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Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#151

Post by jasode »

jablan wrote: post #122
jasode wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't even mention the words "licensing" and "banning." Even if you don't mention them explicitly, you still have to acknowledge the difference because one of your examples was "software object" . When consumers pay money for software, it almost always licensed and not bought . If you buy MS Windows 10 from Amazon.com, you purchased a license . If you truly want to "buy" Windows 10 in the same sense as your other…

Expecting to get a "codebase" when buying a software product would be the same as expecting getting blueprints for all the parts your car is made of. The concept of "buying a licence" is forced and by no means the only possible, if one wants to use a piece of software.

I wasn't saying that consumers "expect" the source code when they so-called "buy" the software. I'm explaining an example of what copyright law already _is_ so mentioning "software objects" is already getting into discussion of licenses even if you don't use explicitly use the word "license". There are 2 meanings:

- "buy software" the legal ownership sense : as in buying the copyright which is usually something companies (not consumers) do when they buy the intellectual property rights. E.g. Adobe Inc buys Macromedia Dreamweaver. This is the true ownership.

- "buy software" the casual sense : which just means the consumer getting a CD or a digital download to install a copy of the software. This the license not the ownership.

They are 2 different things that use the same word "buy" and just because a commentary omits the word "license" doesn't mean the above distinctions go away.

It's a similar distinction for many types of intellectual property. Photographers of weddings usually don't let couples buy the wedding photos in a legal ownership sense. Instead, they sell some prints with a license for use. Same with musicians selling "songs" to the public. People bought a license and not the copyright. Paul McCartney doesn't even "own" the songs he wrote with The Beatles. Thus, Paul McCartney can't do "anything he wants" with the song "Yesterday". He can't "resell the song" to somebody else like a used book. Instead, he has to ask for Sony's permission.

Does anyone "force" couples to license photos instead of buy them? In one sense, no. The bride & groom could conceivably contract with a photographer on a "work for hire" basis and thus own the copyrights to the photos. But most couples don't do that. Newspapers and magazines do establish "work for hire" with freelance photographers so they can own the photographs but most wedding couples don't.

As other commenters mentioned, the real issue is the slippery word "buy" that defies consumers' natural intuition of what that means. If you're really leasing/renting/licensing something, you need to make that clear.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#152

Post by chongli »

robert_foss wrote: post #141
bluGill wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own my home, but I'm not allowed to pour oil on the ground even though it would only destroy my own grass. I own my car, but I'm not allowed to remove the headlights and drive at night. Exactly where we place the limits is up for debate, but I think I conclusively proved to everybody reading this that there need to be limits the only question is where.

I understand what you are saying, but pouring oil into the ground or driving without headlights is against the common interests of most people. Being able to repair things is very different, it is _in_ the common interest and likely against the interests of the manufacturers.

Well, there are potential issues with people repairing their own phones. They could use the wrong (or counterfeit) part and cause the phone to emit radiation that interferes with nearby communications. Or they could use the wrong (or counterfeit) battery or even damage the battery during replacement, potentially causing a fire hazard.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#153

Post by fulafel »

cs702 wrote: post #80

When you buy a physical object, such as a home, a car, a shirt, or a smartphone, shouldn't you be be able to repair it, modify it however you want, use it for different purposes, loan it to friends, sell it to others, and so on -- you know, all the rights and benefits associated with the concept of private ownership ? And when you buy a software object, shouldn't you have the same rights and benefits?

Nitpicking.. but I think homes are not a good analogy, because many/most homes in apartment buildings are owned by the housing corporation of the building, or whatever the entity type in in the jurisdiction happens to be.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#154

Post by Funes- »

Silhouette wrote: post #115
Funes- wrote: post #31

Being guaranteed the right to repair from every manufacturer is great and, more importantly, much needed. Nonetheless, most people abide by the culture fabricated by those very corporations, which is defined by an annual release cycle of devices which are minimally upgraded deliberately, their selling point usually being something visibly different from the previous year's smartphones--currently, being foldable or ha…

The cycle can be broken, though. Look at PC sales these days. PCs became good enough to meet most people's everyday home or office needs, and hardly anyone upgrades automatically every 2-3 years any more unless they genuinely need more powerful hardware. Meanwhile, aggressive marketing particularly to impressionable younger customers has kids and those who influence them raving about a notch or a third camera or what…

>This seems to be more of a cultural problem, possibly with a side order of exploiting vulnerable targets in dubiously ethical ways, than a technical problem.

