User:Thunder75564/Right to repair

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Right to repair is a legal right for owners of devices and equipment to freely modify and repair products such as automobiles, electronics, and farm equipment. Right to repair may also refer to the social movement of citizens putting pressure on their governments to enact laws protecting a right to repair.

Common obstacles companies use to prevent repair include: requirements to use only the manufacturer's maintenance services, restrictions on access to tools and components, and software barriers.

Proponents for this right point to the benefits in affordability, sustainability, and availability of critical supplies in times of crisis.

Impacts

While initially driven majorly by automotive consumers protection agencies and the automotive after sales service industry, the discussion of establishing a right to repair not only for vehicles but for any kind of electronic product gained traction as consumer electronics such as smartphones and computers became universally available causing broken and used electronics to become the fastest growing waste stream. Today it's estimated that more than half of the population of the western world has one or more used or broken electronic devices at home that are not introduced back into the market due to a lack of affordable repair.

In addition to the consumer goods, healthcare equipment repair access made news at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when hospitals had trouble getting maintenance for some critical high-demand medical equipment, most notably ventilators.

The pandemic has also been credited with helping to grow the right-to-repair movement since many repair shops were closed. The Economist also cites the expectation that owners of products should be able to repair them as a sense of moral justice or property rights. Those fighting against planned obsolescence have also taken note of when repair costs exceeds replacement costs because the companies that created the product have retained a monopoly on its repair, driving up prices.

Major events concerning the "Right to Repair" movement since 2000

Year	Events	Description	Notes
2012	Automotive right to repair passed in Massachusetts	Requires manufacturers to provide vehicle owners and independent repair shops with access to the same diagnostic and repair information as dealers and authorized repair shops.	The first automotive right to repair act in the U.S.
2014	Bill passes in the US to allow for phone unlocking	Enables consumers to unlock their cell phones in order to take them to a carrier that best suits their needs.	Forces mobile operators to unlock cell phones
2015	Library of Congress ruled in favor of repair-related exemption in DMCA	Broad protections for consumer devices that rely on copyrighted software to function.	DMCA act copy protection circumvention exemption for repairs
2021	France created repairability index	A rating from 1-10 providing a value for how repairable a device is.	First government to do so, modeled on iFixit's scorecard.
2021	U.K. Right to Repair law in effect	Requires manufacturers provide repair information and spare parts available for repairs for up to ten years for certain new white goods and televisions.	Electronic appliance manufacturers required to be able to provide consumers with spare parts for "simple and safe" repairs and to make complex parts available to repair shops.
2022	New York enacts the Digital Fair Repair Act	Requires original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make diagnostic and repair information for digital electronic parts and equipment available to independent repair providers and consumers.	First state in the U.S. to enact a Right to Repair law covering consumer electronics
2023	Colorado enacts the Consumer Right To Repair Agricultural Equipment Act	Requires agricultural equipment manufacturers to provide owners or independent repair providers with the resources and information to repair their equipment.	First state in the U.S. to enact a Right to Repair law covering farming equipment
2023	Minnesota's Digital Fair Repair Act passed	Requires manufactures of certain electronic products to make documentation, parts, and tools for diagnosis, maintenance, or repair available to independent repair providers and consumers.	It is the first right-to-repair law to address home appliances; the Verge called it 'groundbreaking'
2023	California enacts a Right to Repair Act	Requires that manufacturers of electronic and/or appliance products provide documentation, parts, and tools to owners, service and repair facilities, and service dealers for diagnostics and repair.	Engadget believes this bill will be the model for future federal legislation.
2024	European Union adopted a set of right-to-repair rules	Aims to make it easier and more cost-effective for consumers to repair their goods.	The rules are not yet finalized as they must be adopted by member states and approved by the Council. They seek to incentivize repair instead of replacement for consumer devices.
2024	Oregon bans parts pairing starting in 2025	Prohibits a practice known as “parts pairing,” which can be used to block consumers from installing certain parts.	The first law to do so according to WIRED
2024	Colorado passes Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment	Expands the scope of the right-to-repair statutes to include digital electronic equipment manufactured and sold or used for the first time in Colorado on or after July 1, 202.	"...most comprehensive right to repair bill in the country"

Transparency

Manuals and design schematics should be freely available and help consumers know how to repair their devices.

