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

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.

Comments

This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Bing Tsher E]

Go away, political troll.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. The headline is wrong. Saying 'the government wants' kind of implies there is a substantial portion of elected representatives who wish to pass a law. This is one part of the government suggesting something that has a snowball's chance in hell of getting passed under the current administration. Keep in mind, these are the same assholes who already sold us out for, in some cases, as little as a few thousand dollars.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's cute how slashdotters are modding him up thinking that the Democrats are not connected with big business and will fight for us.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're full of shit.

Three letters: TPP. Hillary would have signed this in and pushed it through, and if all went according to the Obama plan, this would be banned by treaty, as would a wide variety of other things, making copyright law and IP law in general even more of an anti-consumer and anti-innovation farce than it already is.

The Democrats are no friend of those under the heel of copyright.

Re: This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re: This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the TPP.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Distortions]

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

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the fact that Obama was trying to ram TPP through, trying to blame this on the Republicans and Trump is ridiculous.

First of all, realize that the TPP is NOT about free trade. It's about intellectual property control and a variety of other topics. "Free trade" is a generic cover for the whole thing. The real motivators are things that would be balked at if they were negotiated separately.

For details as to what TPP really IS about, well, here's a very short summary:

The TPP and Intellectual Property

And the EFF's position on it:

EFF on TPP
EFF and the Copyright Trap

I'm not going to go into a lot of research for that particular question since this has already been hashed out a million times before.

However, as for the Democrat portion... well, first off, Obama spearheaded TPP and intended to try to get it rammed through towards the end of his term.

Obama and the TPP

Hillary in fact praised it as the "gold standard" while it was in development (in secret, I might add, to the point where Congressmen had to go to a secure room to look at the drafts and could not keep their notes on it with them):

Hillary on the Gold Standard

TPP Secrecy (note the caption on the picture)

Now she did try to back off on this and flip-flopped, although this might well have been a pose for the campaign:

Hillary and TPP

But the fact is that the Democrats did not officially oppose it.

Rejecting formal TPP opposition

Some would say that the fact that Hillary is particularly likely to lie about this to get elected, even among politicians. But people specifically close to her indicated that, if she was elected, she'd flip-flop on it pretty rapidly.

Terry McAuliffe's view on TPP flipping

Additionally, while people seem to very much enjoy shitting on the Republicans for draconian copyright laws, fact is that the Democrats are just as bad, and in some cases, worse:

Congressional support for SOPA and PIPA

This raises doubts as to what parts of TPP would be "renegotiated," if that had happened, which was one option that seemed to be spoken of for a Hillary presidency. Suffice it to say that it is likely that the IP law portions would not receive renegotiation that would be considered consumer-friendly.

Stereotypical "Republicans are evil 'cuz Republicans" and "Trump is evil 'cuz Trump" is not going to fly here, unless you're also willing to jump on board the "Democrats are evil 'cuz Democrats" train. Fact of the matter is, both sides are bought and paid for by the technology and content generation industries. This was the sentiment when SOPA was defeated by massive Internet backlash:

Backlash after massive SOPA protests

And Democrats were certainly benefiting from Hollywood donations which "encouraged" them to support SOPA:

So in short, both sides are filthy here. You can blame one side or the other for the majority of the problem a

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Bite The Pillow]

Potus has no dog in this fight, given his business model. He will sign anything that gets him a photo op, as long as democrats are either livid or apathetic. And right to repair is a very pro small business, pro small government concept. You can spin it as added regulation, or removing teeth from patent or other IP laws.

Your knee jerk reaction is a small minded goon talking, and your positive moderation indicates likewise simplistic thinking.

Re: This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Original poster here.

I posted this elsewhere so others would read it, but this is my response elsewhere in the thread.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think he would be against this.

"China."

"China is stealing our jobs folks."

If any part of right to repair means anti-reverse engineering or weakening IP protection at all, that means "China wins, people!"

Basically, if anyone at any time gives potus this argument, all others will be invalid. I'm not making this as a statement of my view -- I see this as a complex issue that I need to explore further before making a completely informed decision. I'm just making an argument that could be persuasive to the potus.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Sique]

Actually, the Government is not the Legislative. So this implication is not a given. The Government is all the organisations, institutions and persons (including the President), which actually execute the Law, hence the name "Executive power". Quite often the Government really wants a law to be passed, but in this case has to go to the Legislative and propose said law. But it's not up to the Government to pass it. In this case, it was a branch of the Government, the Copyright Office, which proposed legislation, thus the title is exactly describing the situation.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. This creates jobs. Without this, you'll have to send everything to China for repairs.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Big Hairy Ian]

The Republican congress and the POTUS have way too many connections to big business to allow such a thing to happen.

If this goes through it will end up being so heavily amended that it will make the situation worse rather than better. Regardless of which party's in charge.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[sudon't]

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.

Right. I brought an iPod in for repair once, and when I went to pick it up I looked at it, and the chrome back was all scratched up. I’m like, “This isn’t my iPod”. Turns out, they don’t fix your iPod, they just give you a refurbished one. They ended up giving me a new one because I made a stink about the fact that mine had no scratches. Whether my original got refurbished, or tossed in the trash, I couldn’t say.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. They way to go about it is to get EU to legalize about it since some people there still cares about their respective population.
Then they will force it on any US company that wants to do business in EU and the idea will meet less resistance when it is attempted in the US.
That is pretty much the way we got standardized cell phone chargers, except that it was China that started it off to begin with.
China is pretty odd by the way. Unlike other "one party" systems it appears as if they actually wants their population to prosper. (Despite not caring much for the individual.)

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Immerman]

I really don't think this administration or congress care much about any job paying less than seven figures, probably closer to 8 or 9. If you can't afford to purchase legislation, why should they care?

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Potus definitely does have a dog. First of all, unlike his bed-buddies, he doesn't spend his days in a seething hatred for Democrats. He'd hammer on any group if it either A) advanced his goals directly or B) made him allies that would be beholden to his goals. These days, that's mostly, but not always B and Republicans, since that's how politics works. And Republicans as a party are pro Big Business. The "Main Street" Republicans with their local businesses and banks mostly got buried decades ago.

Secondly, he has shown who he's looking out for - consider that he wouldn't have a "poor person" in his (slavishly adoring) cabinet. Repair isn't Big Business these days - all the big companies are Producers or Movers. So he doesn't have representation of the mending-is-better-than-ending crowd in his entourage to influence him.

Trump and his allies would think the world was perfect if you had to pay for every minute of every movie you watched, every line of every book you read over and over again. Disposable coffee machines with DRM, disposable printer cartridges with DRM, buy everything new every time. No resales, no repairs, no unauthorized improvements to the product.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

How much would you pay to repair a $20 blender or $80 amazon Fire tablet?

