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When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property, rather than say by your decision to purchase an item that didn't have spares ava

When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property, rather than say by your decision to purchase an item that didn't have spares available for sale to the general public, or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair?

jchw 3y ago
> When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property "Legally prevented" is a dubious way to define this. You can use many approaches to prevent consumers from being able to repair things, but obviously sueing customers that try to repair things is not going to be an effective strategy. Still, you can definitely use the law to prevent replacement parts from being manufactured, or security mechanisms that may be illegal to circumvent. > or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair? That's exactly a focus of right to repair laws though. It's not about whether or not people are legally allowed to repair things, it's about regulating practices that thwart one's right to repair things, which have evolved unchecked for a while now. What's extremely sad is even mechanisms we know wouldn't hold up in court, like "warranty void if removed," continue to be effective anyways due to the lack of action.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  I think this misses the previous point, though. They're saying, correctly, that claiming that "not being able to repair something implies a lack of ownership" is not a logical claim.
  - jchw 3y ago
    Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though, since that's not really what this is about. Of course I literally "own" a device that I buy, but if the vendor forces me to agree to a ToS and EULA to be allowed (legally, thanks to DMCA) to use the product as advertised and can lock me out at any time, it's truly ownership in name only. This is about fancy footwork using technological measures to diminish consumer rights and consumer choice without literally violating any law. The law has not caught up to this, but the writing is certainly on the wall.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though I don't see the point of this comment. If you read up in the thread: > Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers That doesn't mean there aren't other things to discuss, but people in this section of the comments are talking about ownership.
      - jchw 3y ago
        Yes, but we're talking about ownership as a concept, not as a matter of law. I'm not sure how this is getting confused to be honest.
        NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Ownership is a legal concept. If you want to talk about whether it is good public policy to allow manufacturers to make computer stuffs that are difficult to repair or that have technical restrictions baked in that make it difficult to run software other than that provided by the manufacturer, please have at it. To suggest that this is an ownership discussion is at best intellectually faulty and at worst the sort of hyperventilation that has people rolling their eyes at you.
        jchw 3y ago
        Ownership is also a concept that humans understand, disconnected from whatever is written into law. In fact, the human understanding of what ownership is ultimately informs what goes into the law. Essentially by asking "who really owns this?" we're literally questioning why this is allowed to happen regarding stuff that we own. All I can say is, you misunderstood what the comment you replied to was saying. You don't have to like it, but it's very evident to me that this is what happened.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        Neither of the things I quoted mention the law. Non sequiturs make things confused.
  - lukeschlather 3y ago
    I have a couple phones that are running older versions of Android. Still perfectly functional phones physically, but I can't "repair" them by installing a newer version of Android. This is in fact due to a lack of ownership, to update I would need a signing key that is owned by a defunct manufacturer. It's similar with many physical things. Safe repair requires documentation and software tooling that some company considers trade secrets. I own it, but someone else owns the right to repair that piece of technology. Do I really own it if it's broken and I don't have the right to access required repair documentation?
    - generalizations 3y ago
      I agree with your sentiment, but that's not specifically a question of ownership of the device. You bought the hardware, and it's yours to do what you like with it. However, part of what you bought is a box with a padlock, and you chose to buy hardware that did not come with the key to that padlock. It's still your padlock: no one is stopping you from trying to open it. I would instead frame it as another variation of open-source vs closed source. That would be more accurate, IMHO.
      - lukeschlather 3y ago
        Ownership of the padlock is clearly based in who owns the key. The idea that a company can sell me a device with a bunch of hidden padlocks and refuse to give me the key - this clearly makes it hard to say who owns the device. And they are stopping me from trying to open it, it's questionable if I legally can open it. Certainly, if I tried to sell a tool that allows people to open the padlock, the company that owns the padlock would probably say that is illegal under the DMCA.
        NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        >And they are stopping me from trying to open it, it's questionable if I legally can open it. In the context of consumer electronics, in what scenario is it legally questionable if you can modify your own device? This whole argument about ownership is really weak. It amounts to "a manufacturer, given a design choice, chose an option that made the product more difficult to self-repair / mod / root / run Linux on". You don't own your phone any less because the manufacturer chose to glue it together rather than use screws.
  - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
    Right - that is what I was getting at. The reason you can't easily replace the battery in your Samsung Galaxy S22 is completely unrelated to the extent to which you own it, as a matter of law, and more related to the fact that the phone back cover is attached with glue; you need to remove all kinds of fiddly cables to get to the battery; and then the battery itself is glued in place.
rpvnwnkl 3y ago
My town disallows repairs or installation to barbed wire fencing, fwiw. You can buy it but can’t legally use it.
bmitc 3y ago
Manufacturers have absolutely legally prevented people from helping others repair their property.

