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EU countries must implement right to repair laws within two years
- sofixa 2y agoAwesome news, another in the line of big recent EU regulations trying to improve consumer rights and acces to fair goods and services.
- hollow-moe 2y agoDoes this bill includes an obligation for manufacturers to sell spare parts at a reasonable price ? Or has clauses against malicious compliance like apple did with the infamous military crates ?
- londons_explore 2y agoEven if not, it's still possible to break up other devices to scavenge parts to resell, as long as the manufacturer doesn't software lock the parts together.
- aniviacat 2y agoCould you elaborate on / link to an article regarding the apple military crates? I tried a few web searches but couldn't find what you're referring to.
- hollow-moe 2y agoArticle from 2022, I remember seeing a video on youtube about this too. https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-the-right-to-repair-we-need/ https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-t...
- theshrike79 2y agoThe "Military Crates" (100% off the shelf Pelican cases used to transport fragile equipment across the world) contain very specific gear that's simple enough for anyone to use as long as they follow the instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYzVaC6HSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYzVaC6HSQ It's not like you can reliably tell someone to "just use your hair dryer to loosen the adhesive" and not expect huge amounts of breakage. The devices in the kit apply exactly the correct amount of heat and pressure and are actually the same setup they use themselves.
- CogitoCogito 2y agoApple should just sell those crates to anyone for a reasonable markup. Then those people can provide repair services to others independent of any oversight of Apple.
- theshrike79 2y agoThey do. You can buy the kits in the US, or rent it for I think $59. They do need a $1200 retainer that is refunded when the kit is returned.
- hollow-moe 2y agoThanks for the clarification, I didn't have the correct name for those. Still, they should design their devices to not require factory tools to be used by the average joe just to replace a part.
- theshrike79 2y agoPlease list here the devices you would let an Average Joe repair with off-the-shelf tools, preferably things with electronics. Most Joes can swap a broken handle to a broom.
- jonatron 2y agoWhy is there gatekeeping of "professional" repairers and "repair services"? Why can't I as a consumer view a service manual and buy a part? If a washing machine costs £220, and a professional repair man costs £70 per hour, nobody will repair out of warranty.
- londons_explore 2y agoBecause it is these professional repairers lobbying for the laws. This sort of thing always aims to get the law to identify some kind of professional certification needed to qualify, and then that certification gets more expensive and limited (eg. by saying studying a specific course is needed, but only X thousand places are offered per year). Eventually, people who have done that course and qualification get so expensive that that becomes their only job, and you won't find a handyman-type person qualified to do those tasks.
- lost_womble 2y agoProfessional repairs are the ones lobbying for right to repair laws? Do you have proof for this outlandish claim?
- Aleklart 2y agoLuis Rossmann is a professional repair shop owner is known to lobby right to repair laws.
- londons_explore 2y agoThe most vocal person behind the right to repair movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k Oh, and he runs a professional repair shop...
- pretendgeneer 2y agoLouis is outspokenly against professional certification for repairs...
- windowshopping 2y agoHoly shit anyone else notice the "accept cookies" options on this page, where "Accept" is a tiny checkmark and "Reject" is a large text button?
- Piraty 2y agoNo, thanks to ublock-origin
- wsdookadr 2y agoDoes anyone else notice that this comment is offtopic and beside the point?
- flohofwoe 2y agoI get two equally sized buttons on desktop, "I accept cookies" and "I refuse cookies". But it's an official EU page after all, would a be pretty bad show if they had one of those dark-pattern cookie banners where "Accept" is a single click but refusing requires to go through pages and pages of checkboxes ;)
- michael9423 2y agoI don't think it's a good implementation. Takes up lots of space of the screen. Also: "With your permission, we will use AT internet and Hotjar cookies to produce aggregated, anonymous data about our visitors' browsing and behaviour on our website." They could use something like plausible and that won't even need any cookie notices.
- troupo 2y agoThis is what it looks like for me: https://imgur.com/2eFW3Ef https://imgur.com/2eFW3Ef Two big clearly labeled buttons.
- Piraty 2y agoThere is "cookie notices" filter lists you need to enable
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- londons_explore 2y agoI think monopoly laws should be used to combat this problem instead. "Repair of apple devices" is a market with many participants, including apple itself. If Apple uses its power in the "design and manufacture of apple devices" market to unfairly influence its position in the "repair of apple products" market, then that should be illegal and they should be fined for it. An example would be software locking serial numbers of parts together and requiring a special in-house-only piece of software to replace parts.
