California Fails to Pass Right to Repair Bill (calpirg.org) 130
It was "the furthest any Right to Repair bill for consumer electronics has come to becoming law" in America, reports the nonprofit California Public Interest Research Group.
And yet... The California Senate Appropriations committee failed to pass Sen. Susan Eggman's Right to Repair bill, SB 983, on May 19, which would have significantly expanded Californians' access to the parts, tools, and service information needed to fix consumer electronics and appliances.... The policy had broad, bipartisan support, with 75% of Californians and majorities of both parties supporting Right to Repair. The bill, which passed through the judiciary committee with only a single opposing vote, met the same fate as a similarly popular medical Right to Repair bill that Sen. Eggman introduced in 2021. Sander Kushen, CALPIRG Advocate issued the following statement in response... "SB 983 could have saved California households as much as $4.3 billion a year in reduced spending on electronics and helped Californians reduce toxic electronic waste. Instead, industry groups' heavy lobbying effort helped to kill the bill."
"Other states are pursuing similar legislation and there's also a pending federal bill," reports the San Francisco Chronicle" The right-to-repair movement is gaining steam with President Biden as a vocal advocate. In July 2021, he asked the Federal Trade Commission to draft right-to-repair rules. The FTC said it will target repairs restrictions as antitrust violations.
In recent months, major tech players have opened up limited ways to help consumers fix stuff. Apple has said it will sell manuals, parts and tools but only to owners of the iPhone 12 and 13 models. Microsoft said it's looking into repair options for its computer accessories. Google will sell replacement parts for Pixel smartphones via iFixit, a self-described "wikipedia of repair."
But they also explore why the California bill failed: The legislative bill, which would have been the first of its kind in the United States, would have required makers of electronic gear such as cell phones, game consoles, washers and dryers, computers — almost anything with a chip inside — to ease the route to fixing broken stuff by providing parts, tools and manuals at reasonable prices. Supporters pitched it as a no-brainer to save consumers money and reduce e-waste.
But the electronics industry says that it could have created a free-for-all, allowing pirates to flourish, unauthorized people to access sensitive information and trade secrets to be violated... "We're going up against the rights of some of the biggest companies in the world," said Kevin O'Reilly, a Right to Repair campaign director with U.S. Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG. He's also associated with CALPIRG. "Apple and Google and other tech giants have either lobbied against the bill or supported organizations that lobbied against the bill."
And yet... The California Senate Appropriations committee failed to pass Sen. Susan Eggman's Right to Repair bill, SB 983, on May 19, which would have significantly expanded Californians' access to the parts, tools, and service information needed to fix consumer electronics and appliances.... The policy had broad, bipartisan support, with 75% of Californians and majorities of both parties supporting Right to Repair. The bill, which passed through the judiciary committee with only a single opposing vote, met the same fate as a similarly popular medical Right to Repair bill that Sen. Eggman introduced in 2021. Sander Kushen, CALPIRG Advocate issued the following statement in response... "SB 983 could have saved California households as much as $4.3 billion a year in reduced spending on electronics and helped Californians reduce toxic electronic waste. Instead, industry groups' heavy lobbying effort helped to kill the bill."
"Other states are pursuing similar legislation and there's also a pending federal bill," reports the San Francisco Chronicle" The right-to-repair movement is gaining steam with President Biden as a vocal advocate. In July 2021, he asked the Federal Trade Commission to draft right-to-repair rules. The FTC said it will target repairs restrictions as antitrust violations.
In recent months, major tech players have opened up limited ways to help consumers fix stuff. Apple has said it will sell manuals, parts and tools but only to owners of the iPhone 12 and 13 models. Microsoft said it's looking into repair options for its computer accessories. Google will sell replacement parts for Pixel smartphones via iFixit, a self-described "wikipedia of repair."
But they also explore why the California bill failed: The legislative bill, which would have been the first of its kind in the United States, would have required makers of electronic gear such as cell phones, game consoles, washers and dryers, computers — almost anything with a chip inside — to ease the route to fixing broken stuff by providing parts, tools and manuals at reasonable prices. Supporters pitched it as a no-brainer to save consumers money and reduce e-waste.
