Oregon’s governor signs right-to-repair law that bans “parts pairing”
It’s the strongest right-to-repair law passed so far.
Fuck yeah, and fuck any company that does that shit
I.e. Apple
There are others. Apple wasn’t the first, nor the last, but they were the most notorious for sure.
Agreed. But other companies like Samsung and Google that dunked on Apple for their shitty practices, then completely adopt them a few generations later are fucking pathetic.
Samsung
I bought a brother printer model J1010DW because it's brother, right? Also it was the cheapest brother printer in stock locally around the time I was sick & tired of detouring to the print shop.
The color cartridges still have tons of ink swashing in them, but the printer won't even print in b&w because it detects the other cartridges as empty. So I try the tape-over-the-ink-window method, and my printer says, HMM, I GUESS THERE'S INK NOW, BUT THESE MUST NOT BE BROTHER PRINTER CARTRIDGES, HURR DURR, and makes itself an overweight scanner.
I have a canon printer that I buy from Walmart (yes, I said buy, not bought). Every time the ink runs out, I'd go buy a whole printer. Printer is $27 and the ink is $35. I don't really print much, so whatever little print they give with the new printer lasts me for a long time. I'm thinking of just buying a laser one and call it a day since it never dries and it prints up 1500 papers per cartridge.
Sony
Some products — like devices powered by combustion engines, medical equipment, farming equipment, HVAC equipment, video game consoles, and energy storage systems — are excluded from Oregon’s rules entirely.
It's interesting to me that Game Consoles get an exception... Not sure whats up there, other than straight up bribery lobbying.
HVAC makes sense when you consider environmental concerns (some refrigerants are really terrible pollutants).
Medical equipment, particularly equipment in public health care should be held to high standards. Authorized, properly trained repair; peoples lives depend on it.
Energy storage when attached to public infrastructure (you back-feeding the grid) can be a saftey concern for workers and the supply/load needs to be balanced to prevent damaging that infrastructure and other private equipment attached to it. Not sure preventing repair is the right move here; you can still buy and install new without oversight. Perhaps it's again a saftey concern (for the person performing repair).
Vehicles, farming or otherwise, I'm on the fence about; there's an argument to be made for public saftey/roadworthness, but I'm not sure that's enough of an argument to prevent home-repair. Again seems more to do with lobbying than anything else.
John Deere probably bribed lobbied hard for that carve out. It was their practices that helped drive the right to repair movement. Giving them a pass really diminishes the accomplishment.
Smaller farms are going to get screwed over with all the fees and mandatory maintenance that can be imposed.
Everyone gets angry about printers needing a debit card on file but manufacturers like John Deere do similar stuff. If they think you've tinkered with it, they can disable the equipment remotely.
Cars have been home repaired since cars existed. It has never been a notable safety concern. Somehow it suddenly is?
It's always been a concern; just not enough of one to explicitly forbid working on a vehicle without specific training/licensing. Hence vehicle inspections/roadworthy tests; someplaces more strictly than others.
It's possible that concern was part of the justification for not requiring manufacturers to make it easier. Spitballing.
As I said, I'm on the fence about it myself. Thing is, a vehicle on public roads has a lot of opportunity to injure or kill someone if a repair was made incorrectly. It's about more than just a person and the thing they own.
One thing I've notice is you can't modify the software "because of safety", but breaks, fuel pipes, ignition systems, that all fine to modify!
HVAC makes no sense to me considering the only real hazard in there is the actual refrigerant gas.
unless they manage to pair the gas, im sure they would if they could
You joke but we're almost there. Refrigerants are getting more and more proprietary. I work in the industry and with the push to go to lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants manufacturers have developed their own formulas here. It varies from manufacturer to manufacturer even amongst almost identical equipment. Getting the right refrigerant will only become more and more expensive the more boutique it is. The equipment can already tell what kind of refrigerant is in there based on the system pressures and temperatures.
