About five years ago, frustration at John Deere’s draconian tractor DRM culminated in a grassroots “right to repair” movement. The company’s crackdown on “unauthorized repairs” turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM and the company’s EULA prohibited the lion’s share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for “authorized” repair, or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

Since then, the right to repair movement has expanded dramatically, with a heavy focus on companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony and their attempts to monopolize repair, driving up consumer costs, and resulting in greater waste.

It has also extended into the medical arena, where device manufacturers enjoy a monopoly on tools, documentation, and replacement parts, making it a nightmare to get many pieces of medical equipment repaired. That has, unsurprisingly, become even more of a problem during the COVID-19 pandemic due to mass hospitalizations and resource constraints, with medical professionals being forced to use grey market parts or DIY parts just to get ventilators to work.

Hoping to give the movement a shot of adrenaline, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Yvette D. Clark have introduced the Critical Medical Infrastructure Right-to-Repair Act of 2020 (pdf), which would exempt medical equipment owners and “servicers” from liability for copying service materials or breaking DRM if it was done so to improve COVID-19 aid. The legislation also pre-empts any agreements between hospitals and equipment manufacturers preventing hospital employees from working on their own equipment, something that’s also become more of a problem during the pandemic.

While numerous states have attempted to pass right to repair legislation, none have succeeded so far. In large part because companies like Apple have lobbied extensively to thwart them, (falsely) claiming that letting customers and independent repair merchants fix devices (usually for far less money) would be a privacy and security nightmare. In Nebraska, Apple even tried to claim that such legislation would turn the state into a mecca for hackers

The House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation into Apple’s policies back in September with an eye toward anticompetitive practices, including repairs and warranties. An Apple VP has responded (PDF) and some of their answers are a doozy. Here’s our response.

actual questions and answers are at
docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf

Apple’s response to the Congressional committee investigating monopolistic behavior by tech giants contains a chapter on Right to Repair, whose greatest enemy is Apple — the company led successful campaigns to kill 20 state level Right to Repair bills last year.

Ifixit (previously), a business that sells tools and manuals to the independent repair sector, has published a detailed rebuttal calling Apple’s response “intentionally misleading.”

The response shows how using misleading terminology and by mischaracterizing its own history, Apple makes it sound like it embraces the independent repair sector, when this is far from the truth.

Apple Told Congress How Repair Should Work. They Were Intentionally Misleading.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-told-congress-how-repair-should-work-we-respond

Household appliances will become easier to repair thanks to new standards being adopted across the European Union.

From 2021, firms will have to make appliances longer-lasting, and they will have to supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.

The rules apply to lighting, washing machines, dishwashers and fridges.

In colleges and universities across the United States, students are taking classes on how to repair our electronics that normally end up as e-waste.

The new exemptions are a major win for the right to repair movement and give consumers wide latitude to legally repair the devices they own.

Copyright Office Ruling Issues Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms
https://ifixit.org/blog/11951/1201-copyright-final-rule/