But the electronics industry says that it could have created a free-for-all, allowing pirates to flourish, unauthorized people to access sensitive information and trade secrets to be violated... "We're going up against the rights of some of the biggest companies in the world," said Kevin O'Reilly, a Right to Repair campaign director with U.S. Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG. He's also associated with CALPIRG. "Apple and Google and other tech giants have either lobbied against the bill or supported organizations that lobbied against the bill."
Prepare to be boarded, matey! (Score:5, Funny)
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Remind me again why lobbying is even a thing...
Matey.
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> Politicians will f. u faster than a horny hillbilly teenager as soon as money is involved.
It's telling. Even Fox news doesn't seem to want to touch it and all the right wing pundits should be all over this: rich mega corporations want to take away your freedom. https://www.foxnews.com/search... [foxnews.com]
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75% of Californians and majorities of both parties supporting Right to Repair.
As a non-US person I've got to ask, how broken does a political system have to be for this not to be a shoe-in? What makes the US so special that this legislation can't pass when the majority of everyone including politicians support it?
Re:Prepare to be boarded, matey! (Score:4, Informative)
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...or speaking fees, or an executive board position for your son, or book sales, or art sales, or contributions to your "non-profit" org, etc. There are LOTS of ways to bribe a politician these days.
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As a non-US person I've got to ask, how broken does a political system have to be for this not to be a shoe-in?
Does your country have legislation like this?
There's many reasons it's not a shoe-in. It's basically a law requiring all companies to publish detailed technical schematics of everything they make and the parts to build it.
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Something that used to standard practice. Companies actually competed on not needing repairs or the ease of repairs such as replacing a tube.
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Something that used to standard practice. Companies actually competed on not needing repairs or the ease of repairs such as replacing a tube.
And how well would that work in the age of liability lawsuits?
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How does it work now in the age of liability lawsuits? Seems in America you can sue for most anything including being sold a non-repairable device.
Not being American, I usually just don't think about lawsuits and growing up, there were tube testers and tubes for sale in the corner drug store, lots of repair shops including repair people who did home visits, commercials about bored repair men working at Maytag and when older, even computers came with chip layouts, source code for what was in the ROM etc, eve
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Not broken, just different. (Score:2)
America is an oligarchy [washingtontimes.com].
Ostensibly it is a constitutional republic, of course, which does not even pretend to be a pure democracy ("pure" democracies are utterly dysfunctional and as such don't actually exist). Elected representatives, however, are still civilians "plugged in" to the economy like everyone else, and so they are still just as dependent on wealth as everyone else, and so it naturally follows that they would be under the thumb of the wealthy. The relationship is made a bit indirect to skirt l
Re: Not broken, just different. (Score:2)
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It's in the Constitution: the right of the People to petition the government for redress of grievances.
The People includes lobbyists, your PTA, your union (if you are in one), yourself. Basically: "Hey, there ought to be a law about that! Here's what I think it should be...."
You can lobby too.
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It's the dreaded Repair Pirates! Arrrr!
Imagine if pirates or any other sailors were denied the right to repair their vessels. Sails with DRM that cannot be stitched back together or won't work on any other ship. You are forbidden to have a sailmaker, carpenter or tools on board. All repairs must be completed by the OEM boat builder at their boat yard. Modifications to the rigging or vessel are forbidden and in that case, the sails will not unfurl and the vessel will not move.
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Nice FP leading to an interesting discussion. Congratulations. Along with five bucks you can get a cup of coffee.
Not much to add to the discussion, however. I think technology is going where it's going and it's fundamentally hard to justify repairing anything that has already become obsolete. If the device lasted two or three years, then the new model should be some combination of half as expensive or twice as powerful... (Wiggle room around the current values for Moore's Law.)
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... I think technology is going where it's going and it's fundamentally hard to justify repairing anything that has already become obsolete. If the device lasted two or three years, then the new model should be some combination of half as expensive or twice as powerful...
A bit off topic, but I have to say it: the mindset that even accepts - never mind expects - that resource-intensive products effectively become junk in two or three years, is largely why we have both AGW and extreme wealth concentration. Not to mention that it's kind of a spiritual sickness. Also not to mention that when we support it we're putting the yoke around our necks and handing whips to those who would be our masters.
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I can't tell whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, or maybe attacking the advertisers. Good luck on that. The cockroaches are still around, too.
