with that kind of legislative history.
Especially if the OEM won't repair it. (Score:2)
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Apple won't even fix an iMac pro for money if you break it by opening it, let alone sell you the parts to do so...
Doesn't matter if manufacturer throws them away (Score:2)
What about the right to refuse repair? (Score:2)
I know there would be an outcry if Ford refused repair of a car just out of warranty because you had the oil changed somewhere besides a Ford dealer, and yet this is Apple policy.
This just happened to me. I've retired my Apple Watch and iPhone in Favor of a Galaxy Note and Gear Fr