The era of disposable tech is coming to an end.
Minnesota has just surpassed New York as the best place to fix your stuff. The Minnesota Fair Repair Act is now law – adding access to repair materials to just about everything high-tech used in education, business, government, and industry to the consumer electronics law passed only a few months ago in New York. This, paired with the new law in Colorado covering Agricultural equipment, has dramatically altered the repair landscape to take effect in the next 6 to 12 months. More legislation in more states is still advancing. “Fair Repair” is on a roll.
The biggest changes are in the types of equipment included in the scope of the legislation and not any new requirements. Manufacturers of tech products that got themselves exempted in New York will find they are not exempted in Minnesota. We always expected the first law would be the hardest, which it was, and that subsequent laws would improve on prior efforts. There are some types of equipment, notably medical and agricultural categories, that Minnesota did not choose to include.
There are a couple of useful changes, such as clarifying that some repairs require licenses under state law, and a specific exclusion about computer gaming equipment for which the US Copyright Office has yet to agree to a repair exemption. We added some reassuring language about liability, which is already clear in state law. We expect to include these provisions elsewhere.
The net impact of laws now in New York, Colorado, and Minnesota is that OEMs will have to carefully consider if they want to keep opposing bills that will inevitably be slightly different, or decide to comport themselves as though Fair Repair principles are the law of the land. Some manufacturers, including Google, have already made that statement. More are talking privately about compliance. We aren’t officially *done* but the trend has shifted dramatically.
Our Coalition goal, set up almost exactly ten years ago, is to make sure that we can fix everything we own, even if that stuff happens to include a chip. While there is more to do until everything is covered by law, momentum is clearly on our side. Owners of tech-enabled products will have options to fix everything that can be fixed. Repair monopolies will fall apart with the opportunity of competition.
The Digital Right to Repair Coalition, aka “Repair.org”, members include over 400 organizations and individuals in the high-tech support marketplace – including companies that repair, resell, reuse, refurbish and recycle high-tech products alongside major consumer-rights organizations including US PIRG, Consumer Reports, and iFixit. We are 100% membership supported and dues are tax-deductible business expenses. Members Welcome.
Gay Gordon-Byrne
Executive Director
Digital Right to Repair Coalition