But on the topic of inequality, I will recommend The Haves and the Have-Nots by Branko Milanovic. Not really surprising in terms of showing how messed up the world is, but lots of interesting data about why. Didn't lead to any solution-related thoughts yet. Most depressing part was probably the 80% determination of lifetime income and wealth based on two
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I can't tell whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me...
I wasn't sure either - my memory of your posting history was that we would agree on this, but your wording struck me as ambiguous.
But on the topic of inequality, I will recommend The Haves and the Have-Nots by Branko Milanovic. Not really surprising in terms of showing how messed up the world is, but lots of interesting data about why. Didn't lead to any solution-related thoughts yet. Most depressing part was probably the 80% determination of lifetime income and wealth based on two factors out of your control: Which country were you born in and what income bracket are your parents in. Various other factors account for the last 20%, but many of those factors are still out of your control.
Thanks for the recommendation - it's now on my reading list. And yes, inequality is very much more complex than most people realize; accordingly, most of the commonly-proposed solutions are simplistic at best, and often counter-productive. I recommend that you check out the field of econophysics - Victor Yakovenko is a pretty good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I flagged one of Victor Yakovenko's shorter videos for later viewing, but the second link is not secure, so I didn't force-follow it. (Not secure according to whose definition? Should I trust the "security experts" of my browser that much? But I definitely don't trust the black hat hackers...) Pareto did get a lot of coverage in that book I mentioned, but I think Ricardo is my favorite dead economist. (Time for the joke about all the good economists being dead and we need more good economists?)
The search fo
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AAKKOZZLL was created by Burke Browne. You won't find much about him online, but this (secure link) PDF file has a brief biography at the end: https://www.eipiphiny.org/eipi... [eipiphiny.org] . The rest of the document, (and the site it comes from), might seem "fringe-y"; and the esthetics are pretty terrible. You'd have to have known Burke and been exposed to his ideas to really get it. He was a great guy and very intellectually stimulating - I miss him a lot.
Here's a list of publications written or co-authored by Yakove
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That webpage didn't upset my browser, so I looked at it for a while, but it's hard for me to absorb any complicated ideas from the Web. Sometimes happens, but mostly things tend to be too unedited to make sense around here... Doesn't help that he's also trying to be funny with serious topics there. Several aspects of this discussion and that webpage do remind me of the Less Wrong website, which I couldn't tolerate for very long. (But maybe it was the overwhelming pretentiousness there?) Still haven't found
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Nice FP leading to an interesting discussion. Congratulations. Along with five bucks you can get a cup of coffee.
Not much to add to the discussion, however. I think technology is going where it's going and it's fundamentally hard to justify repairing anything that has already become obsolete.
Spoken like someone for whom a few hundred dollars was never a problem. Now put yourself in the place of an average college student, for whom the difference between a $25 battery and a $700 phone could be the difference between eating dinner for the rest of the school year and not.
The fact of the matter is that a lot of people still buy computers that you would probably call "obsolete". Not everybody buys the latest and greatest hardware, because not everybody *needs* the latest and greatest hardware. If
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No, I was quite poor for many years. So I NAK the rest of your comment unread. Your asinine ad hominem attack only discredits you. If I can remember your identity, I will simply ignore it in the future.
So there's a *lot* of corporate cash (Score:2)
California sets the standard for the country, so as long as they can screw us over in California they can get us everywhere else.
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Off topic a bit, I agree with you except for SCOTUS being partisan. SCOTUS swings from originalist to non-originalist and back again. If the foundation for a decision, whether originalist or non-originalist, is so flawed that any reasonable person from the same view knows it will be overturned once the other view is in majority, what else can anyone expect?
Congress could do its job and pass a bill, that would take away the potential for a reversal. But, then our "leaders" would have fewer things to outra
I don't think originalist flies anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's safe to say the court is partisan at this point.. if nothing else three of the justices were chosen because they could be counted on to rule the way the Republican Party wanted them to. For two of those, the ones that aren't Barrett, you could potentially make the argument that their Republican rulings are coincidental and they believe that way but you have a damn hard time doing that for her or for Clarence Thomas.
But I get it, thinking about such an important institution essentially converted into the arm of one of the political parties is not a pleasant thought. But not thinking about it isn't going to make it go away.