jchw 3y ago

> When was the last time you were legally prevented from repairing your property "Legally prevented" is a dubious way to define this. You can use many approaches to prevent consumers from being able to repair things, but obviously sueing customers that try to repair things is not going to be an effective strategy. Still, you can definitely use the law to prevent replacement parts from being manufactured, or security mechanisms that may be illegal to circumvent. > or was manufactured in a way that prevented repair? That's exactly a focus of right to repair laws though. It's not about whether or not people are legally allowed to repair things, it's about regulating practices that thwart one's right to repair things, which have evolved unchecked for a while now. What's extremely sad is even mechanisms we know wouldn't hold up in court, like "warranty void if removed," continue to be effective anyways due to the lack of action.

robertlagrant 3y ago
I think this misses the previous point, though. They're saying, correctly, that claiming that "not being able to repair something implies a lack of ownership" is not a logical claim.
- jchw 3y ago
  Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though, since that's not really what this is about. Of course I literally "own" a device that I buy, but if the vendor forces me to agree to a ToS and EULA to be allowed (legally, thanks to DMCA) to use the product as advertised and can lock me out at any time, it's truly ownership in name only. This is about fancy footwork using technological measures to diminish consumer rights and consumer choice without literally violating any law. The law has not caught up to this, but the writing is certainly on the wall.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Nobody is literally referring to the concept of property ownership though I don't see the point of this comment. If you read up in the thread: > Forget about e-waste, it's my fucking property. I paid full price for a full product that is now mine. Not partially mine and partially the manufacturers That doesn't mean there aren't other things to discuss, but people in this section of the comments are talking about ownership.
    - jchw 3y ago
      Yes, but we're talking about ownership as a concept, not as a matter of law. I'm not sure how this is getting confused to be honest.
      - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Ownership is a legal concept. If you want to talk about whether it is good public policy to allow manufacturers to make computer stuffs that are difficult to repair or that have technical restrictions baked in that make it difficult to run software other than that provided by the manufacturer, please have at it. To suggest that this is an ownership discussion is at best intellectually faulty and at worst the sort of hyperventilation that has people rolling their eyes at you.
        jchw 3y ago
        Ownership is also a concept that humans understand, disconnected from whatever is written into law. In fact, the human understanding of what ownership is ultimately informs what goes into the law. Essentially by asking "who really owns this?" we're literally questioning why this is allowed to happen regarding stuff that we own. All I can say is, you misunderstood what the comment you replied to was saying. You don't have to like it, but it's very evident to me that this is what happened.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Neither of the things I quoted mention the law. Non sequiturs make things confused.
- lukeschlather 3y ago
  I have a couple phones that are running older versions of Android. Still perfectly functional phones physically, but I can't "repair" them by installing a newer version of Android. This is in fact due to a lack of ownership, to update I would need a signing key that is owned by a defunct manufacturer. It's similar with many physical things. Safe repair requires documentation and software tooling that some company considers trade secrets. I own it, but someone else owns the right to repair that piece of technology. Do I really own it if it's broken and I don't have the right to access required repair documentation?
  - generalizations 3y ago
    I agree with your sentiment, but that's not specifically a question of ownership of the device. You bought the hardware, and it's yours to do what you like with it. However, part of what you bought is a box with a padlock, and you chose to buy hardware that did not come with the key to that padlock. It's still your padlock: no one is stopping you from trying to open it. I would instead frame it as another variation of open-source vs closed source. That would be more accurate, IMHO.
    - lukeschlather 3y ago
      Ownership of the padlock is clearly based in who owns the key. The idea that a company can sell me a device with a bunch of hidden padlocks and refuse to give me the key - this clearly makes it hard to say who owns the device. And they are stopping me from trying to open it, it's questionable if I legally can open it. Certainly, if I tried to sell a tool that allows people to open the padlock, the company that owns the padlock would probably say that is illegal under the DMCA.
      - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        >And they are stopping me from trying to open it, it's questionable if I legally can open it. In the context of consumer electronics, in what scenario is it legally questionable if you can modify your own device? This whole argument about ownership is really weak. It amounts to "a manufacturer, given a design choice, chose an option that made the product more difficult to self-repair / mod / root / run Linux on". You don't own your phone any less because the manufacturer chose to glue it together rather than use screws.
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  Right - that is what I was getting at. The reason you can't easily replace the battery in your Samsung Galaxy S22 is completely unrelated to the extent to which you own it, as a matter of law, and more related to the fact that the phone back cover is attached with glue; you need to remove all kinds of fiddly cables to get to the battery; and then the battery itself is glued in place.

rpvnwnkl 3y ago

My town disallows repairs or installation to barbed wire fencing, fwiw. You can buy it but can’t legally use it.

bmitc 3y ago

Manufacturers have absolutely legally prevented people from helping others repair their property.