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[cordovaCon83]

Consider the possibility that the Amazon Fire tablet might have irreplaceable data on it or that the blender only requires a $5 part that's easily replaced by just about anyone at home.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[houghi]

Politics logic: That is 1 job for each store. Only 1 job. While the company that gave me 1.000.000 tells me they would have to fire 100 people. I just save 99 jobs.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[houghi]

It is not China selling junk. It is people buying junk.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya know, another way to look at it is like this: sure, it was a total disaster for America to elect a Republican to president and for them to win Congress too. That's obviously very bad news for our whole country. BUT we beat the Democrats! One of America's top two enemies, who was actively working against all our interests, just got a bloody nose!

Seriously, everyone should be celebrating.

It's a bittersweet celebration, because the disaster of Republican rule is going to so quickly need us to punch our other chief enemy (the Republicans) in the face again ASAP -- and we are stupid enough that the only way we can beat Republicans is to elect Democrats. That's sad. But that's the job for 2018 and 2020. Until then, every single American ought to be joyfully watching Democrats squirm.

Down the road, we'll be sucking Democrat cock again, but between now and then: CHEW, and hear the screams of agony!

And while I am losing faith that we'll ever wake up and decide to get out of the destroy-America cycle, 2016 really was one of the best elections in a long time. 3rd party presidential candidates got about 5%. That doesn't sound like much (because it's not; it's pathetic), but it's higher than it's been in a couple decades. Reasonable government is constantly being dangled in front of everyone, and I still hope that maybe some day, some people will get mad enough at the Republicrats to finally vote for someone else, and then it'll be 10% of voters voting for America instead of against America. Maybe 15% or 20% after that? It could happen, just probably won't. But 2016 really was a step in that direction.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Name ONE $5 part you'll pay $100 in labor to have replaced on an $80 device.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but no. You're completely wrong. Right-to-repair, if anything, benefits China, and certainly doesn't hurt it, at least not yet.

China mostly sells us low-priced consumer junk. That's not stuff you want to repair, and if you do, you don't need a special law to make it OK. You're NOT going to take a $30 consumer good to a repair ship to get fixed; the repair bill will be higher than just buying a new one.

The companies that would be "hurt" by a right-to-repair law are companies like John Deere, which sell very expensive computerized machinery where the computerization is locking out the ability to repair. These companies are generally American, perhaps some European. We don't buy $500k farming machines from China. So Deere will be "hurt" as they won't be able to get big profits by requiring you to pay their overpriced technicians to make an on-site service call to do a simple repair. This is bad for Deere, Deere's shareholders and executives, and the dealerships that Deere contracts with.

So if you're pro-US-corporation, or pro-local-dealership, right-to-repair is your enemy.

Right-to-repair isn't going to have any effect on Chinese junk. If anything, it'll increase the sales of Chinese-made aftermarket repair parts (which there's already tons of BTW for cars and appliances). It's good for consumers, it's good for companies that make aftermarket parts, it's good for independent servicepeople, and it's bad for manufacturers and for companies who have exclusive service arrangements with manufacturers.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Grishnakh]

These days, that's mostly, but not always B and Republicans, since that's how politics works. And Republicans as a party are pro Big Business. The "Main Street" Republicans with their local businesses and banks mostly got buried decades ago.

Not completely: you're missing out on the local car dealerships which have a huge amount of political power at the local and state levels, and managed to get Tesla banned from some states, with help from Republican politicians. It was crazy hearing Republican politicians on one hand crowing about "free markets", and then bashing Tesla and talking about how important it is to have independent auto dealerships and how awful it is to be able to buy directly from the manufacturer.

Basically, you can look at politicians or parties as either pro-consumer or anti-consumer. Right now, I don't see any that are pro-consumer.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[TemporalBeing]

Actually, the Government is not the Legislative. So this implication is not a given. The Government is all the organisations, institutions and persons (including the President), which actually execute the Law, hence the name "Executive power". Quite often the Government really wants a law to be passed, but in this case has to go to the Legislative and propose said law. But it's not up to the Government to pass it. In this case, it was a branch of the Government, the Copyright Office, which proposed legislation, thus the title is exactly describing the situation.

Mod parent up.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Replace it yourself at home and there's no labor charge.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

All I am interested in is a Linux based firmware upgrade for my Prius.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC I guess. Forgot my login,...

Anyway, what's funny is the iPod, iPad, and iPhone are typically of the devices that can be repaired. My brother repairs them as his side job. Usually have a couple of screws to remove to access the innards, and parts can be ordered online from third party manufacturers.

Microsoft Surface Pro tablets cannot currently be repaired, the case is glued together and subject to irreparable damage if a repair is attempted. I don't know if a service industry will sprout up around these devices, as the outer casing, as you pointed out, is part of the value of the device. Who wants to take a Surface in for repairs, and walk out with a "knock-off" which is functionally similar (same exact guts), but will likely not be exact (different dimensions most likely)?

Most devices can be repaired, they just take know-how, time, or money. I'm not aware of many devices which cannot be repaired. Though there are increasingly more and more for which there is little to no economy for the repair.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree it helps China. As China is a source of third party parts.

I wouldn't say it hurts the US. It shifts things around, sure. Right-to-repair is not an enemy. The question would be why would US corporations be in such bad straights they can't sell repairable products and make money?

Are we really that bad off? What walls are we up against?

My concern is that this "right-to-repair" stuff is not going to provide a "right-to-repair", but eliminate the right to not repair. Such as innovations for devices such as the Surface pro, or other ways to simplify devices and reduce bulk.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Grishnakh]

I wouldn't say it hurts the US. It shifts things around, sure. Right-to-repair is not an enemy. The question would be why would US corporations be in such bad straights they can't sell repairable products and make money?

It *does* hurt the US, a lot: it hurts the corporations that sell us expensive stuff and profit a lot by making it impossible for us to repair ourselves.

You're probably thinking something like "but it helps the little guy who bought the thing", but that doesn't matter. Little people are unimportant, only the large corporations and their profits are important here.

Are we really that bad off? What walls are we up against?

Yes, we're really that bad off. Our corporate profits could be higher, and we can't afford any threats to the profitability of our largest corporations, especially those that make generous campaign contributions to our esteemed leaders.

My concern is that this "right-to-repair" stuff is not going to provide a "right-to-repair", but eliminate the right to not repair. Such as innovations for devices such as the Surface pro, or other ways to simplify devices and reduce bulk.

