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Companies Can't Legally Void the Warranty For Jailbreaking Or Rooting Your Phone (vice.com)
Reader Jason Koebler writes: Manufacturers that threaten to void the warranties of consumers who jailbreak or root their phones are violating federal law.
Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, manufacturers cannot legally void your hardware warranty simply because you altered the software of an electronic device. In order to void the warranty without violating federal law, the manufacturer must prove that the modifications you made directly led to a hardware malfunction.
"They have to show that the jailbreak caused the failure. If yes, they can void your claim (not your whole warranty—just the things which flowed from your mod)," Steve Lehto, a lemon law attorney in Michigan, wrote in an email. "If not, then they can't."
Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, manufacturers cannot legally void your hardware warranty simply because you altered the software of an electronic device. In order to void the warranty without violating federal law, the manufacturer must prove that the modifications you made directly led to a hardware malfunction.
"They have to show that the jailbreak caused the failure. If yes, they can void your claim (not your whole warranty—just the things which flowed from your mod)," Steve Lehto, a lemon law attorney in Michigan, wrote in an email. "If not, then they can't."
Not mentioning the name (things have changed) they ask for nothing in return for it's use and damn friendly, but a site that walks one through rooting of ones phone (through it's postings).
These days, try to flash new firmware w/o a new boot loader... Good luck, most of this stuff is now starting to require the firmware image to be signed, which is enforced by the boot loader. Unless you happen to know the private signing key that the boot loader's public validation key matches so you can sign the new firmware, it will brick your device.
It is not on all devices yet, but you can bet it won't be long..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It would not hurt to mention the country in the summary, even if this is a US-centric site.
The author appears to be unaware that laws are not the same in all countries.
It would be interesting to compare, as most developed countries have a warranty by law (statutory) that cannot be disclaimed.
The US has implied warranty , but that does not cover failures if it works at first??
The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act offers the cop-out of letting companies choose a full or limited warranty. So guess what Apple does? Do many US companies offer a full warranty? So what's the point? It seems Apple/Samsung just needs to say the magic words limited warranty and do whatever the hell the want.
And the law says "Fuck you, Samsung.".
Personally, I'd just run a chargeback through my credit card issuer as that's simpler and quicker.
The issue with efuses is like welding the hood shut, so you cannot service the engine.
It forces "physical damage" to become necessary to gain the access you should have been able to get anyway. In the case of the welded hood: you have to cut through the welds. In the case of efuses protected boot loaders: the boot loader enforces strong crypto against custom kernels, preventing boot of devices without the magic number baked into them, and if you flash a new boot loader, bam, efuses blown.
When the hardware that gets damaged is little more than a "warranty void" sticker, just in digital form, the oems are stretching things pretty thin.
I would love to see them be told that they cannot do these kinds of things. Sadly, that is not how the world works today.
Magnuson-Moss has been thrown around by car tuning enthusiasts since it was passed in 1975. It sounds good in theory. The reality is that you are an individual with limited resources going up against a multi-billion dollar global entity with a large team of full-time legal resources. It costs them nothing to deny your warranty claim until you win in court. How much time and money are you going to risk to get your $400 - $800 phone replaced? If you happen to be a professional Lemon Law lawyer, then I guess it's worth it to you to make a point. For the rest of us, you just buy a new phone from a different manufacturer.
I've had five Apple laptops since 2003, and all five have had problems with they keyboard. They've been playing that refuse any repairs game for over a decade.
Why would you keep doing this? Personally, after the first time, I'd have been done with any products from most companies that did this. I suppose if I really liked the product and there was more to it, I might consider giving them another shot. But you went back four more times after the first. Why?
No, the law says that they can be sued for their illlegal practices. And Samsung knows that $100,000 to challenge a $1000 loss is not something they have to worry about too much. Unless the affected people form a class action suit, it'll always be cheaper for Samsung/Apple to break the law.
Learn to love Alaska
If the blown fuse allows the device to still work, then why would the warranty be void for when the device stops working. Voiding the warranty about the security OK since by your actions you compromised it.
If the blown fuse bricks the device, wouldn't that be ground for suing in the first place? I hope this wouldn't be legal to brick a device just because the manufacturer doesn't like what you are doing with it. Otherwise, do we draw the line? What if computers start blowing their fuse because you visited a website about homosexuality or a religion the manufacturer didn't approve of...