I work for a medical device manufacturer and you are missing a important reason for that exception. Yes human lives are on the line. In addition WE (meaning my company) are responsible for finding out why it broke and how we will prevent other devices we make from breaking.
We make a device and say it will last 10 years, 2 years later it stops. We have to replace it, We have to investigate to the best of our ability, We have to report our findings to the government, if several cases happen We need to come up with a prevention for the future dailures(or prevention if severe enough). We have entire departments for this. It is our burden not the consumer and it's our burden so we have enough evidence to determine root cause and final solution so we can prevent further failures.
As long as you offer a 10 year replacement warranty that's perfectly fine. Tandem was great about replacing my daughter's failed insulin pump.
It’s interesting to me that Game Consoles get an exception… Not sure whats up there, other than straight up bribery lobbying.
Lots and LOTS of lobbying.
Let your representative know that that is not ok with you.
There's no excuses for any of these. None.
That's rather short sighted. I just listed several.
Don't know about you: I'd rather not have the ventilator keeping grandma alive repaired by the hospitals underpaid maintenance department; but a trained technician from the company that built it.
Some things are about more than just an individuals personal liberties.
The refrigerant wouldn't have anything to do with parts pairing though. This is just the electronic components.
Parts pairing is just one piece of the puzzle; this is more broadly about access to parts, which would include proprietary refrigerants.
Didn't Apple try and class their iPhones as game consoles a couple months back?
Aside from maybe HVAC dealing with refrigerant needing a licensed tech to work on, the rest of these not being included is such a scam.
It's funny that this article doesn't mention the one company that pretty much single handedly created the need for this legislation in the first place.
Apple
HP printers?
Future Motion?
You'll notice that there is actually an insane number of companies that create the need for this.
From the article, parts pairing is “a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company’s software approves them.”
It's the practice of preventing you from even using genuine parts. If you buy two identical iPhones, you can't even use parts from one to repair the other. The one phone won't accept the genuine part from the other because it's not paired to that phone by the manufacturer's proprietary tool.
This stops theft significantly.
iPhone were one of the easiest devices to steal and sell. Even conventional anti theft measures wouldn't deter theft significantly. Because they are so popular and common stealing an iPhone just to sell parts would still be worthwhile. Making stolen iPhone parts worthless reduces incidence of theft significantly.
This is less of an issue for other manufacturers. They often have more models serving a small customer base, with significantly less retail value.
And since the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, they just put copy protection on the software (sometimes laughably weak - still counts!) and if you try to get around the hardware lockout you’re officially breaking the lawwww
Hope this applies to cars as well. Bust a taillight in your Ford and get your own replacement, you still have to have a dealer configure the integrated BLISS sensor.
Section 1, 1, 3, g, C says “This section does not: Apply to: A vehicle…”
So, probably not
From the article
Some products — like devices powered by combustion engines ... — are excluded from Oregon’s rules entirely.
Fuck that sensor. It's a made up need so I'm more dependent on the manufacturer.
Thanks for the clarification. I was being lazy and didn't read it and thought that meant apple couldn't solder the ram to the motherboard aka pairing it.
I wonder if this will apply to generic printer cartridges
won't companies respond by just saying "not for sale in Oregon? "
Let's find out together!
Do it in enough places and every won’t.
Makes attention a good market for honest business doesn't it? I'll move there.
Cutouts for farm equipment. I guess John deer got ahold of the legislature
Either that or they felt they'd lose the fight where John Deer pulls out of Oregon.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has now signed one of the strongest US right-to-repair bills into law after it passed the state legislature several weeks ago by an almost 3-to-1 margin.
Oregon’s SB 1596 will take effect next year, and, like similar laws introduced in Minnesota and California, it requires device manufacturers to allow consumers and independent electronics businesses to purchase the necessary parts and equipment required to make their own device repairs.
Oregon’s rules, however, are the first to ban “parts pairing” — a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company’s software approves them.