On a side note whatever else you think about abortion overturning Roe v Wade and the justification for it basically destroys all privacy protections. It opens the door to the government mandating back doors and all cryptography among other things. People don't realize that Roe v Wade wasn't about abortion it was about privacy. And that overturning it undoes all the privacy protections we've gained in the last 70 years. Longer in fact because the justification for overturning it basically wrecks every protection we had. Buckle up it's going to be a bumpy ride
Some context (Score:2, Insightful)
Not after the Roe v Wade rulling that's coming up. It's literally using a legal framework from the 16 and 1700s that predates the constitution. The attempts to tie that legal framework into anything the founding fathers believed or wrote are flimsy at best.
As with anything, there's significant context to your statement.
The statement is technically correct and makes a good clickbait title while being exceptionally misleading. Anyone who sees just that headline and doesn't bother looking into it will get the wrong impression, which is one way the MSM pushes their viewpoint: most people will read the title and assume it's correct, and get outraged.
To be considered a right protected by the constitution requires 2 tests: either it's a) specifically mentioned in th
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To be considered a right protected by the constitution requires 2 tests: either it's a) specifically mentioned in the constitution, or b) was commonly held to be a right beforehand.
There's no need to read past this, because it's nonsense. The 9th Amendment specifically protects rights that are not specifically enumerated. It's been established that we have constitutionally protected rights that could not have even been envisioned by the founding fathers, let alone commonly believed to be held.
exceptio probat regulam (Score:3)
Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but the ninth is one sentence long and what it says is a bit different from what you've represented.
It says that because the Constitution protects some rights should not be take to "deny or disparage"s other rights.
It's an explicit acknowledgement that there are rights that are NOT protected by Constitution, stating that the Constitution doesn't TAKE AWAY the rights it doesn't protect.
That does NOT mean that whatever random idea someone has is Constitutionally-protected right. It
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luckily, I don't think that's the goal - this was a long goal and there are multiple interpretations because the argument is that the unborn have rights too
So can a mother sue the unborn for assault, rape and infliction of grievous body harm?
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Instead of just Roe v. Wade, perhaps also consider that Amendment 10 now has precedent over Amendment 6. That is, if you're falsely convicted, you're no longer allowed to present new evidence.
You know, evidence that say, a prosecutor might have hidden through prosecutorial misconduct or other thing. There are people on death row who might be innocent, because their defence attorney failed to do his job, and the courts have ruled that they cannot introduce any new evidence that might show they could not poss
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What the law actually does - disable ecurity locks (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to actually look at the TEXT of a bill to see what it would actually DO, rather than making decisions based on the title. The title sometimes implies precisely the opposite of what the law bill actually does. So I read the bill.
The Patriot Act is about supporting American values like freedom, right?
The Farm Bill is food stamps.
The authors the of AFFORDABLE Care Act acknowledged it would make health care more expensive.
So what would this bill have actually DONE?
The change under this bill was that it would require manufacturers to provide tools and information necessary to disable any security lock a device has.
It also copy-paste repeats existing California law that already says they have to provide parts and repair information at a reasonable price. That's not a change; it's 100% pure pandering because it's copy-pasting existing California law.
Text of the law:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca... [ca.gov]
So the change would be manufacturers would have to provide tools and information to allow security features to be disabled. The text of the law says "electronic locks OR OTHER SECURITY FEATURES". Well, and electronic law is a type of security feature, so that phrase just means security features, period.
Personally, I don't like how Apple has claimed "security" as the reason to make certain parts not replaceable. I'd be cool with making what Apple does illegal. As a career security professional, someone tasked with protecting consumers, I don't know that I would support the requirement to distribute tools to disable all security features. That seems overbroad to me, ham-fisted. It doesn't even say "to disable security features that prevent repairs". It just says disable all security features. I think that needs to be written a little more carefully.
Safety and security is just a bad excuse (Score:2)
Yeah. Let's disable all locks in the equipment I own.
Nobody should be blocked by DRM to service the gadget they own.
Safety and security is just a bad excuse, without any legitimacy. None. Whatsoever.
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> let's disable all locks in the equipment I own.
You may not know it, but you really don't want to disable all the security features when there are people like me and some of my friends around. :)
> Nobody should be blocked by DRM to service the gadget they own.