Gluing a device together is not "innovation", but regardless, you don't have to worry about this as it sure as hell isn't going to get passed by a Republican Congress or signed into law by a President who says only rich people have a place in his Cabinet.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Residentcur]

Yeah, maybe. But the language here is great, and to the point.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[ilsaloving]

Probably should clarify... When Big Business, POTUS, etc, are talking about "Jobs", they actually mean "more profits for the rich".

Having a bunch of mom and pop shops popping up will do nothing but drive money back in the direction of the plebes, not to the elite where it rightfully belongs.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about an $8 dollar part (nylon worm-drive) on a $350 Kitchenaid stand mixer?

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Right. I brought an iPod in for repair once, and when I went to pick it up I looked at it, and the chrome back was all scratched up. I’m like, “This isn’t my iPod”. Turns out, they don’t fix your iPod, they just give you a refurbished one. They ended up giving me a new one because I made a stink about the fact that mine had no scratches. Whether my original got refurbished, or tossed in the trash, I couldn’t say.

That's fucking shitty. Nothing wrong with giving you a refurbished unit, as it's faster and more economical, than repairing your unit, and they're all identical; BUT: I've worked in OEM repair shops and every time we refurbish a unit, the old plastics go in the "recycling" and new plastics are slapped on the refurbished innards. That's why the PS3 and many other products have a giant clear-gloss cover over the main plastics. It's cheaper (faster) to rip that off and stick a new one on than unmounting all the electronics from the various assemblies.

Where I worked we were refurbing DSL modems, and they had the same plastic gloss shields as the PS3, so when customers returned their DSL modems, which was often because both the ISP and modem were shit, we would always rip the sometimes scratched up gloss cover off the modem, throw it away, and put a new one on, regardless of condition. That way the customer thought they were getting a new modem, but we weren't having to landfill 100k modems a month; only 100k plastic covers (oh yea, "recycling").

It's really gross and cheap that Apple don't spend a few dollars swapping the plastics with either the customer supplied plastics or brand new plastics when they refurbish your device. But then we always knew Apple are cheap and compromising on everything except their marketing and astroturfing.

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[metaforest]

Apple doesn't repair much of anything they make any more in their stores. Most of the "referb" work that is done is handled in bulk from warranty failures sent back to China. The other source of "referb" units are customer returns under warranty. Device was not bad it just didn't meet the customer requirements. Basically, fulfillment errors. These devices are given a quick diagnostic, flash-wipe, etc and repackaged as refurbished units, since they cannot be sold as new.

So what probably happened is some flunky put your iDevice under diagnostics, it failed. They tossed it in the 'To China' bin, and grabbed a used device out of their 'From China' bin.

A commenter below makes a case for replacing the outer plastics, etc during refurbish.... That might work for some models of iDevices, but in most cases the cases don't get replaced because it would require completely remanufacturing the iDevice from used assemblies anyway. So cosmetic defects abound! I'm glad you made them eat it!

Re:This will be quickly squashed.

[eric_harris_76]

The statutory duopoly Congress and POTUS have way too many connections to big business to allow such a thing to happen.

FTFY.

What B.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing that the U.S. government "wants". The government either does something or doesn't do something.

Even Greenies can live with this

[Anonymous Coward]

All the Earth Mothers and Granola Crunchers can get onboard for this. Fix something. No new carbon footprint. No extra junk in the landfill. Even facsists like myself approve.

Re:Even Greenies can live with this

[Opportunist]

It's one of the things you can't oppose and sell it to anyone in the population. No matter what your agenda, "right to repair" is something you would get behind, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum. If you're leaning right, you get jobs from China back to the USA, if you're leaning left, it's empowering people to escape the stranglehold of corporations.

Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

6 months of the new boss and we're finally getting logical response from government. It's time that we stop letting Democrat Silicon Valley special interests dictate what we the people are allowed to repair.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought was trump hasn't corrupted this office yet.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and Ford and John Deere are silicon valley democrat special interests?

Re: Thanks Trump!

[wierd_w]

Silly valley will chip in too:

The USPO has stated they want this for all the things, this includes the things made by silly valley. The moguls of silly valley will not like that. It does not matter that Ford and John Deer are not part of silly valley culture, their interests will coincide.

Expect the likes of Google, amazon, Microsoft, etc to be against this, because many of the things they do to "secure" their products (Xbox, home, Alexa, etc) introduce technological locks to prevent modifications, which also precludes service and repair. Things like the DVD firmware being tied to a specific xbox, etc. This move would shake things up in that kind of model. Microsoft and pals would have to start relying more on contract law instead of copyright law, and could not abuse the DMCA the way they gave grown accustomed to.

The logical next step is to allow jail breaking of repaired devices that the OEM refuses to provide service for, so that alternative services can be provided, which would undermine the position of power enjoyed by abusing contract law--, if you don't agree to their terms and conditions, you can use an alternative service provider. Naturally, that is very undesirable to Apple, Microsoft, and pals.

It does not take a genius to see how silly valley will react with horror to this announcement, and seek seemingly unlikely alliances to squash it.

But you were too busy trying to paint everything with Ds and Rs, now weren't you? Money does not really care about those things. It has no allegiance to anything but itself. Remember that.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to their political donations, Ford donates primarily to Democrats. That's not even counting the Ford Foundation, which is a left wing support group.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000182

Re:Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's overcompensation. When someone in power is totally batshit crazy, contradicts his own statements regularly, and seems to do things that are contrary to logic and reason, then that person's subordinates will overcompensate by being VERY LOGICAL and reasonable.

Re:Thanks Trump!

[gl4ss]

it's just not silicon valley.. it's all big companies.
that's the problem.

the car industry is a lot better legislated about this than the electronics industry though! like, you can get tools and docs to fix cars.

otoh, the only people who have apple diagnostic tools for current apple products are apple themselves and apple has a policy of NO REPAIR - if the diagnostic tool tells them that a single resistor needs to be changed, they will change the entire board and that will mean repairs that are worth more than the device for anything older than 2 years for apples products. it's planned that way.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to respect whatever you might have to say when you speak like a child who cannot pronounce all the syllables in "Silicon." It's kind of like saying "M$" except that, instead of sounding like a thinks-he's-edgy-16-year-old-know-it-all, you sound like a 3 year old talking to his mommy.

But yeah, partisanship is crushing us right now.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[wierd_w]

Nope, just being descriptive of a place that is so out of control that it it is now practically impossible to live there, due to out of control housing costs, and a number of other factors.

Allowing that situation to get that far out of control is damned silly. Silly Valley is an accurate description.

Re: Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it just makes you look like a three year old.

Along with terms like:
Micro$oft
Faux news
SJW
Bro-anything
and other various insulting terms.

And I agree with you that Silicon valley is out of control, but do you really think you are going to convince anyone of your POV that isnt a 3 year old?

