California Senate Passes 'Right to Repair Act' 42
The California state Senate passed Sen. Susan Eggman's (Stockton) Right to Repair Act (SB 244) on Tuesday with a 38-0, bipartisan vote. From a report: It's the furthest a Right to Repair bill has advanced in the state. The bill would significantly expand consumers' and independent repair shops' access to the necessary parts, tools and service information required for repairing consumer electronics and appliances. "This is a huge victory for anyone who's ever been faced with limited options when their phone, fridge or other household electronics break down," said CALPIRG State Director Jenn Engstrom. "It's due time that California fixed its laws so that we can fix our stuff. For the hundreds of advocates and repair businesses and the untold number of consumers supporting Right to Repair, we're one huge step closer to making that happen."
Advocates have been pushing for Right to Repair legislation in California for 5 years. Similar bills have died in the Senate Appropriations Committee the past two years after intense industry lobbying efforts against their passage. But public support for the Right to Repair in the state has grown amid a swell of national momentum. New York, Colorado and Minnesota have all passed their own Right to Repair laws in the past year.
Advocates have been pushing for Right to Repair legislation in California for 5 years. Similar bills have died in the Senate Appropriations Committee the past two years after intense industry lobbying efforts against their passage. But public support for the Right to Repair in the state has grown amid a swell of national momentum. New York, Colorado and Minnesota have all passed their own Right to Repair laws in the past year.
Make up your mind, CA (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought California was where the No Maintenance Allowed Act (DMCA) came from.
Anyone have the text? Surely anything related to media playback will still remain illegal to repair.
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In California the emissions regulations basically locks you to the manufacturer whenever you have a combustion engine.
Re:Make up your mind, CA (Score:4, Informative)
How you think California had something to do with a federal law I'll never know. Is it because California=bad?
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Just because MPAA is who purchased the law. Is it that weird to think of California whenever I think of the movie industry? But ok, point taken: it is a federal law.
Re: Make up your mind, CA (Score:4, Informative)
It's kind of weird, yeah. Like blaming the state of New York for banking regulations.
Re:Make up your mind, CA (Score:4, Interesting)
The really funny part is that film production took off in southern California because that was as far as they could get from Edison and his patent enforcing lawyers and still be in the continental U.S.
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Also, reliable sunshine in the days when that was the primary lighting source. Ie, studio roofs that would open up to allow the light in, something Edison did as well.
Re:Make up your mind, CA (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm....Where are movies made? Where are congress bought and paid to pass the DMCA? Where is the music industry execs, which paid congress to pass the DMCA? Yeah, California, and California == bad. But, this is a small sliver of hope from a state devoid of common sense and greed.
It is quite a stretch to blame California for two international treaties adopted in Switzerland which necessitated the creation of US federal laws to comply with the treaties. The Copyright and Information Society Directive of 2001 enacted by the European Union to satisfy the same treaties went even further than DMCA did to prohibit circumvention of technological protection measures, so I guess in your worldview California did a better job lobbying the EU than they did in the US.
Hollywood vs America (Score:2)
Jesus H Christ, I swear: I had no idea of the can of worms I was opening. I am sorry. I should not have blamed California for how all states' representatives agreed to fuck America. (Yes, DMCA supposedly passed unanimously.) I pointed at California and said "fuck you" because of Hollywood and now I see that was unfair to everyone else in California.
I take it back. California != Hollywood. I will pick up the chalk and write it 50 times on the blackboard. Ok? Can we all be cool now?
...
Now, about that new law:
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Because you can't have Right to Repair and also DMCA.
Perhaps you cannot have a universal without exceptions right to repair and also DMCA, but it probably just takes an exception or two to ensure any right to repair law doesn't violate DMCA. It really wouldn't be that complicated. All it has to say is one thing you could not do to your own hardware is bypass technological protection measures. Problem solved.
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What are you talking about? I never said or implied EU rules apply to the US. And the length and complexity of a regulation has little to no bearing on how strict it is. A very brief and simple statement can be very strict.
idiots everywhere (Score:2)
Sadly, LOADS of idiots all over here. I keep expecting them to show up here on
I'd never try to claim a "First Post" (Score:3)
But these days you mention Right to repair, and it seems like a race to mention Louis RossmanN!
He has been a good spokesman for this issue and it's good to see it gaining ground.
Re:I'd never try to claim a "First Post" (Score:4, Informative)
I'd like you to do a read-up on the Song-Beverly act of California. I think this is quite interesting. Below are key items related to "Right to Repair" even before this right to repair act.
"1793.03 (b) Every manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an electronic or appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i), (j), or (k) of Section 9801 of the Business and Professions Code, with a wholesale price to the retailer of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, shall make available to service and repair facilities sufficient service literature and functional parts to effect the repair of a product for at least seven years after the date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the seven-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product"
" 9801 (h)“Electronic set” includes, but is not limited to, any television, radio, audio or video recorder or playback equipment, video camera, video game, video monitor, computer system, photocopier, or facsimile machine normally used or sold for personal, family, household, or home office use."
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And oddly enough, excludes alarm systems and video game consoles. Weird. I wonder who paid off whom to get that exclusion?
There are also some other weird provisions. I am not a lawyer but reading the text, it sounds like tools and documentation need to be provided on "fair and reasonable" terms and "fair and reasonable" is defined as (and I'm paraphrasing), the lowest cost you've ever charged anyone ever. That's not exactly "fair and reasonable", it could be quite a bit less. Essentially if you offer anyone
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I'm counting on Louis Rossmann to post a YouTube video showing where the lobbyists got a hold of this legislation and neutered it by putting in specific exceptions for the various big tech companies are based out of California. If it's anything like the New York one, it's probably pretty bad.
