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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.
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.
My first thought was trump hasn't corrupted this office yet.
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.
Patents have gone amok.
Oh, you're one of those jackoffs...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I can hardly wait to buy all of the new parts to restore my 1925 Atwater Kent Tube Radio.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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"
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]
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?
Oliver.
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.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hey, if we're playing fantasy games, might as well imagine Jill Stein isn't a complete fucking loon.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I voted for Pedro.
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.
Aww, please tell me you really believe that. That's so adorable.
Nobody tell him Santa doesn't exist!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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)"
He's really trying hard to appear likable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That protects jobs in China. Repair shops in the US would create jobs in the US.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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.
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
I have a weird feeling the Trump team of corporate rubber stamps will try to stop this.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
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.
Cute. No please, continue misidentifying the problem. It's gotten us so far already.
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"?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
True, but that's not the USPTO, and we know how well the government departments fail to work together...
The bullshit anachronism of the electoral college prevents that.