Re:Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Auto repairs are an interesting thing. Before electronics, auto mechanics didn't have software to diagnose a problem for them.
How many parts of the car are such that something cannot be diagnosed or repaired without industry diagnostic tools?

With the iPod. What is the cost of replacing a failed board vs what is the cost of replacing a transistor on a failed board? If it was economical I would have expected a third party industry to have formed around it. Boards are easily replaced by a skilled end user, if you can snag a good board off of a used device with a damaged screen. Damaged devices for parts can be had for fair prices.

Re:Thanks Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

" like, you can get tools and docs to fix cars."

But you cannot, legally, decrypt the information passing between the engine ECU and the body ECU to be able to utilize the diagnostic tool. Thus you cannot find out if a wheel speed sensor is bad.
nor can you change any parameters in the ECU's programming if you should want to modify your purchased vehicle sometime down the road, for example.

"The US Government Wants..."

[Beau1080p]

Hey Beau, go impale yourself on some new bamboo "born" off the rhizome. Where did the US Government spokesman say this? Why should ANY of us give into the US government's whims? What ever happened to the populace deciding the direction of society rather than the Government or US Corporations?

I mean...I'm With Her. Or Make America Great Again, one Trump slam at a time! (I voted for Stein.)

--(the REAL) Beau--

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Berkyjay]

What ever happened to the populace deciding the direction of society rather than the Government or US Corporations?
--(the REAL) Beau--

Uummmmmmmm, last time I checked the "Government" IS the populace. So nothing happened to it. It's right there doing what it's supposed to do.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[PopeRatzo]

I voted for Stein.

Oh, you're one of those jackoffs...

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you had a system of preferences that wasn't stuck in a time before non-horse transportation.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Captain Splendid]

Hey, if we're playing fantasy games, might as well imagine Jill Stein isn't a complete fucking loon.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Darinbob]

I voted for Pedro.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Opportunist]

Aww, please tell me you really believe that. That's so adorable.

Nobody tell him Santa doesn't exist!

Re: "The US Government Wants..."

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a poll that replaced stein with harambe and they both received the same percentage of the vote. So, yeah, I agree.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[Berkyjay]

Cute. No please, continue misidentifying the problem. It's gotten us so far already.

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[CanEHdian]

Uummmmmmmm, last time I checked the "Government" IS the populace. So nothing happened to it. It's right there doing what it's supposed to do.

Hey there, old timer! That must have been a long, long time ago. Right now "the government" consists for 99% out of unelected bureaucrats and other government workers that, unionized or not, make way too much money and need way too many bodies to do their jobs. There are of course the exceptions, and with the sheer size of "the government" there are actually many, but exceptions exist to prove the existence of the rule. (The US Copyright Office is such an exception, that is why "the government" is trying to get it out of the Library of Congress' protection). This 99% of the government is a self-sustaining, self-justifying, self-vindicatory Blob that over the last 200 years grew and grew and grew. This 99% is funded directly by the taxpayer (or in other words: their checks come from "the government"). The 1% that is (re)elected needs considerable funding to do so, and the drive for self-preservation means they will do almost anything to keep this funding available to them. So ask yourself: where does this funding come from, and why is that funding being maintained? Are there that many benevolent patrons of the democratic (lowercase d) process? Or is there something to be gained, which otherwise would not have been? If it's all beneficial to the people that cast their votes... why the financial "incentives"?

Re:"The US Government Wants..."

[cthulhu11]

The bullshit anachronism of the electoral college prevents that.

Sudden outbreak of commen sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents have gone amok.

Awesome!

[Ol Olsoc]

I can hardly wait to buy all of the new parts to restore my 1925 Atwater Kent Tube Radio.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has said spare parts need to be made available forever

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can probably find the parts or reasonable substitutes. Mechanical parts would be the most troublesome, but even a lot of that can be minted fresh by a machinist for a modest fee.

In fact, it is probably easier to fix your 1925 Atwater Kent than it is to fix your Samsung TV or iPhone.

Re:Awesome!

[gl4ss]

your tube radio is likely to have parts available that can be used and it likely has the schematic inside it to fix it.

now if a resistor on the charge circuit on your apple board goes bad you're much more screwed over since there is no schematic available and apple is actively trying all it can to hide what is broken with it and is trying to make it so that if it has an unauthorized fix it will brick itself. ..and also trying to make it illegal to break the encryption on the parts drm, to have a stranglehold on replacement parts(and guess what, they are not selling them! ). the official repair prices being so high anyways that it makes more sense to buy a new device instead.

and it does kinda matter when the same company denies warranty on the basis that you left a window open on a rainy day.

Re:Awesome!

[TheRaven64]

More seriously, this is meaningless for any consumer electronics that depend on software without an unlockable bootloader. The major requirement that I'd love to see is that vendors must release a tool to unlock bootloaders and documentation for all hardware once they stop providing security updates. Any iPhone older than an iPhone 5 is now effectively useless - you can't safely use it connected to a network and you can't install a third-party OS on it. My partner has a Nokia Lumina 1020 from 2013, which still has pretty decent hardware in comparison to midrange modern phone (and a better camera than I've found on any other device), but it runs Windows Phone 8.1 and there's no way of installing anything else on it. In contrast, my cheap (first-gen) Moto G is happily getting software updates from LineageOS, long after the original vendor stopped caring about it.

Re:Awesome!

[sudon't]

I can hardly wait to buy all of the new parts to restore my 1925 Atwater Kent Tube Radio.

Luckily, they’re all easily available. That’s the beauty of tube equipment. My 1962 McIntosh preamp is still going strong, but I can’t imagine any electronics made recently will still work in fifty years. Or ten.
This whole notion that you don’t own the stuff you buy needs to die.

Re:Awesome!

[Ol Olsoc]

No one has said spare parts need to be made available forever

Fucking liberals are preventing me from fixing my Atwater Kent! We need those aprea parts and we need them now!

Re:Awesome!

[Ol Olsoc]

You can probably find the parts or reasonable substitutes. Mechanical parts would be the most troublesome, but even a lot of that can be minted fresh by a machinist for a modest fee.

In fact, it is probably easier to fix your 1925 Atwater Kent than it is to fix your Samsung TV or iPhone.

Right - but you do know I'm just having a bit of fun here.

Re:Awesome!

[Ol Olsoc]

now if a resistor on the charge circuit on your apple board goes bad you're much more screwed over since there is no schematic available and apple is actively trying all it can to hide what is broken with it and is trying to make it so that if it has an unauthorized fix it will brick itself.

Well fortunately, Android phones are all fixable, and have been since the first phone.