That's exactly what I've said on my previous comment:

>The culture fabricated by those very corporations

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#155

Post by rrmoelker »

listsfrin wrote: post #127
rrmoelker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrape off rust, replace chips that have been shorted. Does depend on chips being available and some knowledge on how to diagnose the damages (e.g.: board schematics). Here's an example of new age Macbook pro's dying from little water ingress (design oversight). And a combination of knowledge and a simple chip can fix your nearly write off Macbook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jahtu1_idVU

Manual work like that should be more expensive than buying new.

"should be"? I can see how it's more expensive now. But I think that as a collective having things repaired is preferred.

For most manufactures the incentives now is to minimize repairability. Increasing the repair cost.

Having some regulation in place to limit repairability prevention may tip the scale a bit towards repairing.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#156

Post by beckingz »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #51
avianlyric wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On many modern devices, you don't have "a battery", you have battery cells fit into every available space and wired together. You're certainly welcome to try replacing those. I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design. Source for this. No device has unpackaged unprotected battery cells just floating around. They may have many discrete batteries to use up all of the available space, but each…

I didn't say "unpackaged" or "unprotected". But I've seen the internals of multiple devices that have simple plastic wrappers (not hard shells) around the various battery cells, with wires connecting those plastic wrappers, and they don't have duplicated battery electronics, just one set.

You mean pouch batteries? Those things are pretty durable.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#157

Post by danShumway »

listsfrin wrote: post #127
rrmoelker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrape off rust, replace chips that have been shorted. Does depend on chips being available and some knowledge on how to diagnose the damages (e.g.: board schematics). Here's an example of new age Macbook pro's dying from little water ingress (design oversight). And a combination of knowledge and a simple chip can fix your nearly write off Macbook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jahtu1_idVU

Manual work like that should be more expensive than buying new.

I would be very surprised if Rossman charged more for that repair than the cost of a new Macbook.

Apple loves to say that their products are so expensive and complicated that manual repairs just aren't worth doing. But observably, in the real world, even with all of the crap Apple puts in front of repair shops to slow them down, that isn't true. Third-party repairpeople still manage to regularly beat Apple's prices.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#158

Post by eeZah7Ux »

econcon wrote: post #125
cs702 wrote: post #80

When you buy a physical object, such as a home, a car, a shirt, or a smartphone, shouldn't you be be able to repair it, modify it however you want, use it for different purposes, loan it to friends, sell it to others, and so on -- you know, all the rights and benefits associated with the concept of private ownership ? And when you buy a software object, shouldn't you have the same rights and benefits?

I think if this law is passed, companies will start subscription service where you'll be renting phones instead of owning then. Then onus and exclusive right for repair/replacement will stay with the smartphone company.

> Then onus and exclusive right for repair/replacement will stay with the smartphone company.

No, it's not that simple.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#159

Post by bo1024 »

bluGill wrote: post #132
cs702 wrote: post #80

When you buy a physical object, such as a home, a car, a shirt, or a smartphone, shouldn't you be be able to repair it, modify it however you want, use it for different purposes, loan it to friends, sell it to others, and so on -- you know, all the rights and benefits associated with the concept of private ownership ? And when you buy a software object, shouldn't you have the same rights and benefits?

I own my home, but I'm not allowed to pour oil on the ground even though it would only destroy my own grass. I own my car, but I'm not allowed to remove the headlights and drive at night. Exactly where we place the limits is up for debate, but I think I conclusively proved to everybody reading this that there need to be limits the only question is where.

I think this discussion got off-track. The question is about whether the company that sold you the car is allowed to impose EULA-type limits on how you modify, use, or resell it, above and beyond safety laws that apply equally to ever person and product.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#160

Post by simongray »

TomMarius wrote: post #150
simongray wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's clear why this tells us nothing about what the society here wants. On the contrary, it very clearly tells us that your society is apathetic about the EU and does not care about decisions made in the European parliament. In my own country, 2/3 voted in the latest EU parliament elections. The debates here were dominated by environmental policy, so I'm really not surprised that legislation like this is no…

> On the contrary, it very clearly tells us that your society is apathetic about the EU and does not care about decisions made in the European parliament. Exactly, that is the only thing that is clear. And the reason is that we have much greater political problems to deal with so the EU is not that relevant to us, especially not issues like right to repair (which is not an issue to anyone I know and google gives me m…

> Our society didn't want the Lisboa agreement, but our politicians signed it anyways - so what exactly does our society want and what exactly should the EU be saying about it?

Then vote for a different set of politicians and leave the EU. The UK paved the way. I believe in you!

> Even if 100% of people voted, still the 2.85% of voice don't seem like much space to express what our society wants, you know? And why there should only be space for one central opinion? That doesn't seem that diverse.

Humans aren't borgs, but that doesn't mean we can't generalise about the general tendencies of society. Do you want me to admit that not everyone in a society has the same opinion? Seems a bit pointless, but sure, I'll admit that.

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