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Damn. I forgot to look for that. I'll just use being at work as my excuse! Yeah, the NY thing was enraging.
any idea if this include unlocking bootloaders? (Score:5, Interesting)
Certain phone models such as Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and more are end of life and cannot receive security patches. However the hardware is working just fine.
But Samsung never opened up it to be maintained by a third party. As an example with the SM-960U1 in particular never released the "OEM Unlock" feature which is required for lineageos (which continues to get security patches) to be installed. And as such it is impossible to patch these anymore.
I'm hoping this bill addresses that in such a way and it isn't like pulling teeth to get them to allow third party code to run.
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I honestly don't understand how we haven't yet made it illegal to keep hardware locked down once support is dropped. Forced obsolescence is choking the planet, let's force more!
Sometimes I miss the simpler times of the 386/486. You can still fire those up with the right Linux distro and it's fine. I doubt anything made today will be able to run at all in the same number of years.
Re:any idea if this include unlocking bootloaders? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:any idea if this include unlocking bootloaders?
You can read the bill [ca.gov] yourself, but I was curious what all was in it so I'm reading it right now. And the answer is, no. Relevantly, see this struck text:
42488.2. (a) [...] (2)For products with a wholesale price to the retailer, or to others outside of direct retail sale, of not less than fifty dollars ($50) and not more than ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents ($99.99), that contain an electronic security lock or other security-related function, the manufacturer shall also make available to owners of the product, service and repair facilities, and service dealers, on fair and reasonable terms, any documentation, tools, software, and parts needed to disable the lock or function, and to reset the lock or function when disabled, during the course of the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a product for at least three years after the last date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the three-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product.
and also
(b) [...] (2)For products with a wholesale price to the retailer, or to others outside of direct retail sale, of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, that contain an electronic security lock or other security-related function, the manufacturer shall also make available to owners of the product, service and repair facilities, and service dealers, on fair and reasonable terms, any documentation, tools, software, and parts needed to disable the lock or function, and to reset the lock or function when disabled, during the course of the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a product for at least seven years after the last date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the seven-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product.
So it looks at a glance like it attempted to force unlocking of pretty much everything, but that was ripped out. The vendors will still have to provide software tools that permit service for free, and hardware tools at cost (see the rest of the bill, but especially (3) (A).) The bill also explicitly states that it doesn't require anyone to open source anything.
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What about access to firmware? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the same page right now as this article, is the story about how Google is now EOLing its original Chromecast device - which means millions of pieces of hardware are about to end up in the landfill because the consumer does not have access to the firmware to patch it with alternative versions.
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Do these devices stop working after a certain date or something?
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Yes, they will, because Google will update the protocol - and without access to the firmware, you are now left with a useless brick.
This is the same nonsense Sonos pulled with their speakers.
How about an associated set of rules? (Score:3)
"The requirement to design with repair in mind". I know... the landscape is absolutely teeming with corner cases that make even small steps in this direction problematic. Even saying, "you can't sell a phone unless the battery can be swapped by and end user and without tools" immediately will raise valid arguments in opposition.
Companies can toe the line. They can make schematics and parts available. But if the engineers make it uneconomical to offer the repair as a service - i.e. they make the devices even harder to fix - they get the same result. Swabbing everything with adhesive and putting a certificate at every component interface is just a start.
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"The requirement to design with repair in mind". I know... the landscape is absolutely teeming with corner cases that make even small steps in this direction problematic. Even saying, "you can't sell a phone unless the battery can be swapped by and end user and without tools" immediately will raise valid arguments in opposition.
I'd be very curious what the 'valid' arguments would be in this case. The only arguments I've ever heard basically boil down to "we want to charge the user a premium for updates" or "we want the user to have to buy a whole new phone when the battery dies."
There's a lot of manufacture babble about security and protecting the user from themselves and all that nonsense, but almost all of it goes right back to lock-in and control, plus future sales.
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I'd be very curious what the 'valid' arguments would be in this case.
"We'd like to seal the case shut to improve waterproofing."
"We'd like to solder and glue the battery to the motherboard to improve capacity and reliability."
Need I go on?
Re: How about an associated set of rules? (Score:3)
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Wrong.
Repair does not exclude tech improvement.
Holy Shit! Cali did something NOT insane? (Score:1)
Sorry guys! I'm utterly in shock at this.
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Sorry guys! I'm utterly in shock at this.
I'm sorry, what sane action are you talking about?
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Right to repair.
Giving you the BACK right to fix your own property.
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Y'know, I have a problem with the term "right to repair". AFAIK, you've always had the right to try repairing your device. It's your device, knock yer socks off, you just might void all warranties. The exception was you might be blocked by DMCA from decoding firmware. If we wanted to enact a right to repair, we could have just asserted decoding firmware for the intent of repairing a device you own is not a DMCA violation (ignoring for now that's a federal, not state, issue). Congratulations, you now have th
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"You always have the right to TRY to repair".
It's not the right to TRY to repair.
It's the RIGHT TO REPAIR.
Many devices, without schematics and specs, access to tools or components are essentially locked and unable to BE repaired.
Non-destructively spelunking a locked down device, just so you can figure your way through it?
And your understanding of the locking down of these devices is deficient.
They're not this way because people don't value repairability.
This is why there are repair shops scattered all over