EFFecting Change: If You Own It, Why Can't You Fix It?

Hi there. Welcome to Affecting Change with EFF. Um it's our live stream series where we bring together panelists to tackle the latest issues in civil liberties and human rights in the digital world. Um before we get started, let's go over just a few housekeeping items. Um first of all, we have a live caption team online with us today and you can view the captions at livestream.eff.org. Um you can also participate in this Twitch chat. If you have questions um throughout the program, please drop them into the chat and our guests will answer as many as they can at the end of the stream. Our last 15 minutes is devoted to Q&A. Um before that, if you're comfortable, we encourage you to type a little hello in the chat now and let us know where you're joining us from. Um and a few words about EFF, if you're not familiar with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we're a group of technologists, activists, and attorneys um that's been fighting since 1990 for your right to create, to innovate, and to make yourself heard without fear of unjust government or corporate surveillance. Um I should say too that you are the reason EFF can do this work. So, if you'd like to help us in the fight, please consider donating at eff.org/supportchange or pick up some cool EFF gear at our eff.org/shop. Okay, that aside. My name is Cory Doctorow and I'm the legal director here at EFF. I've been here for just about 21 years um growing with the organization. And my work my legal work specializes in intellectual property, free expression, and um free speech issues of all kinds. I take on lots of cases defending fair use, political expression, the public domain, access to knowledge, and right to repair, which is what we're going to talk about here today. Um, so let me introduce our the participants. So, first of all, barely needs any introduction, but Adam Savage is a former co-host of MythBusters. Uh, and today is stars in and produces content for tested.com. Also barely needing any introduction >> [laughter] >> is Kyle Wiens, who is the CEO of iFixit, uh, a free online repair manual. It's extraordinary, super useful. He's dedicated his life to defeating the second law of thermodynamics. And he's fighting this battle in the courtroom as well as in the workshop and online. And finally, my colleague and friend Haley Sukiyama, she's the director of state affairs at EFF, working on state legislation covering all kinds of EFF topics we're all over these days, including data data privacy, AI, and of course, right to repair. So, this is a great set of experts to talk about this issue. Uh, so we're going to get started and just as a reminder, we will have 15 minutes for your questions at the end. So, if we don't hit on something that you want to hear about or you just want to hear more, please submit your questions via the Twitch chat. All right. So, the way we're going to do this is, um, I happen to know all of these people have a lot to say on this topic, so we're going to try to keep it a little focused by just starting with some opening questions and we'll go from there. Uh, so, just to set the stage for us, Kyle, what the heck is the right to repair and why don't we already have it? >> So, this is the idea that if you got a thing, you ought to be able to fix it. Uh, and I would say we used to have the right to repair. We used to be able to fix our things and it is gradually being eroded, uh, through a combination of factors. So, in general, uh, being able to fix something means that you can get the parts to fix it, you can get the tools to fix it, and you can get the knowledge that teaches you how to repair things. Uh now we used to be able to fix things for a variety of reasons. One, things were simpler, we had fewer of them. Um but but also the knowledge tended to come with them. So it used to be if you bought a washing machine, if you opened up the back of it, it would come with like a schematic of how the thing worked. The Apple II, Steve Wozniak included the full schematics for the Apple II computer with that computer. So back in the day these things were either self-documenting, you could open an engine and kind of figure out how it worked, or they came with information. And over time, uh through for a variety of reasons, we have stopped doing that. So we have less and less information to the point where I started iFixit because I was trying to repair my laptop and I was looking for the repair manual online. I couldn't find it anywhere. Uh I fumbled my way through the repair. I barely got the thing fixed. And then I did, you know, the internet deep dive that you do, like why is this information not on the internet? And I learned that Apple had made a manual, it existed, someone had posted it online, and Apple had sent uh IP takedowns, they'd sent DMCA takedowns to every site that had the repair manual, and they had censored that knowledge from the internet. So uh access to the manuals, the knowledge, uh turns out to be really important. So those are really the the legs of the stool. Can we get the parts? Can we get the information? Uh and then are there proprietary tools in the way? And and so right to repair has has been this this movement of how do we create societal conditions, laws, regulations, um uh fair use to allow us to be able to fix our things again? >> And so Kyle, just to build on that just a little bit to flesh it out for folks who aren't familiar with this. So the So what Apple did and and other companies have done is they made copyright claims. They said, "We own that manual, so you can't put it online, or you can't keep it online, right?" Okay. >> Yeah, so that seems like a lot. >> You say, "Why do we have copyright?" And you know, what copyright is doing is taking freedom away from you in order to organize society in a way that we think is better. So, copyright is