- londons_explore 2y agoBy the way, software locking serial numbers of all the internal components was purportedly done for anti-theft reasons. If you can't swap the screen or battery from a stolen phone to another phone, then there is much less reason to steal phones. Buuut, another approach would be for Apple to simply pop up a dialogue whenever parts are swapped saying "New Part Detected. Some parts of this phone are registered with another icloud account 'mary21@icloud.com'. Please log into that account now to prove ownership of those parts.". The fact Apple didn't allow that is a pretty strong indicator that they wanted to have full control of the repair market.
- berkes 2y agoI find it fascinating how smart Apple spins all these issues into something that's "good for consumers". Sometimes those reasons are built in, like with this case of serial numbers. But also "privacy" or "security". Like with iMessage, where they cannot open it up to other platforms or clients, without hampering their security model. Or app store reviews, in place to "protect consumers from harmful apps" but very useful for Apple to tightly hold the monopoly of what you may install. Fascinating to witness a company using spin doctoring to protect their moat. Edit: to be extra clear: I think all these cases are therefore net harmful to customers. As, in several cases, the EU or other regulators confirm by forcing Apple to change the model.
- 1oooqooq 2y agoNow the Microsoft contracts there already had exceptions from the procurement process will now also have exceptions for this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg
- lnsru 2y agoIt’s another nail in the coffin of consumer hardware startups. In addition to CE and waste issues now comes a requirement for repairability. Only the big guys with departments of clerks can launch a product nowadays.
- flohofwoe 2y agoThe Framework laptop seems to be a counter example to your theory, the company seems to be just under 50 people which isn't all that big even for a startup, and repairability is one of their main selling points.
- lnsru 2y agoMay I ask you what this company has to do with EU? If you could open the website you would find this information: Company: Framework Computer Inc Headquarters Address: 447 Sutter St, PMB 135, San Francisco, CA, 94108-4618, United States
- flohofwoe 2y agoIf they want to sell their products in the EU it doesn't matter where they are based. And Framework is in a very good position to do so since they designed their products with repairability in mind from the start, and all that without a "big department of clerks".
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- impossiblefork 2y agoBut repairing things can be a way to learn to build them, and usually happens closer to the end consumer, so I think if there is any burden imposed by this that could delay things, this other part is more than enough to compensate.
- g15jv2dp 2y agoI sincerely hope that hardware startup that are intent on producing e-waste that cannot be repaired fail thanks to this directive.
- 8372049 2y agoAs far as I can tell, this directive mainly mandates that producers offer to repair certain categories of products, for a price or for free and that independent professional repair shops/services can access tools, parts and information needed to do so. > Producers shall ensure that >independent [professional] repairers< have access to spare parts and repair-related information and tools (From Art. 5) Unless I'm missing something, there is nothing here granting the right or feasibility of repairing things yourself. If I understand the directive correctly, producers can void all of this in a EULA. I may be wrong.
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- impossiblefork 2y agoI don't see how you'd get out of anything by an EULA. In Sweden such agreements aren't legally binding at all. I'm sure it's the same way elsewhere.
- 8372049 2y agoAre you sure about that? The core rule is usually that contracts are binding. In some cases they are void if exceptionally unreasonable. > While this proposal regulates certain business practices concerning repair in view of the sustainable consumption objective, >it safeguards contractual freedom< and is conducive to the freedom to conduct business (Article 16 of the Charter). The provisions under this proposal aim at boosting the repair market without creating a burden, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises. Page 8
- impossiblefork 2y agoWell, since EULAs are straight-up invalid in Sweden, obviously it can't be done in an EULA. If it were allowed it have be part of an agreement with the company that is done before the sale, and which is an actual proper contract. Article 16 says only: Article 5(1) and (2) and Article 6 of this Directive shall not apply to contracts for the provision of repair services concluded before [24 months after the entry into force]. 2. Article 12 of this Directive shall not apply to sales contracts concluded before [24 months after the entry into force] So while the wording you mention, it seems to only provide a transitional provision before people get used to the law.