I agree we you there, 100% . That's a topic mostly unrelated to security. "Don't have DRM" and "don't have any security" are two very different things.
Then there is a third, different topic. I don't think people should buy face tattoos or DRM-
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Ps that last paragraph shouldn't be interpreted to mean I would oppose a well-written right to repair law. I would likely support one that actually did what it's title indicated, without major side effects. This California bill was not well-written. Not even close.
My last paragraph of the preceding post is just to point out the difference between "I think you shouldn't" vs "I want to make it illegal". I think MSNBC shouldn't pump out misleading articles every day. I think you shouldn't read their garbage. I
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This California bill was not well-written. Not even close.
Oh? What was wrong with it? Be specific, directly citing the text of the bill.
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I quoted and linked to the full text of the bill at the top of the thread. The part that isn't copy-paste from existing California law requires that they provide the ability to disable and "electronic security lock or other security-related function".
Note it says nothing about repair.
Note also that a "security lock" IS a "security-related function".
So that can be condensed to requiring that they provide info and tools to disable "any security-related function". That's what changes with the bill - a requirem
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You're waiting because you forgot what quotation marks mean?
What are you waiting for?
Ps - any reason you're kind of acting like a jerk today? That's not really your style most of the time. Sometimes you can be a bit abrupt, but today you don't seem yourself.
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I m not sure why you have this fetish for arguing random thoughts that come straight from ass, rather than READING the text of the bill, so you'd actually know what you're talking about. I have you the link. If you refuse to click it there's nothing I can do for you. I can't force you to read. If you choose to remain ignorant that's your choice.
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I don't understand why you go online and pretend to have done things like ... read the text of the bill.
If you can't back up any of your claims, that's not my fault. Don't cry because you got called out.
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You may not know it, but you really don't want to disable all the security features when there are people like me and some of my friends around. :)
So you and your friends are criminals? Do you think that makes you look "cool"?
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> So you and your friends are criminals? Do you think that makes you look "cool"?
You don't pay any attention to the usernames of people you talk to on here, do you? We've been talking for several years, Narcc. You've not paid any attention to who you've been responding to and who it is when they respond to you, have you?
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I generally don't pay any attention to the user. What should matter here is what they say, not who they are. It's the same reason I read at -1 There are a few notable exceptions, of course.
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I can understand that. It can be hard to keep track of you're very active on several social networks.
It can ALSO make talking to you feel a bit like a conversation with an Alzheimer's patient, when you don't remember what you said to the person yesterday.
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That's not what he said. He was saying it can be hard to remember people when you talk on different social networks (or communities).
Nowhere was he acting like he knew your identity.
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It can be hard to keep track of you're very active on several social networks.
In that space between "of" and "you're", I put a comma and you put a "when". I think my interpretation of his statement is more reasonable, especially considering all the time he's spent in this thread calling himself a 'hacker' and intimating that he would do something nefarious should he notice lax security.
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I'm fine with "having to provide tools to disable all security locks" if it included some provision that only the person that allegedly owns the device (and by this I mean they person who paid money to have it, not the manufacturer) can use these tools to disable the security locks on the device.
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The whole discussion is bogus. If I have an encrypted data partition, my data is protected but a technician can still repair the device. In this way, right-to-repair may even make things more secure for the consumer.
Copy prevention locks are not security locks (Score:3)
Security is for the user. Copy prevention is for the manufacturer.
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So the change would be manufacturers would have to provide tools and information to allow security features to be disabled. The text of the law says "electronic locks OR OTHER SECURITY FEATURES". Well, and electronic law is a type of security feature, so that phrase just means security features, period.
If you can't disable the electronic locks or other security features, you don't own the device. The manufacturer does. They're just letting you hold it, and pretend you own it. Are you really happy leasing your portable telescreen?
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Nonsense argument. You own the device, the manufacturer can't take it away from you.
They can destroy it, which means they control it. It can be used for spying on you, which means you don't control it. If you don't control it you don't really own it. You're just paying to use it. It's a lease, not ownership.
Don't like it? Don't buy it.
There are few counterexamples, and in any case there is literally no reason why a corporation should be permitted to do this. A corporation is a legal fiction, it was never intended to have rights, and should have none. People who work for corporations have rights, but corporations are
Reading comprehension. "Precisely the opposite" (Score:2)
What does the sentence immediately before that one say?
