The U.S. Copyright Office provided help, but the right to repair now rests with Congress

The U.S. Copyright Office provided help, but the right to repair now rests with Congress

Kyle Wiens is the repair rights advocate and CEO of iFixit, the free repair manual. He devoted his life to defeating the second law of thermodynamics, and this battle is as frequent in court as in the workshop. So far, the right to repair movement has successfully unlocked cell phones and legalized tractor repairs-and is now repairing your game console.

Kyle Wiens is the repair rights advocate and CEO of iFixit, the free repair manual. He devoted his life to defeating the second law of thermodynamics, and this battle is as frequent in court as in the workshop. So far, the right to repair movement has successfully unlocked cell phones and legalized tractor repairs-and is now repairing your game console.

My trusted Xbox is out of warranty. Although it has been the real workhorse for many years, all these time swaps will eventually kill its optical drive. However, I am a repairman, and if the disk drive fails in a different type of product, I can easily repair it by installing new parts. But this particular repair is very difficult-it is illegal. Or at least until the end of last month.

Fighting for the right to solve such problems has led me into a decade-long trap of federal policy work, including an obscure part of the U.S. copyright law, Section 1201, which actually enables certain types of mathematical operations Became illegal. Specifically, it prevents the destruction of so-called technical protection measures (TPM), which are digital locks used to protect device software access. For example, a mobile phone is locked to the mobile operator that purchased it, so if the owner wants to change the operator, they first need to remove the baseband lock. But TPM goes beyond mobile phones: any product with a microcontroller has software, and these locks protect everything from coffee machines to game consoles.

Resolving the 1201 issue is an important part of the broader repair movement right, which aims to combat measures that make it difficult or impossible to improve or repair electronic products. Restricting the ability to repair damaged equipment would destroy independent repair shops, drive up repair prices, and encourage consumers to discard machines instead of repairing them. This is detrimental to equipment owners and the economy, and will lead to an upward trend in global e-waste.

The proposed solution is simple: Create an ecosystem of professional and do-it-yourself maintenance personnel by removing the maintenance barriers that many manufacturers have built into their products. These measures make it difficult for anyone who is not affiliated with the company to perform repairs. For example, for the new iPhone 13, the digital lock pairs the iPhone screen with the device. This means that replacing a broken screen will disable critical Face ID features. Farmers are accustomed to using wrenches on their tractors, but John Deere refuses to provide them with the software needed to embed electronic devices in their equipment. Sony and Microsoft also refused to use the tools needed to pair new optical drives in game consoles.

In response, legislative proposals to restore maintenance have swept the country, and so far this year, at least 27 states have proposed laws on maintenance restrictions. These laws will require manufacturers to open up proprietary tools, stop restricting access to parts, and provide consumers with service information and schematics. However, the states cannot fix copyright laws, which means that tools to adjust my Xbox must be legalized at the federal level.

When Congress passed Section 1201 as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, its intent was to prevent DVD piracy. Members of Congress have written the text extensively, hoping that it can adapt to new technologies. Therefore, the potential application space is very broad-anything with software and digital locks belongs to Article 1201, which means that any maintenance that needs to destroy the digital lock is illegal. But the drafters considered enough and built one in the escape hatch: every three years you can apply for the right to break certain types of locks. Therefore, every three years I will call a group of mixed repairmen to apply for an exemption.

Last year, my team-including iFixit (an online maintenance community I co-founded), the Maintenance Association (an advocacy organization co-founded by iFixit, of which I am a member), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation-proposed to the U.S. Copyright Office It is required to fix the problem by bypassing the software lock. In order to hedge our bets, we also requested a more specific exemption in iFixit and Public Knowledge, a supporter of repair rights: when replacing disk drives on video game consoles (such as Xbox and PlayStation), an anti-piracy program was resolved.

At the end of last month, the Copyright Office issued the latest batch of rules in response to our petition. Since October 28, it is legal to unlock any "software-supporting equipment primarily for consumer use" and equipment on vehicles, ships, and medical equipment for the purpose of "diagnosis, maintenance and repair". equipment. This is a big victory. For more than a decade, iFixit and other advocates have been demanding extensive maintenance exemptions for copyright protection.

Unfortunately, the new exemption does not include “modifications,” for example, changing the settings on the cat’s smart litter box. They also do not include non-consumer equipment such as laboratory equipment or industrial systems. There is a bigger problem: this rule does not allow you to distribute repair tools that bypass the manufacturer's digital lock. This is because, according to Article 1201, the Copyright Office has no right to grant the right to sell or distribute the software required to unlock the digital lock. Without the ability to buy such maintenance tools, these new rules will have no teeth. For example, if you want to legally repair your Xbox, you will have to cut your own set of digital locks from scratch. That is not scalable-most gamers are not security engineers.

Obviously, this system is fundamentally broken. Every three years, advocates of fair restoration and digital rights must request new, narrowly defined exemptions and maintain all previous exemptions. The freedom of tinkering is hindered by a thin line that can be cut at will. For example, once, the Copyright Office unilaterally decided not to extend the exception for unlocking mobile phones, making it illegal before Congress. The decision was revoked in 2014.

These limited exemptions indicate that it is time for Congress to intervene and permanently exempt the repairs in Section 1201, especially repair tools. I hope they complete it before my Xbox needs to be repaired.

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