saying, "Hey, you cannot go and copy Finding Nemo and give copies to all your friends because we want to take that freedom away from you in order to create a construct where where creators get paid for their works. It's reasonable to an extent. Adam is a creator. >> [laughter] >> I think you like copyright of some of your things. Uh but it goes too far when you start applying copyright to things that you did not need to take freedom away from people to incentivize the creation of. So, in the case of a service manual for a tractor, is John Deere going to make a service manual for a tractor if there is no copyright law? Absolutely, they are. They have to have that that service manual to train their technicians so that people can maintain these products. So, there's no reason for copyright to extend to service documentation. Uh but uh yeah, you get these large corporations and what they're really good at is self-preservation and and protecting growth at all costs. And they go and they look at the legal tones to say, "What are all the laws out there that we can use to protect our existence, protect our uh kind of rent-seeking monopolies of uh of the repair world?" And uh copyright is an easy tool for them to to reach for. So, our goal in the right to repair campaign has been to make it uh politically untenable for them to use uh copyright laws as a weapon like they have in the past. Uh and now we've seen them in So, this was 20 years ago when I started, Apple was was sending takedowns to people posting service manuals. Now we've passed a variety of right to repair laws, and Apple's actually posting the repair manuals on apple.com. So, we are starting to inch our way back toward a world where things are fixable again. >> Excellent. All right. All right. Then, Hayley, I'm going to throw this one to you now cuz I think I think we just set it up pretty well. But so, why does EFF care about this? Like, we're a civil liberties organization, that's what we do. So, what's the overlap between civil liberties and like farm equipment? Help me out. >> Yeah. So, um I would say zooming way out, right? EFF believes that technology should work for the user, right? The everyday person. Um and like digital locks and use of copyright to stop people from from being able to People buy things to do things, and so to stop them from being able to do them, like that just that's not what we're into, right? Um right to repair is actually one of the issues I came to EFF with like a real deep passion for um before I started. Like, I used to be a consumer tech reporter, and I would hear a lot from readers who were just saying like, "I'm struggling with this thing. Like, I dropped my phone. Like, you know, it's so expensive. I can't afford to replace it. I can't afford the time to go and like try and get an authorized replacement. Can I just go to this guy down the you know, down the street?" So, to me this is really about like um letting people have the choice to find solutions that work for them uh and have the autonomy, right? To have that kind of choice. So, farm equipment is a great example of a way that like, you know, sort of uh digital rights applies to like way more than just smartphones and laptops and sort of the the general slate of electronic devices that people think about usually. Um you know, if you're talking about a tractor and someone is limiting your ability to repair that tractor, if you're a farmer, that's a a huge investment of capital that you have to make, you know, on a regular basis. So, you put you sunk a lot of money into that tractor. Um and then if you have to wait for someone to tell you that you can repair it or wait for someone to come out to a rural area, like that's that's your livelihood. That's like literal money um that uh that that repair is keeping you from from earning. That's, you know, crops rotting in the fields. Um and I will say, you know, this week uh settlement between John Deere and the FTC says among other things that the company can't retaliate against people who make their own repairs. And I happen to know, my husband uh has a family farm in Mississippi, and like after they read that news, there's a guy working on a tractor in Shelby, Mississippi who was not working on a tractor last week cuz they were scared to do it. And so, these things really really matter to to people in their everyday lives. Um and you know, so that's why EFF cares, right? It's about sort of empowering people. Even in my own experience with repair, like I had a broken key and I like got that I fix it, you know, that little it's like a guitar pick, you like pop it off, you get the new key, and you pop it on. Like uh that there is a thrill that comes with that sort of autonomy, and that's really to me so much more about more than the right to repair. It's about critical thinking, it's about questioning received wisdom, it's like finding things out for yourself. That gets a little outside the EFF work of digital civil liberties, but to me, what is so important about EFF in this space is making sure that technology doesn't hinder that sort of very important uh feeling and that very important sort of urge that I think a lot of us have. >> Yeah, anyway, we still call it freedom to tinker, you know? We think people should have that ability to do that. And and just so I can flesh things out a little bit, I think one of the things maybe it might get a little bit buried here is one of the problems here it isn't just the claims of copyright, but that's it's because there is all this tech now in your equipment, in your cars, in your stuff. There's software everywhere. There's software in your fridge, there's software in all the places, and software is copyrighted. And that is why copy or one of the reasons that copyright comes into play. It's not just the copyright in the ownership manuals, it's the copyright in the software in your stuff. And once