- snthd 2y ago[Analysis of the adopted Directive on Common Rules Promoting the Repair of Goods]( https://repair.eu/news/analysis-of-the-adopted-directive-on-common-rules-promoting-the-repair-of-goods/ https://repair.eu/news/analysis-of-the-adopted-directive-on-...)
- jll29 2y agoThis is only phase one; the citizens of Europe must now petition their own countries to implement great "Right to Repair" laws. Important economic fact: If only one single European country (with sufficient population) implements a rather strict right to repair law, then likely all manufacturers in all countries will need to adhere to it, since tech companies don't like to have to build multiple product variants (per country), but much rather just have a single "EU" product that gets sold into the 300 million head European single market. So this country-level lobbying in the next phase is really important and can be a game change for the environment.
- incognito124 2y agoA more probable outcome of a single country doing that is that new products won't be available there
- BehindBlueEyes 2y agoThey said that websites would stop operating in Europe if GDPR got through and guess what, instead they built privacy teams to be compliant and applied the stricter privacy rules more globally. It's all empty threats.
- watwut 2y agoThat is super improbable in case of big countries.
- Etheryte 2y agoCompanies like to pretend like that's one possible outcome, but realistically that's never gonna happen. Can you imagine what a field day Samsung would have if Apple suddenly announced they're not gonna sell phones to Germany or w/e anymore?
- pembrook 2y agoNot Germany, France, etc. But I absolutely can imagine them not re-working their entire product line for any of the smaller countries (baltics, balkans, Nordics, Eastern Europe, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc). And for hardware startups? Forget about it. It’s already a nightmare to sell physical products throughout Europe given the intra-country shipping costs, multi-lingual requirements, and patchwork of localized distribution partners. You can expand to Europe once you’re big enough to deal with all the localization/regulation. It’s funny, HN used to be a community of startup founders but nowadays you’ll see near-zero thought given toward startups in any discussions on HN. This is now a community of big tech worker bees who are hostile toward big tech companies, but who ironically support legal movements that entrench big tech.
- sunaookami 2y agoThat's not "right to repair". Right to repair is: - I can repair it myself - with free access to schematics - with access to spare parts - without coupling between hardware and software The EU completely misunderstood what right to repair is and is now implementing something so that they can say that they have "right to repair". This will damage the RTR movement even further. I wonder who lobbied for this.
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- switch007 2y agoExactly. This looks like the EU appeasing their paymasters while fooling their constituents with PR. It seems to be a very effective strategy to coin a phrase, make people believe it's one thing, even gaslight them over their concerns, then turn it in to another in the implementation Just like Affordable Housing.
- Roark66 2y agoI would upvote you twice if I could. Sadly the EU is botching yet another thing.
- ho_schi 2y agoThe problem of the European Union is that it is founded not on the concepts of a federation or union states. And finally merging into one nation. The European Union is building up on the „ Montanunion (long version: European Coal and Steel Community) and that is the rational why they care mostly about economy and still believe in free-trade[1]. This causes friction between young people which want one entity of state and that cares about the people’s needs. The old just want subventions from the EU and that the economy flows easily. The focus on free-trade is obsolete nowadays. There is no free-trade anywhere and no fair capitalism (the greed thing which harms our planet). Example: We had weird moments during COVID where we had to ask „if it is fair“ to rescue an otherwise healthy an needed airline? The question should have been if it is needed and sustainable. Of course it was! Where doing similar debates over machine equipment, chip factories, train factories…and the EU says „We can’t merge them because that would be unfair“. To whom? China? India? The US? Who cares. Free-trade is an idiotic concept by capitalists. The priority of every state should be the needs of the peoples. Anyway. This is some improvement for the people in Europe :) But how to solve the core issue? I complained a lot. I think we need a core europe with the states which are willing to unite in long term (likely France, Germany, Benelux, Czech, Spain, Portugal, Poland - that is not an exclusion list). The desires of the population, social system and economy should be similar. So if the people in Slovakia or Hungary change their mind…welcome aboard. [1] Weird for Americans. Since Reagan the economy (and especially the IT) is unregulated and shall dominate everything. China doesn’t care about free-trade at all, they will come with a list of requirements for an enterprise to build a company in China and transfer knowledge. The adapt the knowledge and kill your industry with state money and initially cheap products. Now your depend their industry. Partnership is something different?
- teo_zero 2y agoShouldn't we call this "Right to have repaired" instead?
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