It is a question of what you want. And the solution is illustrated by my silly example of the Atwater Kent.

The Atwater Kent uses seriously large components, and if hard pressed, I can make a lot of them - there are even some intrepid makers who are producing vacuum tubes in their shops.

But there is a big catch in there. The Atwater Kent is pretty big. A large part of that is because of those big replaceable parts.

So if we are to make that iPhone or Android smartphone repairable, we're going to have to do something about the construction. Not all that many folks are equipped with SMT repair setups, and even though I have the microscope and super tiny soldering devices, the component size and density in a phone makes the job so daunting I would only attempt it if my life depended on it.

Next up is troubleshooting. If we are going to find and repair these things at the component level, it will take time. Which is charged out. We are decades into the concept of swapping out whole assemblies because it's less expensive than the repair process. So now we have one board in a phone and many other modern devices.

So with making the modern smartphone at best the size of the old bag phones, and the extremely limited number of people who are going to repair individual components at the SMT level, yeah, I'd just as soon get a new phone.

Re:Awesome!

[thinkwaitfast]

I used to write bootloaders for various OS's and hardware. Once you have access to this, you own the system. What will this do to security?

Re:Awesome!

[Grishnakh]

Oh please, have you tried repairing a modern smartphone? A lot of things in them are quite repairable, if you can get it open. Opening my Galaxy S5 (and previous S4) was easy because the back popped right off, so getting to the internals was pretty simple with a jeweler's screwdriver and my fingernail. There's tons of repair parts available on Ebay for these phones for dirt-cheap prices. Did the USB jack get messed up? No problem, you can get a new board with that for a few dollars and pop it in. Camera go bad? That's more expensive, but still it's easily replaced. And of course the batteries on these phones are trivially replaced.

What we really need is a law banning consumer devices that are glued shut. You may have to replace an entire PCB in these devices, but with aftermarket parts available cheaply, that's really not that bad, and certainly beats replacing the entire device.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch. Ok. That confirms what my friends are always telling me: "Chill. You are too serious. Lighten up!"

Re:Awesome!

[TheRaven64]

You can still require the OS to be signed, just provide a mechanism to sign it for a device that you own, once it's no longer receiving security updates. As part of the unlocking process, you install a new signing key generated for that user.

Re:Awesome!

[Ol Olsoc]

Ouch. Ok. That confirms what my friends are always telling me: "Chill. You are too serious. Lighten up!"

We all fall prey at times. For me the repairable issue is where it stops at. Least common denominator stuff. I'm pretty good at repairing things like smartphones and imacs. Some folks are better than me, some worse, and some shouldn't be allowed to use hand tools. And the software side is tricky as well - I certainly like restoring older computers with Linux, and wouldn't mind that approach with phones. But then there are the aging batteries. Not a simple thing this concept.

But the hour is late, and if I don't stop typing, my stuff will be incomprehensible.

/Part/ of the Government

[Gravis Zero]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, only part of the US government wants this. The part that makes the laws only wants to change this if they are getting an incentive to do so. If it doesn't promote their ability for reelection or directly impact them then congress really isn't interested. That's the harsh reality of the current state of our legislature.

Re:/Part/ of the Government

[Anonymous Coward]

If voters start making it abundantly clear that their rep's choices on these kinds of issues are exactly how they will determine whether or not to re-elect said reps, then the reps might just fall in line.

Or you can be another one of those "it'll never happen so I won't bother voting at all" dipshits.

CAPTCHA: unless

Re:/Part/ of the Government

[silentcoder]

Trouble is - there are so many issues and people have different priorities. Those 24-million odd people about to lose their healthcare, they may be unwilling to vote for a representative who supported that abomination. If those representatives were in favour of a right-to-repair law (I can't say what the overlap is - but assume it's non-zero and if there's a partisan split and the democrats take teh wrong side on this one it will be all of them), then do you really think they are going to value 'fixing an iphone' over 'getting the insulin that keeps me alive' ?
Because I can't blame them if they don't.

One problem with representative democracy is that every vote requires compromises. You'll never have a representative who agrees with you on everything, so you have to vote for the one who agrees with you on the things you consider most important.

Things like this, unfortunately, though very important - are simply less important to people than life-and-death things like healthcare.
Now in a saner system (as is found most places outside America) these life and death things aren't really political questions - it's just done, universal healthcare is just plain how it is - you'll be hard pressed to find a politician who does NOT support that.
But in the USA - your vote usually involves quite a lot of policies that will determine your very ability to survive, as a result - you vote on those issues, everyone of hte policies that OUGHT to be what determines elections (like this) end up lower priority for the voters.
And that leaves it up to the group who don't have to worry about survival to sway politicians on these issues -corporations and lobbyists. On these issues, they basically act unopposed.

More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

This will hurt Microsoft with their epxoy-sealed Surfaces and all of the Apple products that can't be repaired by end-users. The Republicans are anti-tech as proved by their demand that we be allowed to repair our own devices.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

This. He wants to hurt Apple and Microsoft.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans have always stood for protecting American jobs over common sense. My Surface I had to throw in the trash last week protected jobs.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

My company had to throw away almost 600 Surfaces this year since they're unrepairable. That protects jobs. Trump hatefully stands against that waste.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump supports Microsoft woth their devices that can't be repaired.

Re:More proof Trump hates tech

[viperidaenz]

this has nothing to do with glued together devices.
It's the copyright office saying they want to to be clear that hacking the software on your device to repair it doesn't violate copyright, even if you have to hack the DRM.

It's more to do with Apple's "Error 53"

Re:More proof Trump hates tech

[Darinbob]

Except that there is no clear precedent that a statement from the copyright office can override the DMCA. That's why a law to this effect would be useful even if the copyright office says it isn't.

Re:More proof Trump hates tech

[viperidaenz]

There is a law that allows the Library of Congress to make exceptions to the DMCA prohibition on circumventing access controls
It's called "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)"

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Opportunist]

He's really trying hard to appear likable.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[Opportunist]

That protects jobs in China. Repair shops in the US would create jobs in the US.

Re: More proof Trump hates tech

[thinkwaitfast]

At one job I had, sending boards to technicians for repair or modification cost thousands of dollars for single chip repairs on a 20cm x 20cm sbc.

Re:More proof Trump hates tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be clear: epoxy used to prevent maintenance is a totally different thing than law being used to prevent maintenance. With Surface, the decision is easy: just say no. Don't buy the crap, and that's particularly easy to do, when they help you by having it look like unmaintainable crap.

