Washington The Eighth State To Pass ‘Right To Repair’ Law
from the fix-your-own-shit dept
Washington will soon become the eighth state in the country to pass Right to Repair legislation. While U.S. consumer protection is generally an historic hot mess right now, the “right to repair” movement — making it easier and cheaper to repair the things you own — continues to make steady inroads thanks to widespread, bipartisan annoyance at giant companies trying to monopolize repair.
Technically Washington state is poised to pass two new right to repair bills.
HB 1483, which covers consumer electronics and appliances, was passed by a strong bipartisan vote of 48-1 on April 10, following a similar near-unanimous vote through the House on March 4. HB 1483 helps expand access to manufacturers’ spare parts, physical and software tools, and diagnostic and schematic information needed to make repairs on personal electronics and home appliances.
The Right to Repair bill for wheelchairs and mobility devices (SB 5680) also passed both chambers with unanimous votes. Getting both bills passed required a lot of hard work from activists across consumer rights, disability, and environmental sectors:
“I spent seven months in a wheelchair that would turn itself off without warning and refuse to start for varying periods of time. I found out after the chair was scrapped that it should have been an easy fix,” said Marsha Cutting, a member of the Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment. “This bill would have allowed me to fix my wheelchair instead of having to wait for several months. I’m grateful for the years of work on Right to Repair done by Rep. Mia Gregerson, and I hope that our community will continue to work together to make life better for people with disabilities.”
Ohio could potentially be the ninth state to pass such a law, again showcasing how the issue has broad, bipartisan support. Thanks in part due to the monopolistic behavior of agricultural giants like John Deere.
One problem, as noted recently, is that none of the states that have passed such laws have bothered to enforce them. Companies in most states haven’t really been asked to do anything different. In some states, like New York, the bills were watered down after passage to be far less useful.
That’s going to need to change for the reform movement to have real-world impact; but with states facing unprecedented legal threats across the board during Trump 2.0, it’s not hard to think that meaningful consumer protection — and picking bold new fights with corporate giants — will be among the first things on the cutting room floor for cash-strapped states.
Filed Under: consumers, hardware, HB 1483, ohio, reform, right to repair, software, washington
Comments on “Washington The Eighth State To Pass ‘Right To Repair’ Law”
Well, I love the fact that we’re finally getting the laws in place.
Now we need a countdown to which state is gonna enforce them first.
Re:
Or, if there’s a private right of action, which people are gonna enforce them first. A class-action lawyer might like to show “people who need to have their malfunctioning wheelchairs fixed” to a jury.
Just how evil is the current American economic system?
We need laws to allow people who rely on wheelchairs to be able to repair them. It’s better for the manufacturer to leave someone with restricted mobility for months so they’ll eventually need to get a new wheelchair, which generates a sale for the manufacturer. Our system actually rewards this behavior.
Printable parts
I’m waiting for companies to offer plans for 3D printable replacement parts. OK to charge a nominal fee for the plans. Stop making things obsolete because simple replacement parts are unobtainable.
Charging would be kind of lame. For stuff made till about the 1970s, such as televisions, it was common for the schematics to be shown on the back, or in the manual (included with the device, of course, in printed form). It didn’t seem to hurt anyone.
But 3-D printing plans are already showing up online for the parts most likely to fail, these parts having been reverse-engineered by other frustated owners. You might also find repair videos. People can figure this stuff out (i.e., a single broken physical part) without help, and there are no legal impediments that would require “right to repair” laws. The impediments are almost always complex software, and the copyrights that go along with it.
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Giving plans away for nothing is even more lame since it eventually leads to curtailed product development.
Case in point: I had to reverse engineer a trim piece for my RV. Took me about 4-5 hours, and maybe 20 tries to get the fit right. The manufacturer charges $10 for the piece but it’s out of stock. I would have gladly paid them $3-5 for the plans to save me the time and effort to reverse engineer it myself.
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That must be why nobody uses Linux and it doesn’t power the internet.
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Because a schematic only shows you where to fit the part, it doesn’t do anything in itself to help you obtain it, numbnuts.
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Schematics do NOT tell you where things go (physically) the represent the logical connection between blocks.
With a schematic, replacing complex parts can sometimes become viable, because you can tell (to some degree) how it should interact with the rest of the system.
The schematic is more like an Org-chart, and not really like an office layout, except by coincidence.
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Which is pretty much what AC said. Like they said, you’re a numbnuts.