Dave Farber
2018-10-25 21:12:41 UTC
Date: October 26, 2018 5:57:12 JST
Subject: Copyright Office Ruling Issues Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms
Copyright Office Ruling Issues Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms
written by Kyle Wiens
https://ifixit.org/blog/11951/1201-copyright-final-rule/
Six months ago, on a sunny spring day in LA, I donned a suitâa rare eventâand walked into a courtroom at UCLA. With me were Robert Miranda, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who runs an Xbox and smartphone repair shop in the desert town of Barstow, California, and Matt Zieminski, one of the better iPhone repair technicians in the world.
We were there to petition for the freedom to tinker. Thereâs an obscure aspect of copyright law that is being abused by big manufacturers to take away our ability to fix things. In 2001, Sina Khanifar, a young entrepreneur, was sued by a cell phone manufacturer citing section 1201 of the DMCA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Simply stated, 1201 makes it illegal to âcircumventâ locks put on products by the manufacturer without permission. It shifts control of our products from us, the owners, to the original makers of the equipment. This law has been a significant contributor to the steady erosion of ownership rights.
Over the last twenty years, section 1201 has become notorious for stripping away the freedom of security researchers, cell phone recyclers, and farmers. Right now, General Motors is suing popular auto parts company Dorman for copyright infringement for selling aftermarket transmissions.
Fortunately, Congress built an escape hatch into section 1201, allowing citizens to petition for exemptions to the extraordinarily broad law. So, every three years, someone has to go and ask for the right to tinker with our stuff. Iâm that someoneâthatâs why I was in LA.
On behalf of the iFixit community, I came to ask for permission to circumvent digital locks in order to fix our stuff. Fortunately, I wasnât alone. Along with Robert and Matt representing Repair.org, I was joined by Cynthia Replogle, iFixitâs rockstar lawyer. And Cory Doctorow, Kit Walsh, and Mitch Stoltz from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Jay âSaurikâ Freeman of Cydia iPhone jailbreaking fame. We also had help from Jef Pearlman and his team of students from Stanfordâs IP law clinic. Our allies were met with opposition from a variety of moneyed and acronymed interestsâthe MPAA, RIAA, and the Auto Alliance, to name a few.
Over three full days in LA, we were grilled by the Copyright Office. They wanted details on how cell phone baseband processors work, how automotive telematics systems are different from OBD II diagnostics, why you canât simply swap in a new Blu-ray drive into an Xbox, and so forth. It was exhaustingâfor us and for them. But they had done their homework, and asked intelligent questions on a startling variety of topics.
The final ruling was released today, along with 342 pages of background. Our work, and that of our allies, was cited extensively. The Copyright Office clearly understands the frustration that the repair community is experiencing. In the introduction to their ruling, they include this quote, â[i]tâs my own damn car, I paid for it, I should be able to repair it or have the person of my choice do it for me.â
Unlike past rulings, this goes into effect immediately. Well, almost immediately. The new rules are the law of the land as of this Sunday, October 28. So letâs break it down, and talk about whatâs illegal today that will be kosher come Sunday. (Oh, and hereâs the decision from 2015 for comparison.)
⢠You can now jailbreak Alexa-powered hardware, and other similar gadgetsâthey call these âVoice assistant devices.â
⢠You can unlock new phones, not just used ones. This is important for recyclers that get unopened consumer returns.
⢠We got a general exemption for repair of smartphones, home appliances, or home systems. This means that itâs finally legal to root and fix the Revolv smart home hubs that Google bricked when they shut down the servers. Or pretty much any other home device.
⢠Repair of motorized land vehicles (including tractors) by modifying the software is now legal. Importantly, this includes access to access telematic diagnostic dataâwhich was a major point of contention.
⢠Itâs now legal for third-parties to perform repair on behalf of the owner. This is hugely important for the American economy, where repair jobs represent 3% of overall employment.
⢠Our game console repair petition was denied, meaning repairs of PS4 and Xbox One systems are going to stay expensive.
⢠Products that are not âsmartphones, home appliances, or home systemsâ or âmotorized land vehiclesâ are excluded. So boat and airplane owners are still out of luck.