According to iFixit, “The exemption list is a map of the strongest anti-repair lobbies, and also of the next frontier of the movement.” However, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens also said in the statement, “By applying to most products made after 2015, this law will open up repair for the things Oregonians need to get fixed right now.
Another similarity between Oregon’s and California’s right-to-repair laws is that both push manufacturers to make any documentation, tools, parts, and software required to fix their devices available to consumers and repair shops without overcharging for them.
But while California’s law requires this support to be available for seven years after production for devices over $100, Oregon hasn’t mandated any such duration.
The original article contains 400 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Oregon W
I have no issue with security devices requiring some sort of approval (which should be made available to self service), but devices like the screen, camera, battery, buttons, memory/storage, ports, speakers, etc, should be allowed whether or not they are factory.
In the eyes of apple the screen on an iPhone would act as a security device as it contains the fingerprint sensor.
Just FYI, iPhones don't have fingerprint sensors in the screen. Older models with fingerprint sensors have a capacitive sensor in a physical home button/capacitive pad.
Newer iPhone's exclusively use FaceID for biometrics, which uses the camera array at the top of the device.
Same with the camera, and probably something can be said about the ports too.
Should apple be allowed to completely close those off though? Nah
Forget the sensors, they can say it's a security related since it can display private info and their fans would defend that. You can bet they would make some excuse for almost everything and fight for it in court.
Now we need to do this California to seal the deal.
Couldn't states go after companies under the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act instead of writing new state legislation.
We need to modify the DMCA to truly address this
We need to eliminate the DMCA. From printer ink to abandon ware to simple ownership of products we purchase, the DMCA stands in the way at every step.
Is this actually good news? What can a single state do? Shouldn't this be federal?
Special exceptions are hard to deal with when you're mass producing. That's why a fair amount of the rulings made by the European Union also end up applying to North America when it comes to international businesses.
It basically means someone like Apple has to decide between not selling in Oregon at all, making special phones for Oregon, or making all of their phones not have paired parts. It's a pretty big thorn in their side, and it would only take a few more states to join in before they really have to start committing to a solution.
A single state is still a large market to pass up, and tooling costs make it impractical to manufacture different versions of things.
Even for software, the US experiences positive externalities of the GDPR and the rest of the US does from privacy laws in California and Illinois (likely others that I don't know off the top of my head)
State laws also often serve as the prototype for federal ones.
It should be federal, but this is absolutely good news.
what kind of logic is that? A small victory is better than no victory
They can ban selling products which do it
I can't wait to get back to Oregon
Be careful what you wish for though. Electronics, and software in particular, rapidly drop in reliability as the parts stray from tightly restricted boundaries and become open to anyone. "Hey, this app crashes on my phone now." Repairing a phone too wouldn't be cheap either, you'd have to have someone soldering and resoldering a very fine circuit board. I think most people would just replace it.
This is literally nonsense fear mongering by someone who doesn't understand how electronics and electronic repair work.
You don't understand how consumer goods work
“We need to cut down the insane cycle of churning through personal electronics”
Translation: We need to slow down the pace of innovation!
I recently upgraded from an iPhone 13 to a 15 Pro Max. The innovation on this thing is incredible! There’s like an extra camera lens on it!
The innovation of DRM and Intels SGX extention is the reason no current-gen PC can play 4K Blurays in 4K.
Of course they can! You just need to download your blurays from reputable sources.
Is what they want you to think
What innovation would that be, exactly?
This has to be one of the stupidest takes ive seen. They aren't innovating, they are making it so things break after set amounts of time, you cant repair it without massive headaches and the expense of proprietary parts, so people end up basically having to buy a new device that is either the exact same or had only a few changes to it but costs more money than the original. That's not innovation, that's just a cash grab.
If it means reducing waste… okay?
I don’t really need much innovation in my personal electronics, I’d still have an iPhone 3GS if it still worked.