The problem is when you buy apparently-good hardware, and a lawyer attacks someone who makes a tool you were going to use to maintain it, or attacks someone who talks about how to maintain it, or (less commonly) attacks you directly for trying to maintain it. And you wanna hit this guy in the face, but he has the fucking government behind him. I'm sorry, but that's a lot worse than some fuckwit stuck with a Surface. We need to repeal (or neuter) DMCA way more than we'd need to, say, point a gun at manufacturers and tell them they're not allowed to build epoxy-sealed shit.

Right now, the government is against us. Everyone should be happy at the thought of trying to get them back to a neutral (pre-1997-like) position. Don't worry about getting the on our side. Neutrality would be enough. Let's lose an enemy, and worry about gaining a friend way down the road, if at all.

Re:More proof Trump hates tech

[Darinbob]

True, but that's not the USPTO, and we know how well the government departments fail to work together...

Government does not want

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

This. If anything, this statement just brings the PTO to his attention, so doing something about it will now be on the to-do list. Until now, T probably hasn't even been aware that the PTO exists, except when registering the latest trademark variation on the T-word.

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

By "Black Guy"? Do you mean George Soros? Good. Let's undo anything George Soros did. He's a deranged psychopath that wants to start civil wars all over western civilization.

I'm not sure Trump would be against repair laws. Let's wait and see.

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh thank god, for a second I thought Trump might not be UltraTurboHitler after all. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE RESOLVED! #Resist #NotMyPresident #ImWithHer #Inpeach

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

You know who the fuck he's talking about. Soros has nothing to do with this conversation unless you got some evidence to link regarding right to repair laws. Nuking the peasants is another discussion. Stop diverting.

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

>T

I thought "Drumpf" was the standard variation used by people so overwhelmed by spite and resentment that they can't bring themselves to utter the man's actual name.

(And for those for whom "Drumpf" is still too close for comfort, something along the lines of "The Orange Small-handed Orange Russian Orange Fascist Racist Sexist Homophobic Islamophobic Transphobic Everythingelsephobic Orange Baboon.")

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

#YAWN

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

"The OShOROFRSHITEOB" has a nice rig to it.

Re:Government does not want

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you retarded bluepilled fool. Soros is completely behind this with his cabal. His money corrupts Boards of Directors as easily as it buys the services of Antifa protestors, all to degrade American society. Do you think corporations really give a fucking shit about diversity, green products, or the climate change fantasy? They will resist the "right to repair" with just as much peculiar force.

Re:Government does not want

[silentcoder]

Erm. Drumpf IS his actual family name.

Though my personal pet theory is that Fred Drumpf had his name legally changed in Germany before emigrating. You know, like all the Hitler family members did.

Re:Government does not want

[silentcoder]

Dude lay off the infowars, that shit will rot your brain.

On the other hand, perhaps the damage is done and you personally have nothing left to lose...

Re:Government does not want

[eddeye]

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.

You are confused. USPTO and CO (Copyright Office) are separate entities. USPTO is executive branch, CO is legislative branch (it falls under Library of Congress).

Michelle Lee (USPTO) has nothing to do with this directive. It comes from the CO. Maria Pallante was the Registrar of Copyrights until she was let go late last year. Karyn Temple Claggett is the current acting head of the CO until a replacement is appointed. She is not an Obama "appointee" because her previous position is not confirmed by the Senate. She is an ordinary employee of CO who is temporarily serving as the head.

USPTO does have copyright attorneys who advise on copyright policy. The USPTO may have provided public comments on this proposed policy, as many members of the public do. USPTO may have even endorsed this policy. But USPTO has no official standing to do anything here. This is pure CO territory.

tl;dr - Karen Claggett didn't sign anything prepared by Michelle Lee. They head different agencies in different branches of govt.

Re:Government does not want

[PopeRatzo]

+1 informative. Thank you for the correction.

ifixit.com one post, 30+ thanks

[Trax3001BBS]

I've posted one post to https://www.ifixit.com/ and every month I get 30+ thanks for it (all one e-mail).

It was how to get an Acer Switcher (tablet attached to keyboard) to work. You take off the bottom and disconnect the connection to the battery, reconnect and good to go.

Shush,keep it quiet

[gurps_npc]

Trump will kill this, but only if someone tells him about it. It's not something that he cares about, and it hasn't been heavily politicized, so it is not likely for one of his aids to mention it.

  If we stay quiet, he probably will not be aware of this happening until after the agency passes it's rules.

Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

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]

Re:Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

That is just racist and sexist and homophobic and causes global warming and, and, and, and er and you're just a big poopy head!!!!!

Re:Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this really affects Google, Amazon or Facebook, though I'm sure Apple would be against it.

It is more companies like Lexmark, John Deere, Ford (though they've already been cut out with right to repair autos), etc.

Re:Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I have no idea why you said "high tech". This is about Deere & Co, which gave almost 3x as much to Republicans. So, get real about "honest" if you mean that.

Re:Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

How about literally the first company listed in the summary: John Deere.

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates $766,250 (26% to Democrats, 74% to Republicans)
Source: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00204099

Re:Clearly, you spent the past decade in a coma

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not Facebook, but both Google and Amazon make electronic products that they definitely don't want you able to repair or continue use of after the software is out of support. They will definitely be against this.

Ship of Theseus?

[khchung]

So, where do you draw the line?

Widget X comes with a free network service where all Widget X users can do certain things. The service is included in the price of Widget X.

I have the "right to repair" Widget X, so I "repair" my Widget X one part at a time, Ship of Theseus style, until no original component is left. All the original components now put back together to form the original Widget X.

Now I have 2 Widget X, an extra one for the cost of materials only, should the extra one enjoy the free network service?

If yes, then what's stopping me from selling, er, SHARING, the extra widget to you at a price cheaper than the original Widget X and make a nice profit?

If no, then where do you draw the line?

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[WolfgangVL]

The line has been clearly drawn since the first caveman traded his rock for a sharpened stick.

"If you trade for MY sharpened stick, you can harden it at my big fire for free, for the life of your stick."

If you wanna bundle value added services on your sharpened stick, and trade for my two rocks instead of just my one, just remember, you don't control my stick anymore, it's MINE. If I can come up with a way to take advantage of your value added stick services for the 2 smaller sticks I made by "hacking" my stick, well, you should have thought out your value added plans a little more than you did.

You don't get to tell me what I can and cannot do with my stick(s) unless you give me back my rocks, and if I'm happier with my sticks than I was with my rocks? Tough shit for you. You also don't get to control what fire I choose to use to harden my sticks, or who can re-sharpen them. Even if I've used your fire a few times before.

If you slot your stick for just the perfect rock, I'm still allowed to put my own rock on the top, even if your rock is just the best rock out there for sticks. You don't have to sell me your rocks, but you absolutely do not get to dictate what rocks I choose to use.

