New push for 'Right to Repair' bill underway in New York

[John Ellmaker]

Unfortunately, it seems like only a handful of the population even knows or cares about the locking down of devices and how it affects consumers.  I would have never disassembled or repaired my first laptop without guides freely available at dell.com for a previous career.

 

At least this video has a bunch of views and feels approachable to a mainstream viewer 

 

[MEC-777]

On 2018-06-16 at 10:29 PM, John Ellmaker said:

Unfortunately, it seems like only a handful of the population even knows or cares about the locking down of devices and how it affects consumers.  I would have never disassembled or repaired my first laptop without guides freely available at dell.com for a previous career.

 

At least this video has a bunch of views and feels approachable to a mainstream viewer 

 

As someone who's grown up around, working on and now lives on, a farm, I found this video very interesting. Tech is infiltrating everything these days and it effects everyone, how that tech is handled by the companies that use it. Thanks for posting.

[mynameisjuan]

On 6/16/2018 at 10:29 PM, John Ellmaker said:

Unfortunately, it seems like only a handful of the population even knows or cares about the locking down of devices and how it affects consumers.  I would have never disassembled or repaired my first laptop without guides freely available at dell.com for a previous career.

 

At least this video has a bunch of views and feels approachable to a mainstream viewer 

 

Repairing devices is a bit different from farm equipment. JD is destroying the farming market with their repair policy even to the point of not being able to repair a flat on certain models. Now imagine being stuck in a field not being able to change a flat when the closest dealer ship is 100 miles away? Yeah your fucked. 

 

Premise is the same though, we should be able to repair our equipment but its not for everyone. I mean very few people will even swap RAM.

[ravenshrike]

On 5/8/2018 at 10:58 PM, mr moose said:

You can't undo centuries of precedent in IP/common law on grounds of right to repair. 

Yes you can. Especially since the common law in question was originally limited to 14/14. The idea that it should be applicable at all to the current effective doctrine of forever minus a day is fucking ludicrous. Not to mention for code to qualify for application to copyright, the source code should be forced to be bundled with the binaries. No source code, no IP protection

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

Yes you can. Especially since the common law in question was originally limited to 14/14. The idea that it should be applicable at all to the current effective doctrine of forever minus a day is fucking ludicrous. Not to mention for code to qualify for application to copyright, the source code should be forced to be bundled with the binaries. No source code, no IP protection

 I was referring to the fact that there is a difference between allowing someone to repair a device and forcing any company to allow other companies to manufacture their products.   What I said stands very true, you cannot undo centuries of IP law just because you want a right to repair your own device.  The issue here falls under a failure of consumer law not IP law.  

[LoganTNZ]

EDIT: nevermind, im dumb. Didnt know they were talking exclusively about companies forcibly degrading components. Now for me to redo my whole post

 

I dont know how I feel about this. On the one hand, its unethical for companies to degrade your products over time, but should it be illegal? Shouldnt it be the consumer's responsibility to do their research and for companies to maintain their products? I dont really like the idea of the governement controlling what companies can and can not do. People are slowly waking up to apple's shady business praftices anyways.

[Sniperfox47]

15 hours ago, mr moose said:

 I was referring to the fact that there is a difference between allowing someone to repair a device and forcing any company to allow other companies to manufacture their products.   What I said stands very true, you cannot undo centuries of IP law just because you want a right to repair your own device.  The issue here falls under a failure of consumer law not IP law.  

Nobody is manufacturing fake Apple products though. That's the whole point. They're selling and repairing/refurbishing those first party official parts. Isnt that protected under right of first sale?

 

None of these repair places in question are passing them off as anything other than refurbished iphone display assemblies. That's what these imports are labeled as coming across the boarder. There's no counterfeiting going on here.

 

If they were third party digitizers with an apple logo printed on them? Sure. But they're just resurfaced, no different than replacing the windshield in your old Civic, it's not suddenly a counterfeit Civic because it has a third party windshield.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Nobody is manufacturing fake Apple products though. That's the whole point. They're selling and repairing/refurbishing those first party official parts. Isnt that protected under right of first sale?

 

7 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

 

None of these repair places in question are passing them off as anything other than refurbished iphone display assemblies. That's what these imports are labeled as coming across the boarder. There's no counterfeiting going on here.

 

If they were third party digitizers with an apple logo printed on them? Sure. But they're just resurfaced, no different than replacing the windshield in your old Civic, it's not suddenly a counterfeit Civic because it has a third party windshield.

 

This is where there are problems, The discussion has been centered around apple refusing to allow 3rd parties to repair even with genuine refurbished parts, this is a consumer law problem not an IP problem.  My statements have been made because it was said that customs was destroying product as it enters the country without giving importers the chance to prove it is legitimate.  To be honest I haven't actually seen any proof that legitimate products were actually destroyed, I am just giving this argument the benefit of the doubt for the sake of being reasonable.  This is why I said there are two conflating issues, one trying to force apple to allow the manufacture and import of their IP (I am not sure exactly where the law lays on refurbishing parts at the factory and re importing them), and the other is apple not allowing anyone to repair products. 

 

Having said all that, I don't see how any of this is going to be resolved.  Apple is too big and has too much money.

[Guest]

Generic comment stating that Apple’s current practice is best, but not perfect. 

 

Really first-party parts should always be available and you should use them instead of fake parts, which exist quite frequently, but don’t expect any warranty of you install them yourself or take it to an unauthorised servicer. But the parts should be available. 

