Electronics Right To Repair

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To Have or to Be? So, What's Your Price? What Would Jesus Buy? Electronics right to repair is proposed legislation that would provide the practical means for electronics equipment owners to repair their devices. Repair is legal under copyright law and patent law. However, owners and independent technicians are often unable to make their own repairs because of manufacturer limitations on access to repair materials such as parts, tools, diagnostics, documentation and firmware. General Business Law which allows states to make specific requirements of businesses seeking to do business within their borders. Additionally, under US Law, the Federal Trade Commission has the specific authority to restrict UDAP violations. While a global concern, the primary debate over the issue has been centered on the United States and within the European Union. Bloggers, activists and volunteer groups such as Louis Rossmann and the Repair Cafe movement started by Martine Postma are also active promoters of repair rights.


The right to repair for electronics refers to the concept of allowing end users, consumers as well as businesses, to repair electronic devices they own or service without any manufacturer or technical restrictions. The idea behind this concept is to render electronics easier and cheaper to repair with the goal of prolonging the lifecycle of such devices and reducing electronic waste caused by broken or unused devices. 4. the repairability of a device should be clearly communicated by the manufacturer. 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.


Many right to repair advocates claim that modern electronic devices have components that are glued in place or attached in a way that makes them difficult to remove. However, the motivations behind such designs not always clearcut. For example, the Google Pixel 6 Pro has a glued battery but includes a plastic tab to aid removal, suggesting that the adhesive was meant for a purpose other than to stymie repair. New ways to lock devices like part pairing (components of a device are serialized and can not be swapped against others) became increasingly popular among manufacturers. Even the most common repairs such as the replacement of a smartphone display can cause malfunctions due to locks implemented in the software. For example, Apple has gradually restricted the swap of iPhone displays, going from warning messages to removing security features such as Face ID if the display was not swapped by a manufacturer-authorized repair facility. While this trend started in the agricultural sector by tractor manufacturer John Deere, it became a widespread phenomenon in consumer electronics over the past 5 years.


In the 2010s the trend of making one's repairs to devices spread from the east into the Western Europe. In July 2017, the European Parliament approved recommendations that member states should pass laws that give consumers the right to repair their electronics, as part of a larger update to its previous Ecodesign Directive from 2009 which called for manufacturers to produce more energy-efficient and cleaner consumer devices. The ability to phone screen repair devices is seen by these recommendations as a means to reduce waste to the environment. With these recommendations, work began on establishing the legal Directive for the EU to support the recommendations, and from which member states would then pass laws to meet the Directive. One of the first areas of focus was consumer appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. Some were assembled using adhesives instead of mechanical fasteners which made it impossible for consumers or repair technicians from making non-destructive repairs.


The right-to-repair facets of appliances were a point of contention between consumer groups and appliance manufacturers in Europe, the latter who lobbied the various national governments to gain favorable language in the Directive. Ultimately, the EU passed legislation in October 2019 that, after 2021, required manufacturers of these appliances to be able to supply replacement parts to professional repairmen for ten years from manufacture. The legislation did not address other facets related to right-to-repair, and activists noted that this still limited the consumer's ability to perform their own repairs. The EU also has directives toward a circular economy which are aimed toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other excessive wastes through recycling and other programs. A new "Circular Economy Action Plan" draft introduced in 2020 includes the electronics right to repair for EU citizens as this would allow device owners to replace only malfunctioning parts rather than replace the entire device, reducing electronics waste.






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