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The Minnesota Legislature is currently adjourned sine die. That means they don’t know when they’re coming back. Isn’t that special? We’ll have to wait for the 90th Minnesota Legislature to convene in early January 2017.
A very important piece of legislation — guaranteeing an individual’s right to repair electronic devices they own — slipped by completely unnoticed until recently. First introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives in February 2015, HF 1048, “Digital electronic product fair repair requirements,” had broad bi-partisan support and authorship.
As proposed, the legislation would require manufacturers to provide diagnostic and repair information, technical updates, service access passwords, diagnostic software, and firmware updates free of charge. Additionally, manufacturers would be required to provide service parts for purchase under “fair and reasonable” terms.
An identical companion bill, SF 873, “Fair repair requirements for manufacturers of digital electronic equipment,” was introduced in the Minnesota Senate in the same timeframe, again with bi-partisan support and authorship.
The House version was immediately referred to the Commerce and Regulatory Reform committee. The Senate version was immediately referred to the Commerce committee. Because the legislature is adjourned, no meetings have been scheduled and no action has been taken.
Repair.org, iFixit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are sponsoring an online advocacy campaign in support of the proposed legislation, complete with a customized form with which you can contact your elected Representative and Senator with a personal message, not canned advocacy spam. At least in theory. Representative Dave Pinto (DFL-64B) responded with an “I’ll get back to you” autoresponder. Senator Richard Cohen (DFL-64) responded with an email advising me that the only way he’ll respond is if I use the official message form on the Senate’s website. Never mind that the Repair.org form included all the fields Cohen requires. Government accessibility at its finest.
New York rejects right to repair bill
Last week, the New York Legislature killed a right to repair bill similar to that introduced in Minnesota, likely in response to considerable opposition from equipment manufacturers including Apple, Cisco, and Xerox. The New York version differed from the Minnesota version in that the former focused on mandating parts and documentation to third-party repair providers rather than individuals. The New York bill never made it out of committee.
Manufacturer resistance
The technology equipment manufacturers that would be subject to any right to repair legislation have lobbied vigorously against any form of the bill.
An enormous benefit to the legislation rejected by New York and currently in committee in Minnesota would be a marked reduction in ewaste. Currently, in the case of Apple products, it almost always costs almost as much to repair an Apple device as it does to replace it. The ewaste issue was a distinct part of the rejected New York bill. In Minnesota, HF 3610 in the State House (referred to Commerce and Regulatory Reform committee) and it’s identical companion, SF 3227 in the State Senate (passed by the Environment and Energy committee and referred to the Commerce committee) includes provisions for mandatory household-only recycling levels as well as “… disassembly documentation, schematics, diagnostic tools, firmware corrections, and access to service parts….”
When technology equipment manufacturers respond at all about right to repair, they commonly cite being forced to reveal trade secrets as their main reason for opposing these proposed laws. But both the New York and Minnesota proposals included specific trade secret exclusion language.
What it’s really about is losing their repair business profit centers.
The manufacturers simply don’t want their customers tinkering with the devices they’ve purchased. How else to explain the use of proprietary connectors, screws, inaccessible cases, and other mechanisms that make their devices increasingly difficult to access and repair.