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The US Government Wants To Permanently Legalize the Right To Repair (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the big-win dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In one of the biggest wins for the right to repair movement yet, the U.S. Copyright Office suggested Thursday that the U.S. government should take actions to make it legal to repair anything you own, forever -- even if it requires hacking into the product's software. Manufacturers -- including John Deere, Ford, various printer companies, and a host of consumer electronics companies -- have argued that it should be illegal to bypass the software locks that they put into their products, claiming that such circumvention violated copyright law. Thursday, the U.S. Copyright Office said it's tired of having to deal with the same issues every three years; it should be legal to repair the things you buy -- everything you buy -- forever. "The growing demand for relief under section 1201 has coincided with a general understanding that bona fide repair and maintenance activities are typically non infringing," the report stated. "Repair activities are often protected from infringement claims by multiple copyright law provisions." "The Office recommends against limiting an exemption to specific technologies or devices, such as motor vehicles, as any statutory language would likely be soon outpaced by technology," it continued.

5 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. This will be quickly squashed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Republican congress and the POTUS have way too many connections to big business to allow such a thing to happen. Expect the U.S. Copyright Office to be set straight as soon as tomorrow on this job killing philosophy.

    1. Re:This will be quickly squashed. by Distortions · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...All the repair shops that could pop up would be a lot of good paying jobs.

      --
      Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
    2. Re:This will be quickly squashed. by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, without the right to repair, you throw it away, we're drowning in garbage and China sells more of the junk to us to replace what we had to throw away.

      If anything, that "right to repair" is about the most pro-US thing you can do right now.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Government does not want by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you really drill down into the story and the linked documents, you will find that the official statement from the USPTO that wants to permanently legalize the right to repair was prepared by the previous head of the patent office Michelle K. Lee (Obama appointee) and signed by Karyn Temple Claggett (Obama appointee) who became acting head of USPTO after Lee resigned on June 6.

    Trump hasn't appointed anyone to head the copyright office yet, since he's too busy being awesome to do any actual presidenting, and he hasn't gotten a list of possible candidates from the Russian ambassador yet. But if his executive actions so far are any indication, you can bet there won't be any Obama-era "right to repair" left in the USPTO when he's done, since his entire raison d'être seems to be making sure to reverse anything done by the black guy before him. Even if only superficially.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obama had the leader of Google into the White House about once a week through his entire 8 years. The Obama admin was completely in bed with Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, etc and Obama was elected and the re-elected using a mind-blowing tidal wave of corporate cash. Hillary tried to get elected using an even bigger pile of corporate cash than Trump.

    Honesty Test:

    Name just ONE high tech company that might be affected by this policy that gave more money to the Republicans and/or Trump than to Democrats and/or Obama/Hillary.

    [crickets]