you've got, you know, I sort of I remember going to a conference a few years ago myself, and it was of farmers and farm equipment folks. I went with Kyle and I had to say like I am so sorry that you have to talk to a copyright lawyer. You should not have to talk to a copyright lawyer but here I am and and I'm sorry about that. But hey, Adam but you're like a big time copyright owner. You you you like what what? Don't you like copyright and don't you like ownership? Like what's the what help help me out here and from from a third perspective of someone who's maybe on on both sides of this. Like I think of this is kind of like digital ownership. So why do we want that? >> But and listen, at the front copyright and ownership are great. The the copyright and patent act are are excellent additions to our constitution uh but they both they both make it clear that they exist for a limited time to benefit the creators but they both include the understanding that after that limited time culture wants that information. That that passes those useful arts passed to culture. And when you have so as a small business owner I you know my my company Tested is seven people. Uh I absolutely love copyright and we protect our we protect our our brand but at the same time uh you know there's this there's this American corporate idea of control that you want to control your brand and that control leads leads them to actually tell you you're going to violate the warranty if you open this thing up. And as a as a self-taught engineer and a self-taught scientist I want to talk about the the landscape of culture is that where do engineers and scientists come from? They come from kids taking stuff apart and learning how it works. And if everything became a black box like our phones that you cannot open up you end up with absolute generations of lost knowledge. A mechanic in Mississippi who's afraid to repair a tractor is someone who's not gaining the institutional knowledge to repair the new models of tractors. And that is a benefit to John Deere because they then have a monopoly on that on that knowledge base. So, I'm a big believer in copyright and and being able to make money as a creator from the fruits of my labors, but I also understand that my work is all mine, but it is also my cultures. And that after a period of time, those rights accrete to my culture and I I I believe in that system. Um unfortunately, with this idea of corporations being over 100 years old, this idea of control has gotten way out of hand. >> And would you mind um talking a little bit about There's I feel like this has been like much in the news just recently because um because Sony decided to kill physical game discs. >> Yeah. >> Uh for PlayStation. And and what I've been seeing is a lot of sort of back and forth about like well, look, but you'll still have access. You'll have access to the games. And And so, what's the problem? Why do you want a physical disc? I mean, how I mean, I don't know about you guys. I'm old enough to have a big pile of old CDs. Like I used I'm storing them. And what am I doing with those? Why don't I just want access? >> That promise of access is completely hollow. Uh and has never stood up and it is never like uh uh I believe on the PlayStation 5, they just removed hundreds of movies that people bought through an old service that was attached to the PlayStation. Movies they bought and they clicked a buy now button on that movie and it is no longer in their collection because those movies aren't licensed to be used on the PlayStation 5. What is ownership in that case? What did What did all those PlayStation 5 owners pay for? So, this idea that oh, you don't have to buy the physical discs cuz you'll own the game. One of the other aspects of right to is me uh uh our products that that that get discontinued, especially medical products. There are people with cochlear implants where the company that made them went out of business and they don't have the right to actually make them work again. Uh those hanging chads of information out there of like, oh that company that made that won't let you be able to repair it or use it even though they're out of business, that's absolutely insane to me. >> Yeah, right. >> that that acts as So, what's happening is software moves into everything. Now, copy you know, you wanted to be able to fix, you know, anything. You You want to fix a power drill back in the day, this is an old power drill. This doesn't have software, right? You can You can look You can understand I think you can understand intuitively how this thing works, right? You cannot do that with a modern power drill. It's got a microchip. It's got software. And so, if you want to be able to fix anything involving software, now you have to talk to Corrine and then the intellectual property lawyers to understand, right? Because we have a very different regime of rules governing what you can do with software and what you can do with physical property that you own. And we have to find a way to bring back some of the rights of what we can do with our physical property to things that are software enabled. Uh and this is we are at this pivotal moment in the trajectory of of technology and society where, okay, we're shifting from everything being mechanical to everything having software. That's fine. I can work with that. But we're inheriting a regime of intellectual property that was created to protect creators. And I as a software engineer do not need the same level of protection for the software that I create that Disney needs for their their creative works. We We We have to decouple these things somehow. Right now, they're they're uh tightly coupled and it's biasing uh ownership in in the favor of, you know, large companies like Sony. >> Can Kyle can know that, um you've also talked a lot about in various forms about how this over overlaps with sort of environmental