⢠An exemption request by Bunnie Huang and EFF to bypass HDCP, the copy protection on HDMI for the purposes of expanding the TV ecosystem was denied.
We are going to continue to have trouble making repair options available for Xbox and Playstation optical drives because theyâre cryptographically programmed at the factory. We asked for the ability to pair a replacement drive with an existing console. But the Copyright Office declined, stating that âin many cases, manufacturer repair services will be widely available and adequate.â On behalf of gamers in rural communities around the country, I respectfully disagree.
Taylor Swift and Telematics
Most of opponentsâ concerns, while significant, primarily relate to accessing entertainment works through vehicle entertainment systems and related subscription services, not to repairing more functional software installed to facilitate vehicle operation, which may require bypassing TPMs that incidentally protect entertainment systems.
This Ruling is not a Panacea
With those few exceptions, the Copyright Office went as far as they could in granting access to the repair community. There are still significant limits, though, that will need to be addressed by Congress.
One of those being the law against âtraffickingâ in circumvention tools. From todayâs filing, âlimiting the exemption to individual owners threatens to render it effectively meaningless for those who lack the technical knowledge to access and manipulate increasingly complex embedded computer systems.â Now that circumvention is required to perform repairs, and most repairs benefit from tools, we need to open up a market for developing and selling those tools. Legislation like Congresswoman Zoe Lofgrenâs Unlocking Technology Act would provide the clarity that tool developers need. It would also be helpful for service providers to codify the ability of third-parties to perform service.
A Groundbreaking Decision
Nowadays, just about everything has software. Your ability to fix and maintain the products you own is contingent on being able to modify that software. But our tooling hasnât kept up. For fear of prosecution, farmers and independent mechanics havenât developed their own software tools to maintain their equipment. Now, they can.
This ruling doesnât make that tooling available to the publicâweâre going to need actual Right to Repair legislation for that. But it does make it legal to make your own tools. And thatâs a huge step in the right direction.
This is a sweeping victory. Itâs the result of years of careful, painstakingly detailed work by the community. So pop a celebratory bottle, or maybe pop open a piece of household hardware this Sundayâwe did it!
-------------------------------------------Subject: Copyright Office Ruling Issues Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms
Copyright Office Ruling Issues Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms
written by Kyle Wiens
https://ifixit.org/blog/11951/1201-copyright-final-rule/
Six months ago, on a sunny spring day in LA, I donned a suitâa rare eventâand walked into a courtroom at UCLA. With me were Robert Miranda, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who runs an Xbox and smartphone repair shop in the desert town of Barstow, California, and Matt Zieminski, one of the better iPhone repair technicians in the world.
We were there to petition for the freedom to tinker. Thereâs an obscure aspect of copyright law that is being abused by big manufacturers to take away our ability to fix things. In 2001, Sina Khanifar, a young entrepreneur, was sued by a cell phone manufacturer citing section 1201 of the DMCA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Simply stated, 1201 makes it illegal to âcircumventâ locks put on products by the manufacturer without permission. It shifts control of our products from us, the owners, to the original makers of the equipment. This law has been a significant contributor to the steady erosion of ownership rights.
Over the last twenty years, section 1201 has become notorious for stripping away the freedom of security researchers, cell phone recyclers, and farmers. Right now, General Motors is suing popular auto parts company Dorman for copyright infringement for selling aftermarket transmissions.
Fortunately, Congress built an escape hatch into section 1201, allowing citizens to petition for exemptions to the extraordinarily broad law. So, every three years, someone has to go and ask for the right to tinker with our stuff. Iâm that someoneâthatâs why I was in LA.
On behalf of the iFixit community, I came to ask for permission to circumvent digital locks in order to fix our stuff. Fortunately, I wasnât alone. Along with Robert and Matt representing Repair.org, I was joined by Cynthia Replogle, iFixitâs rockstar lawyer. And Cory Doctorow, Kit Walsh, and Mitch Stoltz from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Jay âSaurikâ Freeman of Cydia iPhone jailbreaking fame. We also had help from Jef Pearlman and his team of students from Stanfordâs IP law clinic. Our allies were met with opposition from a variety of moneyed and acronymed interestsâthe MPAA, RIAA, and the Auto Alliance, to name a few.
