All 50 States Have Now Pushed ‘Right To Repair’ Laws, But Actual Enforcement Is Spotty At Best
from the fix-your-own-shit dept
State laws attempting to make it cheaper and easier to repair your own tech continue to gain steam. With the recent introduction of a new “right to repair” law in Wisconsin, U.S. PIRG notes that all 50 U.S. states have now at least introduced such bills:
“This is more than a legislative landmark—it’s a tipping point. We’ve gone from a handful of passionate advocates to a nationwide call for repair autonomy,” said Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit. “People are fed up with disposable products and locked-down devices. Repair is the future, and this moment proves it.”
While U.S. consumer protection issues are a hot mess in the United States, the right to repair movement continues to be a singular bright spot. The more that giants like Apple, John Deere, and others try to monopolize repair (usually through obnoxious DRM, “parts pairing,” or legal fine print), the greater the public support for the movement seems to grow.
The catch: so far only Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon have actually passed laws. And in some instances the bills have been watered down post-passage, like in New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul buckled to company lobbying to make the law much weaker while also exempting many of the most problematic industries.
Elsewhere, state governments just aren’t really enforcing the laws so far despite no shortage of corporate violators. Reformers can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve yet to see a meaningful enforcement action against a major company in any of the states that have passed such legislation.
And I’d suspect that as Trump 2.0 takes aim at labor rights, civil rights, and pollution standards, most states will have their hands full facing costly legal battles across a litany of other subjects. Challenging big companies on right to repair probably won’t be a high staffing or budget priority.
That’s not to say the right to reform movement shouldn’t be hopeful. But activists and consumers alike need to understand that getting a law passed is only the first step; they’ll need to apply pressure on state officials that pass such laws, consider the issue settled, then immediately fall into a deep coma.
Filed Under: consumers, drm, hardware, ifixit, monopoly, parts pairing, reform, right to repair, us pirg
Comments on “All 50 States Have Now Pushed ‘Right To Repair’ Laws, But Actual Enforcement Is Spotty At Best”
First thing is that companies are on notice that designing in “repair monopoly” features could face penalties. There are better areas to invest design funds.
And enforcing a new law against years of existing practice takes some courage, but I’m sure that with more states having such laws the likelihood of lawsuits will increase.
Don’t forget that many enforcement agencies would try to put some informal pressure on the companies first, before going full fine and lawsuit public mode.
Re:
And yet we keep seeing exactly this. Most recently, I saw someone post that Brother printers are starting to reject third-party consumables, after having been the only decent manufacturer for years.
Apart from courage, meaningful enforcement also requires meaningful penalties. Did you have to pay $500 for a new product because your old one couldn’t be repaired? A penalty to the company of $600 per instance might make them care. Whereas the usual 73 cents to the customer (if they’re willing to provide personal data to a dodgy web site) and a dollar to a class-action lawyer will just make them raise prices by two dollars.
You don’t say? The system that purposely empowered the people who oppose right-to-repair is not making any meaningful progress on making right-to-repair the new norm?
Why, whoever could have seen this coming?!