[Dabombinable]

17 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Generic comment stating that Apple’s current practice is best, but not perfect. 

 

Really first-party parts should always be available and you should use them instead of fake parts, which exist quite frequently, but don’t expect any warranty of you install them yourself or take it to an unauthorised servicer. But the parts should be available. 

Tell that to Apple. They even go out of their way to ensure that refurbished original Apple parts can't be imported under the excuse of "counterfeiting".

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Tell that to Apple. They even go out of their way to ensure that refurbished original Apple parts can't be imported under the excuse of "counterfeiting".

A lot of them are to be fair. I bought an iPhone off Aliexpress once, it was pretty cheap. Turned out hardly anything really made by Apple, apart from the board. Ran iOS and all. It was “refurbished”. 

 

[MEC-777]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

Apple is too big and has too much money.

Unfortunately. And too many people keep giving it to them. 

[Dabombinable]

Just now, RorzNZ said:

A lot of them are to be fair. I bought an iPhone off Aliexpress once, it was pretty cheap. Turned out hardly anything really made by Apple, apart from the board. Ran iOS and all. It was “refurbished”. 

 

I'm talking about individual parts shipped from repair shops to other countries to get refurbished, and then getting sized when they get sent back. Apparently hiding the Apple logo on each of the refurb parts (making them look counterfeit) before shipping them is enough to get around the BS however.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I'm talking about individual parts shipped from repair shops to other countries to get refurbished, and then getting sized when they get sent back. Apparently hiding the Apple logo on each of the refurb parts (making them look counterfeit) before shipping them is enough to get around the BS however.

Weird, but I guess who refurbishes them and can Apple quality control their work? Unless it’s Apple workers shipping to Apple, which is the wierdest thing if they get seized. 

[Dabombinable]

16 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Weird, but I guess who refurbishes them and can Apple quality control their work? Unless it’s Apple workers shipping to Apple, which is the wierdest thing if they get seized. 

It really doesn't matter if Apple's involved or not. The 3rd party repair shop would be under fire from the customer if the screen screwed up due to being poorly refurbished. And its pretty much supposed to be 3rd party shop>re-furbisher>3rd party repair shop with the parts. No chance of counterfeiting or second rate kill-your-device parts.

 

Apple authorised repair shops aren't even allowed to do half of the possible repairs (some of which are actually very simple) which is why the 3rd party repair shops are important. They can do what authorised repair shops aren't allowed to do via their contract.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

It really doesn't matter if Apple's involved or not. The 3rd party repair shop would be under fire from the customer if the screen screwed up due to being poorly refurbished. And its pretty much supposed to be 3rd party shop>re-furbisher>3rd party repair shop with the parts. No chance of counterfeiting or second rate kill-your-device parts.

 

Apple authorised repair shops aren't even allowed to do half of the possible repairs (some of which are actually very simple) which is why the 3rd party repair shops are important. They can do what authorised repair shops aren't allowed to do via their contract.

It’s more on the lines of what Apple itself can guarantee. When they do the repairs Apple as a company uphold the warranty, rather than the servicer who did the job. That’s mainly why Apple has the very strict guidelines. If Apple isn’t guaranteed a good job then they can’t really uphold the warranty. The idea is you go into any Apple store etc to get the phone fixed wherever. The model works better in larger centres where there are Apple Stores available. Usually if they can’t do the repair they just swap the phone.

 

if you haven’t got an Apple store then out of luck and that’s what this is about. 

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

It’s more on the lines of what Apple itself can guarantee.

Q: When you take your car to a shop and something with the repair goes wrong, who do you take the car to?

A: The repair shop. You don't take it to the dealership to fix the repair shop's mistake. The warranty for the repaired issue is with the shop, not the dealership. An incident that isn't related should, and usually is with many other manufacturers of laptops, still warranted under Apple. If they wish to deny the claim, they need to submit proof of how the 1st repair "damaged" the device for the 2nd repair. 

 

3 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

if you haven’t got an Apple store then out of luck and that’s what this is about. 

That's like saying a Ford dealership shouldn't fix Kia models as they're Ford "only". 

Spoiler

Except in this case, Apple dealerships (Apple Bar or some sh#t) and AASP's still can't do the repairs. 

 

[Guest]

On 6/20/2018 at 3:26 PM, ARikozuM said:

Q: When you take your car to a shop and something with the repair goes wrong, who do you take the car to?

A: The repair shop. You don't take it to the dealership to fix the repair shop's mistake. The warranty for the repaired issue is with the shop, not the dealership. An incident that isn't related should, and usually is with many other manufacturers of laptops, still warranted under Apple. If they wish to deny the claim, they need to submit proof of how the 1st repair "damaged" the device for the 2nd repair. 

 

That's like saying a Ford dealership shouldn't fix Kia models as they're Ford "only". 

  Reveal hidden contents

Except in this case, Apple dealerships (Apple Bar or some sh#t) and AASP's still can't do the repairs. 

 

Well you don't take an Android to an Apple store do you. In this case the warranty is with Apple, not the shop. 

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Well you don't take an Android to an Apple store do you. In this case the warranty is with Apple, not the shop. 

Repairs usually come with a warranty or guarantee from whoever performs the repairs. 

[Guest]

On 6/20/2018 at 3:43 PM, ARikozuM said:

Repairs usually come with a warranty or guarantee from whoever performs the repairs. 

Works a little differently with Apple, but on 3rd party repairs thats the case - from the place themselves. Apple warranties are with the phone itself and the service warranty acts more like an extension of the product warranty.