Here's an hint:
"The title sometimes implies precisely the opposite of what the law bill actually does. So I read the bill."
So let me get this straight (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well, I never considered NC and CA to have a lot in common, but in this case NC did something similar (see other /. story). F'sure tho NC isn't going to pass a law against tobacco.
Public education campaign (Score:3)
Always vote opposite of whatever flood of flashy commercials around voting time want you to vote.
Failure to follow this one simple rule will eventually lead to corporations leasing your own ass to you every time you would like to take a shit.
You have been warned.
Data theft (Score:2)
Surprise! People are already getting to your data without right to repair!
Greed is good... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is basically what is behind this. Already rich need to be able to get richer and others need to be cut out. What is good for society does not matter.
Of course, the "arguments" presented against are entirely bogus. Software and designs are protected by patents and copyright, _not_ by hiding things. Security by obscurity does not work. Repairs are typically possible and are usually mich cheaper. Of course good repairability means less revenue for the big players. It also means less financial stress on people to keep their equipment working and that is a good thing. Preventing right to repair makes a few even richer and everybody else poorer. That does seem to be what is generally going on at the moment though and it can only lead to eventual collapse or regression into a society of mostly poor people. Not a desirable thing.
Skip the politicians. (Score:1)
In MA, we had to decide this for ourselves twice via ballot question instead of relying on politicians
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What? How undemocratic, do you have a faint idea how many people I'd have to bribe?
Right to repair but only if... (Score:1)
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Yes, that should be logical. If you mess with something I built, it's on you. If you do it as a business, you should be responsible for the warranty. If you repair it on your own, you're on your own.
Deal. Now hand over the tools.
How did it fail? (Score:3)
This article and other links to the story just say "it failed". But none of them describe how. I can't see any names of who voted against this.
DRM in many ways... (Score:2)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd add a portion of the current quandary is an extension from regulation to protect corporate interest, from DMCA to effectively annulling the provisions of the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.
Unless the same breath is given to disbanding those, it seems just cheerleading for corporate interests because "Oh noes! government!".
Corporations essentially bought legislation to protect their interests. I have no fucking sympathy if the specter of regulation is visited upon them.
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In a state like California I have to assume that once you produce a device you are more responsible, more than most states, for it's working condition and are more likely to be sued no matter what the consumer does to it.
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Well, that's about right, since part of the problem was created by government intervention and regulation in the first place. A lot of the "right to repair" problem would vanish overnight with the repeal of the DMCA.
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The DMCA is what happens when big business interferes with government, not the other way around.
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Right, and mechanics shouldn't be able to fix cars. Only dealers can do that safely. If we let just anybody work on a car then your whole family will die! Don't worry, the wasted money and components are for the good of us all!
Hint: This isn't about Joe-average fixing their phone. That is the media playing in to the hands of the oppressors.
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And why exactly should I not be allowed to fix what is mine? Or is it not mine? Am I only the renter of my property? In this case, why isn't renter's protection in effect?
Sorry, but I will repair my property as I see fit. Take your IP and shove it up your ass.
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yeah, just like there is no need to regulate not to dump toxic waste in the rivers or tip industrial waste anywhere they like or reabilitate land of mining etc etc. Don't worry its ok you have a right not to buy from those companies so they will obviously do whats right.
Toxic waste... like dead electronics that consumers couldn't repair. Right-to-repair is more than just a consumer rights issue. It's also a huge environmental issue. Companies that fight against right to repair are effectively encouraging mass dumping of old electronics into landfills. Why would any company be against right-to-repair laws? You don't... *hate*... the environment... do you?
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You also forgot the DMCA.
Four reasons why RTR is dead:
1: DMCA. This is a treaty, not a law, and supersedes the US Constitution (trust me. Ask a lawyer about treaties and Marbury vs. Madison not applying to them.)
2: People are not engineers, nor know more than authorized shops. The days of fixing a car with a timing light are long behind us.
3: Lawsuits. Someone fixes the device, gets shocked, boom... multi-million dollar lawsuit.
4: $$$. Nobody wants repairable stuff.
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2: People are not engineers, nor know more than authorized shops. The days of fixing a car with a timing light are long behind us.