Over three full days in LA, we were grilled by the Copyright Office. They wanted details on how cell phone baseband processors work, how automotive telematics systems are different from OBD II diagnostics, why you canât simply swap in a new Blu-ray drive into an Xbox, and so forth. It was exhaustingâfor us and for them. But they had done their homework, and asked intelligent questions on a startling variety of topics.
The final ruling was released today, along with 342 pages of background. Our work, and that of our allies, was cited extensively. The Copyright Office clearly understands the frustration that the repair community is experiencing. In the introduction to their ruling, they include this quote, â[i]tâs my own damn car, I paid for it, I should be able to repair it or have the person of my choice do it for me.â
Unlike past rulings, this goes into effect immediately. Well, almost immediately. The new rules are the law of the land as of this Sunday, October 28. So letâs break it down, and talk about whatâs illegal today that will be kosher come Sunday. (Oh, and hereâs the decision from 2015 for comparison.)
⢠You can now jailbreak Alexa-powered hardware, and other similar gadgetsâthey call these âVoice assistant devices.â
⢠You can unlock new phones, not just used ones. This is important for recyclers that get unopened consumer returns.
⢠We got a general exemption for repair of smartphones, home appliances, or home systems. This means that itâs finally legal to root and fix the Revolv smart home hubs that Google bricked when they shut down the servers. Or pretty much any other home device.
⢠Repair of motorized land vehicles (including tractors) by modifying the software is now legal. Importantly, this includes access to access telematic diagnostic dataâwhich was a major point of contention.
⢠Itâs now legal for third-parties to perform repair on behalf of the owner. This is hugely important for the American economy, where repair jobs represent 3% of overall employment.
⢠Our game console repair petition was denied, meaning repairs of PS4 and Xbox One systems are going to stay expensive.
⢠Products that are not âsmartphones, home appliances, or home systemsâ or âmotorized land vehiclesâ are excluded. So boat and airplane owners are still out of luck.
⢠An exemption request by Bunnie Huang and EFF to bypass HDCP, the copy protection on HDMI for the purposes of expanding the TV ecosystem was denied.
We are going to continue to have trouble making repair options available for Xbox and Playstation optical drives because theyâre cryptographically programmed at the factory. We asked for the ability to pair a replacement drive with an existing console. But the Copyright Office declined, stating that âin many cases, manufacturer repair services will be widely available and adequate.â On behalf of gamers in rural communities around the country, I respectfully disagree.
Taylor Swift and Telematics
Most of opponentsâ concerns, while significant, primarily relate to accessing entertainment works through vehicle entertainment systems and related subscription services, not to repairing more functional software installed to facilitate vehicle operation, which may require bypassing TPMs that incidentally protect entertainment systems.
This Ruling is not a Panacea
With those few exceptions, the Copyright Office went as far as they could in granting access to the repair community. There are still significant limits, though, that will need to be addressed by Congress.
One of those being the law against âtraffickingâ in circumvention tools. From todayâs filing, âlimiting the exemption to individual owners threatens to render it effectively meaningless for those who lack the technical knowledge to access and manipulate increasingly complex embedded computer systems.â Now that circumvention is required to perform repairs, and most repairs benefit from tools, we need to open up a market for developing and selling those tools. Legislation like Congresswoman Zoe Lofgrenâs Unlocking Technology Act would provide the clarity that tool developers need. It would also be helpful for service providers to codify the ability of third-parties to perform service.
A Groundbreaking Decision
Nowadays, just about everything has software. Your ability to fix and maintain the products you own is contingent on being able to modify that software. But our tooling hasnât kept up. For fear of prosecution, farmers and independent mechanics havenât developed their own software tools to maintain their equipment. Now, they can.
This ruling doesnât make that tooling available to the publicâweâre going to need actual Right to Repair legislation for that. But it does make it legal to make your own tools. And thatâs a huge step in the right direction.
This is a sweeping victory. Itâs the result of years of careful, painstakingly detailed work by the community. So pop a celebratory bottle, or maybe pop open a piece of household hardware this Sundayâwe did it!
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