That's there so Hoover can't force you to buy their expensive name brand vacuum cleaner bags to maintain the warranty. It doesn't prevent a manufacturer from setting quality specifications ("use 5W-30 API SM certified oil"). It doesn't prevent a manufacturer from saying you can't do modifications. It just says they can't demand you buy stuff from them to maintain warranty. There's a big difference. Your firmware got corrupted? The manufacturer will flash it again, free, under warranty. If a car maker wants to say they won't warranty the engine if you hang fuzzy dice on the mirror, they can - as long as that's clearly spelled out in the warranty terms - they're not in violation of the MMWA. There's nothing in the MMWA which even remotely says they must prove the modification caused anything. The most obvious place where it would apply to phones is with replacement batteries, if the manufacturer didn't replace them free during the warranty.
If you break the phone (say, by blowing a security fuse while trying to load alternate firmware), it would be hard to argue that the alternate firmware wasn't the cause of the failure.
I sympathize with wanting the ability to modify phones. I've rooted mine, but run stock firmware with bloatware removed, the tethering block removed, and no other mods. Some firmware plays with processor overclocking, which can cause hardware failure. I've seen lots of forum posts where someone "bricked" their phone by modifying the bootloader/firmware, who then go on to describe acting ignorant as to how it happened and getting it replaced under warranty. That's fraud, plain and simple, so I can also sympathize with manufacturer's who don't want to pay for phones broken by users actions.
Finally, from a pragmatic perspective, they'll do what they want, it's going to end up costing much more than a new phone to even bring the issue to court. In Michigan, where the author is from, you can sue a company in small claims if you can find where they have a physical presence in the state, but they then have the right to get it moved to district court, where you'll end up needing to pay for a lawyer. Guess which of the parties has lawyers on retainer? So, in practice, if they don't want to honor the warranty for any reason, they won't.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I have a windows server 2003 box that has 4 years uptime right now. I have multiple windows 7 machines that have crossed the year threshold. It depends on the software that you run on the system, and the quality of the hardware you put it on.
This a huge flaw with our current legal system. Corporations break the law with impunity because they know we cannot afford to fight back.
For years we've seen posting by people who chose to use operating systems other than the one provided with the computer they bought. When hardware had issues, the computer vendors invariably claimed that the hardware must have failed because the customers weren't running the preloaded Windows.
Your analysis of the statute is excellent. However, the code of federal regulations extends it a bit.
See 16 CFR 700.10 - Section 102(c).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...
Quoting the Code of Federal Regulations:
--
such provisions are deceptive under section 110 of the Act, 15 U.S.C. 2310, because a warrantor cannot, as a matter of law, avoid liability under a written warranty where a defect is unrelated to the use by a consumer of âoeunauthorizedâ articles or service.
--
The phrase " warrantor cannot, as a matter of law, avoid liability ... where a defect is unrelated to the use by a consumer of âoeunauthorizedâ articles or service" may apply.
The quoted CFR text is saying why a manufacturer may not void a warranty due to repair by unauthorized service centers, or using unauthorized parts. The text itself does *not* limit the "cannot, as a matter of law" to only unauthorized parts, though, and it could well be argued that "unauthorized firmware" is an "unauthorized part" which may not void a warranty.
It doesn't matter if knox fuse is blown, all that does is void the warranty for knox. If however your USB port breaks (as is typical with even the expensive samsung shit) and you're rooted, they can't deny the claim to fix the USB port.
Actually, no they won't. Unlike most consumer protection laws, Magnuson-Moss actually has teeth. You don't HAVE to sue them in court and prevail. All you have to do is file a claim with the Federal Trade Commission, and THEY'LL do the grunt work for you. After reviewing your claim, they'll forward it to the manufacturer, who has a limited amount of time to respond and either 1) agree to cover the repair, or 2) file a rebuttal that explains the legal basis for their refusal.
As a practical matter, manufacturers almost NEVER do anything besides meekly grunt an apology at the FTC & agree to cover the repair, because challenging the FTC and losing is WAY more expensive than grudgingly eating the cost of a warranty repair they would have otherwise refused.
With Magnuson-Moss, the deck is stacked VERY heavily against manufacturers in favor of consumers. It's probably one of the best consumer protection laws ever passed, because the members of Congress who wrote the law weren't just going through the motions to appease voters... they were as personally pissed off at the automakers as the general public was, and they wanted the automakers' blood to metaphorically flood the streets of Detroit.
Enough of those cases...
That's the tricky part.
Steve Lehto is a lawyer and a darn good one. He blogs as a side gig and is actually a frequent poster about legal issues related to used car purchases on Jalopnik.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?