NY Passes Right-to-Repair Weakened

Fri Dec 30 02:28:36 PST 2022

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-signed-into-law-by-new-yorks-governor/

New York governor signs modified right-to-repair bill at the last minute

Bill passed the state legislature with overwhelming majorities over the summer.

ANDREW CUNNINGHAM - 12/29/2022, 1:27 PM

New York state governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Digital Fair
Repair Act into law[1], months after it had passed both chambers of
the state's legislature with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. The
bill had originally passed in June, but it was only formally sent to
Hochul's desk earlier this month[2]; the governor had until midnight
on December 28th to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to pass into
law without her signature.

The Digital Fair Repair Act is the country's first right-to-repair
bill that has passed through a state legislature (as opposed to being
implemented via executive order[3]), and has been hailed as
"precedent-setting" by right-to-repair advocacy groups like iFixit[4].
The law will require companies to provide the same diagnostic tools,
repair manuals, and parts to the public that they provide to their own
repair technicians.

But tech industry lobbyists and trade groups like TechNet[5] had
already worked to weaken the law as it made its way through the state
legislature, and the bill as signed by Hochul contains even more
conditions and exceptions, ostensibly added to address the governor's
concerns about "technical issues that could put safety and security at
risk, as well as heighten the risk of injury from physical repair
projects."

"I am pleased to have reached an agreement with the legislature to
address these issues," Hochul wrote.

Most notably, only devices manufactured and sold in New York on or
after July 1, 2023 will be required to meet the law's requirements,
excluding all currently extant products—the ones people already own
that they might conceivably want to repair at some point down the
line. "Business-to-business" and "business-to-government" equipment
that isn't sold to consumers is also excluded. And manufacturers won't
be required to provide passwords or other tools for circumventing
device security lockouts—on balance, probably good for anti-theft
features that Apple and other manufacturers[6] offer for stolen
phones, but bad for people locked out of their own otherwise
functional devices because they've forgotten a password or can't track
down a recovery key.

Manufacturers can also opt to provide "assemblies" of parts instead of
parts by themselves "when the risk of improper installation heightens
the risk of injury." If you wanted to replace your phone's display or
battery, for example, a company could provide you a display or battery
with a bunch of extra cables or other parts connected to it,
regardless of whether you needed those parts or not. This could drive
up the cost of repairs, lessening their appeal.

These compromises are stacked on top of some broad exemptions already
in the original bill, which exclude medical devices, motor vehicles,
off-road equipment, or home appliances.

Right-to-repair activists praised passage of the bill while
acknowledging that the compromises make it weaker than it ought to be.

“This is a huge victory for consumers and a major step forward for the
right to repair movement," wrote iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens[7]. “New York
has set a precedent for other states to follow, and I hope to see more
states passing similar legislation in the near future.”

"The right-to-repair bill that I've spent seven years of my life
trying to get passed in my home state got fucked," said activist Louis
Rossmann in a video explaining Hochul's changes to the bill[8]. "And
it's funny, it got fucked in the exact manner that I thought it
would... Because it getting passed without being tainted or screwed
with would actually be good for society, and that's not something that
[the] New York state government is going to allow to happen."

andrew.cunningham at arstechnica.com
https://www.twitter.com/AndrewWrites

1: https://twitter.com/JonCampbellNY/status/1608327624526548993
2: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/right-to-repair-bill-passed-in-june-still-awaits-ny-governors-signature/
3: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/bidens-right-to-repair-order-could-stop-companies-from-blocking-diy-fixes/
4: https://www.ifixit.com/News/70515/new-york-passes-historic-right-to-repair-bill
5: https://www.technet.org/our-story/members/
6: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472
7: https://www.ifixit.com/News/70515/new-york-passes-historic-right-to-repair-bill
8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xGBB-717AI

Comments with over 100 votes:

B
barich Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
22y
7,657
Subscriptor
Here is your replacement iPhone assembly. Just connect it to your
existing Lightning cable and your repair is complete.
Report
Upvote
196 (198 / -2)
Yesterday at 1:48 PM
D
disappointedreader Smack-Fu Master, in training
1y
9
Catmove said:
When activists say "got fucked" without being specific, it REALLY
doesn't do much for the solution they are pushing...
Well, if you click through the link, you'd see it's part of a 12
miniute video that Ars decided to quote THIS part. So don't fault
activists for being blunt and true from 2 sentences out of 12 minutes.
Context, please. AND if you really want to blame someone, blame the
Ars author who decided on that Pull Quote, just like You decided on
that pull quote from the rest of the article that had a highly
detailed description of how precisely the law was fucked.
Report
Upvote
171 (176 / -5)
Yesterday at 1:50 PM
Zacharot
Zacharot Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
9y
125
And now that there is a weak bill, it will be whittled away by lack of
compliance, and necessary lawsuits to get that compliance. At that
point it will be held up as the reason that no further more stringent
law is necessary. Why pass another bill that does the same as the old
one? The opportunity to see real change is sailing away.
Report
Upvote
143 (148 / -5)
Yesterday at 1:30 PM
L
llanitedave Ars Praefectus
9y
3,566
Exempting automobiles and home appliances? That's the very root of
what right to repair was intended to address!
Report
Upvote
135 (135 / 0)
Yesterday at 2:03 PM
Fancy Internet Person
Fancy Internet Person Ars Scholae Palatinae
4y
13,944
Sarty said:
If you were a state lawmaker in, say, Connecticut, would you take a
call from this man? Or would you politely shove his number on to the
back-back-back burner?

But I'm sure it felt good to shout about it #online.
Do you think politeness alone is what makes for good advocacy?
Report
Upvote
108 (121 / -13)
Yesterday at 1:44 PM
R
Roguewolfe Smack-Fu Master, in training
11y
52
Subscriptor
Sarty said:
If you were a state lawmaker in, say, Connecticut, would you take a
call from this man? Or would you politely shove his number on to the
back-back-back burner?

Why do you think this is representative of his communiques for the last 7 years?

If he indeed spent 7 years trying to get a law passed that would have,
objectively, been better for society (and I believe it would have
been) and corporate interests whittled it down into near-uselessness,
don't you think he would be a little bitter? I think I would be pretty
disillusioned and probably make a statement much like this, regardless
of how polite or impolite I had been about it previously.
Report
Upvote
104 (105 / -1)
Yesterday at 1:55 PM