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The Only, Lonely Protester at CES (Video)
CES is not a political show, so it only drew one visible protester: Kelly Chong, who is mad at camera manufacturers for (he says) destroying his camera repair business. He managed to get mentioned in Forbes, in an article headlined CES: One Man's Protest Against The World's Camera Makers. And now he's getting three minutes and five seconds of fame on Slashdot. Is his protest justified? According to a 2012 article headlined How Nikon Is Killing Camera Repair, at least one major camera manufacturer now refuses to sell parts to independent repair shops. So Kelly Chong seems to have a legitimate beef. Will anyone listen to him? Will major, multinational camera manufacturers start selling parts to independent repair people again? And what about those of us who do (at least some of) our own repairs? Labor charges aside, it's often lots faster and easier to do a simple repair yourself than to box your camera up and send it somewhere, not to mention the waiting time for it to get back to you.
Back in your place, consumers. You barely even own what you own, much less have any right to fix it or pay someone else to fix it.
The economy of America will collapse unless you keep buying brand new stuff constantly. You don't want that, do you? Are you some kind of terrorist?
As a member of a large professional camera repair society (SPT), I can firmly say: f*** Nikon. Chong's point is entirely valid. Sadly enough, as a photographer, I love Nikon's DSLRs but I can't support them due to their policy towards independent shops.
CES is not a political show
Wow. Set off my bullshit detector in the first sentence.
Former President Bill Clinton pushes for stricter gun control during Consumer Electronics Show speech
I suspect we witness here a case of a political view, and even a politician, that is considered so mainstream that they no longer suffer the "political" qualification.
Just for the record, any "show" that has Bill Clinton as a featured speaker is political.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
And what if car companies also took up the same idea. No independent repair shops, and higher prices for all repairs.
I believe that any company that refuses to provide repair parts should then not be allowed to complain if third party companies come along start providing them.
Ding. If customers care, they'll buy from different manufacturers. This guy doesn't have a right to those parts.
No: this is a completely different issue, it is not about new tech make old tech obsolete. It is as if you could only have your horses shod at a few ''approved'' farriers. Supply & demand would mean that these farriers could charge a lot of money ... but to become approved they need to pay bribes\h\h\h\h\h\h 'approval & training fees' to a central body.
To not do so is called abuse of monopoly, it is anti competitive. It pushed up maintainance prices, these prices are, generally, not considered when buying a new camera. Hopefully: in a few years NiKon cameras will have aquired a bad reputation for high maintainace and no one will buy them.
Before anyone says: Nikon do not have a monopoly in selling cameras, they just are trying to get one when it comes to maintaining them - by tying repair shops to them & presumably charging large approval fees.
Remember, a manufacturer, unless obligated by law, does not have to provide anything post-sale unless they've stated that they will.
Would like to watch when car manufacturers (all at the same time, sure) will start to follow NIKON'S policy.
CC.
They already kind of are. You can get more details here, at the Right to Repair coalition:
http://www.righttorepair.org/
Basically, various companies have realized that they can charge dealers exorbitant fees for diagnostic equipment if they make said diagnostics proprietary trade secrets, and then the dealers will have to funnel the costs to the consumer -- which is fine, because the dealers are the only place in town to get the cars repaired at. It's gotten so bad that I've even seen proprietary light bulbs for some vehicles.
When we, as a society, give someone or some company exclusivity in manufacturing something, we can expect him to sell it and for reasonable prices. If this entity cannot or doesn't want to sell, society will be better served by taking the monopoly from it.
The Right to Repair proposals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-repair_act should extend to all consumer products.
He's not asking for the right to get the parts, he's asking people to boycott those companies until they provide the parts willfully. This is purely a consumer-side action, nothing litigious. IMO this is the right approach to such problems.
They are, but only to their authorised repair services.
The regulation reads 'shall make available to service and repair facilities'
It doesn't say authorized service and repair facilities; it doesn't say service and repair facilities that the manufacturer prefers; it doesn't say service and repair facilities except independents
There's no listed exception there at all....
Therefore: if there exists a place that is a service facility or is a repair facility, that requested literature and parts, and there is refusal to offer sufficient literature, or parts, then they would be in potential violation