Cavemen figured this shit out a long time ago.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Bite The Pillow]

Right to repair clearly does not include right to access services without paying. If there's no DRM, there's no way to enforce it. If there is, you can break DRM to fix it, but not to access unpaid service.

And no, a thing you built yourself is not "broken" just because it can't access a service for free. Not even the original that you shipped of theseused into not working intentionally.

Go back to the drawing board and read a lot more before being ignorant on the internet again.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Opportunist]

Simple. There is some part that deals with the networking. And only one such part will be acknowledged by the other end of your network as being "yours". If you need to replace that part, you have to inform the other end of your contract that this is now the part that should be allowed on their network and immediately the other one ceases to work.

That was easy. Try a more difficult one.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Anonymous Coward]

All one would have to do is make sure that the sum of the parts costs more than the whole.
Wanna built your own Widget? The parts will cost you 125% of the price of a widget.
It's why I can't go to NAPA and build a car for the price I can buy it off the lot, and I'm putting in "Free" labor.

Captcha is Persist...

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Right to repair clearly does not include right to access services without paying."

Uhh, my Kindle advertised lifetime 3G global access, FREE, so yes, I sure as fuck do have that right. You might not but I most certainly do, so don't you go trying to say that I don't have such a right.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[khchung]

So now you no longer have the "right to repair" that special part. Special part breaks, you lose the network service.

Just watch and wait for that "special part" get integrated into a big lump that became 90% of Widget X, you now only have the "right to repair" the case, if that much.

Next up, all new widgets now come with critical functions requiring the network service to work. Enjoy your "right to repair" the case.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that we only used car analogies here? Your rock and stick analogy is confusing.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Sloppy]

Widget X comes with a free network service

TANSTAAFL. It's shady offer, like a buffet or unmetered internet. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad but everyone needs to be looking at stuff like that as shady and exceptional. I'm not sure I care much which side government policy favors, in the conflict that such a deal will inevitably create.

Yes, I'm actually bothering to reply to a question with "I don't care." Wait! This doesn't necessarily make me an asshole. (I was an assole long before I replied, ha ha.) My point is that there are way easier and black-and-white situations where right to repair really matters. Let's not dwell on buffet-like examples, where the premise is that the customer is going to scam the scammer. ("If I pay to get into the buffet, and then I undergo mitosis while I'm in the restaurant, do my two descendants get to eat?")

If I had to pick a side (if "fuck you both" wasn't accepted), then...

I think policies shouldn't be doing anything to encourage unmetered stuff. Unmetered stuff is all about putting the two parties into zero-sum conflict where they're each hoping the other side mis-estimates what's going to happen. That's not a healthy situation; it's not the kind of economic activity that lifts all ships. (There's always going to be a loser, and I like transactions where both sides win.)

The vendor probably has more information, and therefore an advantage, over the customer. The vendor is initiating the shady deal. The customer does consent and therefore becomes party to the "crime" (ok, that's too strong a word, I'll admit) but they were led there. Therefore, if I had to pick a side, I'd make policy work against the vendor's interests. Yes, your two Widget Xs should get free service. Not because it's fair (it's not!), but to encourage companies to stop trying to scam the public with shit like Widget X. Decouple services from devices. (To be a little hyperbolic: "Free" things suck because we know they're not free, and the people who offer them are fucking liars and we should take pleasure in their misfortune.) If you happen to be getting good use out of yours, it's only because someone else got ripped off and their Widget X is in a landfill, not using the service that they paid for.

Again, that's if I had to pick sides. I hate the example, though, and right to repair is far bigger and is relevant in a much wider selection of transactions.

Re:Ship of Theseus?

[Opportunist]

Ok, maybe I didn't write it clearly enough: Your contract is tied to this part. Replace the part, tell your carrier that your new part has this or that serial number, MAC address or whatever way it is identified and the old part ceases to work with your contract while the new part is what your contract is tied to now.

And yes, we will very likely not be able to replace capacitors and resistors but instead get to replace modules. Because even I, who happens to have the equipment to do it, don't really like replacing 0402 SMD parts.

first 4ost

[Anonymous Coward]

und3R the GPL.

What about Cable devices?

[jennatalia]

For years they were illegal and now we open up the pipe!

Lenovo Thinkpad BIOS Whitelists

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if/how this will affect the BIOS whitelists for e.g. wireless cards in Lenovo Thinkpads? That's been a major source of annoyance for me and many others over the years...

Cake

[Anonymous Coward]

If this ends up being a thing, I'm sending them a cake.

Media cartles own teh democrats

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's been pushing the most for DRM? Oh, that's right, the media cartels that own the DNC. Who else is focused on DRM to protect their walled garden? Oh yeah, Apple, whic buys democrats ... hmm, your theory doesn't follow the facts.

Waaaait, where's the catch?

[Opportunist]

We're talking about the US government here. The same government whose very reason to exist is to screw the population over and enable corporations to increase their profits infinitely.

timeo danaos et dona ferentes.

Welp...easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Manufacturers will just make it night impossible to get into things. Sure, you have a right to repair it, but there's nothing saying they have to make it easy.

As far as being able to "hack" software - good luck with that.

Re:Welp...easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Had a signal converter thing once that stopped working.
Took it apart to see if maybe something could be repaired.
After getting into the case, which was glued with no screws found everything inside was encased in a block of hard plastic material.
I chipped away at that block of plastic, which tool a long time only to discover all the parts, had their ID markings removed.
Resisters, caps, transisters and everything wipped clean.
No company phone, no address, no schematic.
I wouldn't ever buy from that manfacturer again, if only there was a way to know who it was.
It became another item in the land fill.

AH HA: Apple's User License Agreement Weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Ink's legal team to the rescue! Apple's fabled User License Agreement, i.e. the License that states Apple retains ownership of all Apple hardware and software products and the money the "User" pays is just for the "License To Use" NOT "own" will be quickly copied across the industry.

Thus, when someone takes an Apple product to any "store" for any "repair" the police will quickly show up and arrest the guilty "User".

Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[Charcharodon]

This is rapidly becoming a non-issue for the maker/repairer types. Most things are repairable, what they are not are easily repairable. The only relief we need from the government is to roll back excessive copyright and patent protections so the public can develop their own methods for repairing things without corporations coming in and shutting it down. After that its just a matter of NEVER buying a smart phone again that can't be opened and parts replaced, if that is what you want.

I would pay for a smart device that was 100% non-repairable, but it better be under a $100, fairly indestructible, and water proof down to 200ft so I can take it with me scuba diving.

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[apoc.famine]

Your hands wouldn't be cold if it was a Note 7....

