Writing in IEEE Spectrum, iFixit’s superhero founder Kyle Wiens and Repair.org exective director Gay Gordon-Byrne bring the case for the right to repair (previously) to the engineering community, describing the economic, technical, and environmental benefits of permitting a domestic industry of local, expert technologists to help their neighbors get more out of their gadgets.
The benefits of this are undeniable: scrapping a ton of ewaste creates 15 jobs, repairing it creates 200 jobs (and spares our descendants from having to deal with our toxic landfill). But electronics companies deploy technology, law and economic pressure to suppress independent service, in order to monopolize the repair market, mark up replacement parts, and force the public to “upgrade” perfectly good gadgets that they’re not allowed to fix.
With 12 states introducing right to repair laws in 2017, there’s real momentum behind this movement. But it has a big hurdle to overcome: section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass DRM, so companies from GM to Apple are using DRM to limit who can fix their tools, on penalty of imprisonment.
EFF is suing the US government to overturn this law, and the right to repair movement is a big part of making the case for taming the DMCA in the court of public opinion and in state legislatures.
