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Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

xataka.com.mx

51–60 of 114 posts

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the telcos had their way, once your contract ended the phone would vaporise before your eyes.

If that's the case, why don't they already do this? It's totally feasible to design a phone that will brick itself when your contract ends. There's no legal impediment to doing it either.

Don't give them the idea. I can imagine the reasoning: "We've had disposable cameras that were never truly the customer's property, may as well extend it to phones."

It could be argued that Apple were already doing this. Remember their updates that knowingly slowed down older phones? They claimed it was for performance reasons, but nowhere informed the user of this practice... Src: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171222/15380038868/apple...

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#52

How does this interacts with FLOSS software used on the phone? This is an example of "tivoization" and should be prevented by GPLv3

Do any phones use GPLv3 code? Closest that I know of is Linux under v2, but Android generally is permissively licensed.

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#53
Sometimes it feels as if politicians and lawmakers are drawing inspiration from the direst scenarios envisioned in the science fiction literature.

Do they really not understand the long-term consequences of preventing the kind of tinkering, exploration, repurposing, interconnecting, i.e., hacking, that leads to innovation?

Do they really not understand the long-term consequences of preventing new kinds of competition from "garage upstarts" that find new, better, cheaper ways of doing thins?

Do they really think this is beneficial for everyone in the long run?

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#55
post #53

Sometimes it feels as if politicians and lawmakers are drawing inspiration from the direst scenarios envisioned in the science fiction literature. Do they really not understand the long-term consequences of preventing the kind of tinkering, exploration, repurposing, interconnecting, i.e., hacking, that leads to innovation? Do they really not understand the long-term consequences of preventing new kinds of competition…

People are tinkering with phones in order to circumvent law and make quick, short term profit at the cost of tax paying citizens. None of the noble reasons you'd think of apply.

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#57
>Do they really think this is beneficial for everyone in the long run

Do you really think that politicians are concerned about "everyone's benefits"? I think they do not give a flying f..k about it. They're being lobbied by big corps and then after their terms they get cushy jobs in the same corps. Joe/Jane Does are only remembered at the time of the vote.

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Norwegian judges made the final decision purely assessing trademark violations on these screens, based on obscure and technical details that are entirely invisible to consumers (...) while Huseby still maintains they were refurbished. (...) >As Huseby puts it, Apple uses intellectual property law as a “weapon” by putting multiple logos and QR-codes on each component part of its screens, knowing that the Chinese…

Disgusting.

You should read the actual court case. The online journalistic coverage is misleading and somewhat exaggerated. There are good reasons for why the case is not being appealed.

https://youtu.be/xKEdi6vXMrU

Here is one of the expert witnesses in the trial recanting his outage and explaining why Henrik was actually committing trademark infringement.

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#59
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disgusting.

You should read the actual court case. The online journalistic coverage is misleading and somewhat exaggerated. There are good reasons for why the case is not being appealed. https://youtu.be/xKEdi6vXMrU Here is one of the expert witnesses in the trial recanting his outage and explaining why Henrik was actually committing trademark infringement.

I'm sure there are good reasons but there has to be a more concise way of making that point than linking to 41 minutes of rambling video. I watched the first 5 and I'm none the wise yet.

Regardless of journalistic coverage it is still Apple suing for trademark infringement on parts that should not have been trademarked in the first place. So they are simply using trademark law as a weapon knowing full well that this was their intended use from day #1. Apple doesn't like 3rd party repairs of your devices, somehow they still feel that even if they sell you something they are owed a piece of the action for every bit of hardware that goes into it post sale.

We've come a very long way since the Apple II with it's nice and hackable expansion ports. This disgusts me in a way that not much else does.

Re: Repairing your smartphone or installing a ROM will now be a crime in Mexico

#60

This is an unfortunate win against the right to repair, which is a concerning issue everywhere around the world. Just recently, in Norway its last court instance found a repair shop in breach of Apple's trademark as they used imported third-party displays. This stifles competition as corporations are in control for how long hardware or software remain usable and who can provide alternative solutions. In the US this t…

That Norwegian decision is a travesty as presented here, how can a repair infringe on a trademark and how on Earth did that not lead to an appeal. Using aftermarket parts is a well established practice in automotive, I see absolutely no reason why that would not extend to phones. Are they going to demand cars are only repaired with OEM parts as well?

> how can a repair infringe on a trademark

I generally agree but I can also see apples pov. I’ve purchased quite a few used iPhones online (amazon, eBay stores etc) that are advertised as new or open box. So so frequently they come with terrible third party screens or super cheap replacement parts. If I didn’t have a point of reference I would think iPhones just have terrible screens/crappy switches/speakers etc. Apple is right to want to protect their brand from these hooligans but I think there are far better ways.

I personally think they should let the repair market be but throw an alert in settings and setup that let you know there are fake parts in a device. I’m not sure how feasible that would be butI think it would be more useful and effective than going at it from a legislative angle.

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