Toss that timing light in the trash and buy a $20 code reader. Hell I spent $150 and had a Chinese knockoff Volvo interface. It talked to every system in the car down to knowing that my radio antenna was unplugged. Quit being an old fart and learn something new. Your modern car is every bit as serviceable.
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1. Why should I give a fuck about the laws of your country?
2. I am an engineer and I do probably know more than most people working in authorized shops. Try that statement again.
3.Again, in my country something like this would get laughed out of the court by the judge and both lawyers. Yes, yours, too.
4. I do. And I'm used to getting what I want, one way or another.
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Pretty nicely sums up my stance on things as well.
Globally harmonized product line (Score:2)
Why should I give a fuck about the laws of your country?
I can think of two reasons. First, in many cases, it is far more expensive to produce one product model with one set of capabilities to comply with the laws of one country and another product model with another set of capabilities to comply with the laws of another country. Thus the laws of one economically dominant country determine what products have the economies of scale to be produced. Second, some economically dominant countries have a habit of exporting their laws through trade treaties.
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Be it as it may, but your laws don't keep me from breaking any kind of "protection" (I'll use the term loosely here) that should keep me out of my property.
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What I can find [wikipedia.org] seems to disagree; apparently the SC has held that Congress can make laws that break treaties [wikipedia.org].
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The days of fixing a car with a timing light are long behind us.
Nowadays more people know how to use laptops than timing lights.
They work way better too.
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Umm... The DMCA actually implements a couple treaties...
which were negotiated AFTER THE DMCA WAS IN EFFECT.
FALSE. The two WIPO treaties I mentioned were from 1996 -- two years before the DMCA was signed in to law.
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That may be a good idea, if we didn't already arrive at a point where the "self healing properties" of the market, if they ever existed, are defunct. It's trivial to create a cartel (oh, sorry, didn't want to say the bad word, let's call it a "surprising twist of events that leads to everyone doing the same because of course it's the economically sensible thing to do and not due to a mutual agreement between the sellers") where you, dear consumer, can ONLY buy what we want to offer because opening up a comp
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Market failure is a thing we have in spades in the tech sector.
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I go for quantity. 2 points at a time, after 5 posts that's a 10.
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Where did I say you can't own personal property? My point was that the manufacturer doesn't have to make something easy to open up and repair, because that's a product feature. Why do they need to make sure you can repair it? If you don't want to own such a product, don't buy it. Right to repair means the manufacturer is forced to make they product in a manner that you can open it up and swap the battery. Just because you don't know how to repair something and don't have the tools to open it doesn't mean y
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Why do they need to make sure you can repair it?
Because it's the right thing to do. A strange concept, I know.
If you don't want to own such a product, don't buy it.
Consumers are not perfectly rational actors working with perfect information. The free market is not capable of solving this problem.
Re:Progressivism (Score:5, Informative)
The Appropriations Committee has seven members, two of them Republicans. So the industry lobbyists only needed to peel off 2 of the Democrats (40%) to block this. This is not some general hypocrisy of "progressivism". Eggman will try again next year.
But then, if it gets out of committee, you will be whining about "progressive overreach".
Re:Progressivism (Score:4, Insightful)
America has the best laws that money can buy.
http://content.time.com/time/c... [time.com]
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It's much worse than you're making it out to be. If California progressives wanted to do this that bad, they would have a long time ago. They have a very ironclad control of the government of California at all levels that matter for issues like this one. The only things they can't do are things that would violate California's constitution, hence they haven't succeeded on some issues, like for example their goal of bringing back racial discrimination because they feel there are too many Asians in California's universities. But for this particular issue, that has zero relevance.
With enough money you sway the vote. Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash spent $200 million on getting proposition 22 killed. $200 million dollars spent just to avoid paying people. https://www.latimes.com/califo... [latimes.com]
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Wrong. Actually the way that happened is the California legislators passed a law basically outlawing gig work, and then just granted exceptions to whatever industries had connections to them, which did not include any of the companies you mentioned, but did include i.e. Hollywood. Those companies spent that money to convince the voters, not the legislators, to pass a ballot initiative granting them an exception as well. That means it was the individual voters in California who approved it, not those running
Re: Progressivism (Score:3)
Don't paint all progressives with the same brush. Some of us used OS/2 in the 1990s, worked for Netscape, and wouldn't touch Apple hardware with a 3m pole.