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[Grishnakh]

Maybe, but the Galaxy S5 is from a different era, before Samsung went down the tubes with un-openable crap starting with the S6. The S5 was the last really good Galaxy phone, and it doesn't look like there's anything coming along to replace it.

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[apoc.famine]

I had the S4 all the way into the back end of the S7 era due to reasoning like yours. The charging port finally broke, so I was forced to upgrade. Despite the glued in S7 battery, I went with it. And you know what? It's a damn good phone. Fast charge gives me hours of use after being plugged in for 15 minutes. Wireless charging is super convenient. The power management tools are fantastic, and they can stretch the battery life many times it's base amount.
 
I get more use out of one charge than I got out of 2 batteries for the S4. I spent all that time dicking around, ripping the case and back off and putting them back on, swapping batteries to charge and replace, and it turns out what I really needed was a phone with a decent battery and good power management.
 
My assumption is that a truly bad battery will get discovered while it's in the warranty period, and thus replaced or the entire unit replaced. The bathtub curve and all. And yes, at some point this battery will be holding less and less charge, but after 3-4 years, given the rate of decay for the S4 batteries, I'll probably be ready for a new phone anyway if it's not broken by then. Given how long the S4 lasted me, I should be well under $1/day in hardware costs, headed under $0.50/day by then. I can't really get too worked up about that cost, given the benefits a portable internet gives me.

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[Charcharodon]

I don't want my hands to be on fire....

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[Charcharodon]

I'm holding out for a few more battery swaps. ($10 a pop every 6-10 months). I'm waiting for something actually noticeably better than my S5. The S6/7 aren't that much better and the S8 is just silly over priced atm. Maybe the S9 or S10 will get me to part with some money.

Re:Pry my Samsung S5 from my cold dead hands

[apoc.famine]

I never had an S5, so I have no idea how much better than the S4 they are. I can say that the S7 is remarkably better than the S4. My wife's S4 is on its last legs now, and when I have to use it for something, I'm amazed at how shitty it is. It's definitely lighter, but that's the only redeeming feature compared to the S7. Battery is less than half the S7, camera is shit in comparison, screen is shit in comparison, charging time is 2-3x as long on a smaller battery, it's slower, laggier, and crashes more often under heavy load.
 
Yes, it's got a removable battery. She goes through 2 of them while I run down my glued in one. And if I get 15 minutes of the car charger, I can outlast 3 of her batteries. Even if she gets a similar 15 min.
 
I honestly thought that I'd hate this glued in battery. I was 100% against it. Now I'm kicking myself for not changing up earlier. Charging and swapping batteries and carrying spares is a giant waste of time, and a pain in the ass. I bet you'd do OK with a S7.

Thank you Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

America is going to be great again.

Direct Democracy

[DrYak]

Nobody tell him Santa doesn't exist!

Or that Santa is Swiss.

(Switzerland is one of the few direct democracies, i.e.: where the general population has the final say on nearly anything - as mentioned by the above poster).

Flyover states

[Rastl]

The biggest push for this is in the flyover states. Farmers are raising a major fuss over not being able to repair their own equipment. The software doesn't allow them to replace anything without the vendor showing up and telling the software it's all OK.

Unfortunately this is in the flyover states. Since they're not deep pockets and/or high profile they don't get the same level of attention. People don't think about farms - food comes from the grocery store.

As much as I hate lobbyists I hope they can hire some good ones to make the necessary deals to support the patent office in this odd outbreak of common sense.

Re:Flyover states

[Grishnakh]

Funny that it's the conservatives in the flyover states whining about this. Aren't they the ones that vote for the "free market", pro-deregulation Republicans? And they're whining for a "Big Government (tm)" law to regulate these companies so they can repair their junk?

I don't have much sympathy. They should stop buying John Deere junk if they don't like being treated this way.

Re:Flyover states

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't they the ones that vote for the "free market"

What?

You are incoherent.

In a free market there would be no laws preventing you from repairing products you own, or from sharing information and selling parts and materials for repairing those products.

It is exactly bad regulation from government that has allowed companies like John Deere to carve out a monopoly on repairing their products, by threatening third party repairers and parts vendors with DMCA suits.

The DMCA *IS* government regulation, how do you not understand that. When someone sends a DMCA notice to another someone, it's not "free market deregulation", it's them threatening to sic government regulation on them.

I don't have much sympathy. They should stop buying John Deere junk if they don't like being treated this way.

Well yes. Both New Holland and CASE IH have came out against John Deere's shady business practices and promised not to abuse badly conceived government regulations against their customers. The point is, companies shouldn't be able to leverage the government to enforce their shady business practices in the first place.

But, in the end, if the current regulations stand, it's not going to be John Deere brutally oppressing you when you repair your Tractor, it will be government thugs from ICE dragging you from your farm in hand cuffs. This isn't hypothetical. Already people who run 3rd party Apple repair centers have been raided by ICE and dragged out in hand cuffs for daring to tell people how to repair an iphone.

About Time but..

[evolutionary]

I have a weird feeling the Trump team of corporate rubber stamps will try to stop this.

The US Gov't has good reasons ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to advocate for the right to repair: If it is in place, they can replace fingerprint scanners on smartphones at will, and reads the contents of the phone. As long as companies such as apple hold a monopoly on replacing fingerprint scanners, they can refuse to do so for anyone but the owner of the phone.
IMO, this is the actual discussion, and it's not about consumer rights, citizen's rights, or any other such namby-pamby at all.

because

[Anonymous Coward]

most of the fights over "right to repair" over the past decade or more have been with the tech giants like Apple. Yes,John Deere is involved here - but primarily over their new high tech (not meaning spaceships high tech, just not pumps-and-pulleys tech) add-ons to their products (engine controllers etc)

I this rather unique situation, the company involved in the "right to repair" is NOT Apple or some other consumer electronics maker based in Silicon Valley - but the earlier poster was trying to argue that the Republicans are the party that is in bed with all the big powerful rich companies and does their bidding accordignly. In the real world, however, the Democrats are far more tightly tied to the super-ruch and powerful mega corporations (just look at all the campaign cash that GUSHED into the Obama and Clinton campaigns from those firms (generally their execs and employees and lobbyists etc). It's just like the assumption that the GOP gets all the money from the big Wall St banks - which is a similarly false narrative disproven rather shockingly by the Obama and Clinton campaign finance reports of 2008, 2012, and 2016.

It's the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

As manufacturing techniques become more automated, the ability to repair electronics will soon require expensive, specialized equipment.
Did Microsoft do a naughty in making their new tablet essentially impossible to repair? In spite of the strong bias I have against them, I have to say that they are only taking the path that will soon define the future.
So: Lawyers: Better rush to get money out of this issue before it disappears.