Example of a law addressing different aspects of repairability

Aspect of repairability	Scope	Jurisdiction
Repairability Index		France
Standardized parts	USB-C	European Union
Parts pairing		Oregon
3rd-party software allowed
Software update support
Sell spare parts
Tools needed to make repairs can be found easily
Manuals and design schematic freely available

History

The strategy to continuously change products to create continuous demand for the latest generation was pursued at a large scale by General Motors executive Alfred P. Sloan. GM overtook Ford as the biggest American automaker and planned obsolescence with annual variants of a product became widely adopted across industries in the American economy, eventually becoming adopted by Ford by 1933.

The car industry was at the forefront of establishing the concept of certified repair: starting from the 1910s, Ford established certified dealerships and service networks to promote parts made by Ford instead of independent repair shops and often after-sales parts. Ford also pushed for standardized pricing among certified repair shops, making flat fees mandatory even for different repairs. The combination of annual updates to cars and components made it more difficult for independent repair shops to maintain a stock of parts.

In 1947, a business owner was refurbishing old spark plugs and reselling them. However, he was reselling them under a trademarked name. This led to a lawsuit that provided the framework for legislation that would provide a right to resell repaired or refurbished items, as long as they were labelled correctly.

Champion Spark Plug Co. v. Sanders provided the basis of FTC guidelines which provides an uninfringeable right to resell repaired or refurbished items as long as they were labeled as such. The decision also provided the framework for trademark guidelines regarding the resale of used goods under a trademarked namesake.

FTC guidelines Title 16, Chapter I, Subchapter B, Part 20 provides guidance and regulations on the labeling of items that have been “rebuilt”, “refurbished”, or “re-manufactured” in order to prevent unfair competitive advantage in selling components in the automobile industry. This guideline hence allowed businesses the ability to repair items, for resale later.

In the consumer electronics industry, some manufacturers shifted towards more repairable designs. Apple, which rose quickly to become one of the largest computer manufacturers, sold the first computers with circuit board descriptions, easy-to-swap components, and clear repair instructions.

Copyright with regard to computer software source code also became a front on the limitation of repairability. In the U.S., the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 prohibits repairs unless granted an exception, and has been used to block repairs as software became more common in a range of devices and appliances.

To prevent refilling of empty ink cartridges, manufacturers had started placing microchips counting fill levels and usage, rendering refills difficult or impossible. Reselling and refurbishing products was confirmed to be legal by the Supreme Court in 2017 in Impression Prods., Inc. v. Lexmark Int'l, Inc.. As of 2022, complaints about the longevity and repairability of printers remains.

Enacted legislation

United States

State legislation

State	Law	Bill	Effective date
California	PRC § 42488–42488.3	2023–24 SB 244	July 1, 2024
Colorado	C.R.S. § 6-1-1501 – 6-1-1505	HB23-1011	January 1, 2024
		HB24-1121	January 1, 2026
Massachusetts		Automotive Right to Repair
		2020 Massachusetts Question 1	TBD
Minnesota	MN Stat. § 325E.72	2023 SF 2744	July 1, 2024
New York		Digital Fair Repair Act	July 1, 2023
Oregon	TBD	2024 SB 1596	July 1, 2027

European Union

Adopted on May 30, 2024 the European Union's Right to Repair Directive (R2RD) requires manufacturers to offer repair services that are both efficient and affordable, while also making sure consumers are aware of their repair rights. Previously, the right to repair in the EU was regulated by the Sale of Goods Directive and the different product-specific Commission Regulations provided under the Ecodesign Directive.

References

¹ Champion Spark Plug Co. v. Sanders, 331 U.S. 125 (1947)