concerns. Cuz if you can't you can't fix it then you automatically have to turn it, you know, turn in your phone as Apple will say to you, yeah. Something wrong with your phone, just just turn it in, we'll give you a new one. >> Yeah, and and this is part of like are we owning things or are we renting? When you when you have a product that stops working after a couple years and you can't repair it, uh you're really being turned into you know, you're just you're just renting that product. And so that's been the concern that we have across everything uh in our in our digital lives is that the lifespan of these things is just much lower than it used to be. It used to be if you bought a refrigerator it lasted for 40 or 50 years. Now the average lifespan of a refrigerator is seven years. No one goes out and buys a new refrigerator planning to replace it in seven years. That's insanity. Um but uh software's brittle, electronics are brittle, they're much more brittle than these old mechanical devices. You know, this particular drill uh was made 100 years ago, it still works now. Is a drill that I buy today going to work in 100 years? I think very likely not. So uh and then you say, well what's the the impact to the environment of making these things? You know, my cell phone, eight ounce cell phone, I can hold I can fit in my pocket, it's 250 lb of raw material dug out of the earth to make that phone. It's a huge amount of energy in the process of of making the chips that go into the phone. And we are really terrible at recycling them. So you hear about the geopolitical issues with rare earth metals, there's rare earths in the magnets that make the speaker in your phone work. Uh those come from a very polluted place in China, there's no North America source for those. And we're not recovering those in recycling. So if we want to have a resilient future society, we need to find a way to make the things that we have last longer. Uh and and that that means uh you we have to systematically tackle every blocker to getting in the way of fixing things. I'm a very practical person. I'm an engineer. I like I like tinkering and fixing things. So, I'm going to look at this as a problem to solve and say across all the things out there we want to make them last longer. It's better for the planet. It's better for our pocketbooks. It's better for our freedom and autonomy. What are the blockers getting in the way and how can we knock those away? >> So, Gayla, I'm going to throw to you then. Tell me a little bit about like So, what are the impediments? I'm hearing like copyright. What? So, how do what how does that play out? So, it's a it's DMCA takedowns. What are the other ways in which What are the other sort of things in the What are the blockers uh that we want to tackle? >> Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I I'm not an engineer. So, like I you know, I I think a lot about sort of the everyday people. I think for everyday people, right, the blockers are like I have a broken thing. I want to fix it and or I want to find someone that I trust who can fix it. And because of the way that, you know, these manuals are being controlled about the difficulty that you have in even opening up like iFixit does these great and analyses of products where it's like these are hard to open. You need proprietary screwdrivers. Like, you know, just sort of the the very practical obstacles that they put in the way for everyday people to be able to, you know, handle their stuff, to extend the life of their stuff. With the software question like, you know, is there an update that's going to take away a feature that I like? Is there an update that's going to stop supporting this feature that I like? You know, to me those are People just don't have time, right, to to be running around and trying to figure out all of this. And so, if if companies make it hard, it makes it almost impossible for the average person unless they really want to take the time to dedicate to it to fix stuff the way that they want or to extend the life of something that they can't afford to buy they can't afford to buy a replacement for and so that's like when I'm when I'm talking to offices and when I'm thinking about sort of why this is an important issue for them to think about for their constituents those are the sorts of things that I reach for um >> I think there's also the parts I think a lot of times we don't even know about until we have a problem which is that when you buy stuff if it's got software in it you probably as part of your like initial operation of it agree to a terms of service of some kind a license agreement for that software and in that it probably all kinds of limitations you don't know you didn't read it they know you didn't read it everybody knows that you didn't read it but nonetheless there you are with a contract that you've that you've agreed to and and then what happens is probably they're not going to sue no one's going to sue you but they might sue a third party who would like to come in and help you do the repair yourself and they'll say well you're interfering with contract so I'm lawyer hat on I'll stop now but but it just >> want to pretend to be a lawyer so I'm glad you jumped in >> hidden agreements that we that we're all bound by that we just don't know about so like it's access to parts it's copyright takedowns Adam how have you encountered this problem in the work that you've done or you're doing >> oh to me one of the key places the rubber meets the road and I I love that farmers are our partners in this movement everybody understands the ethos of a farmer working alone needing their equipment to keep running but another another place I have seen the rubber meet the road here is in wheelchairs we live in a time when there are spectacularly specialized wheelchairs for all sorts of unique physical conditions that allow people who 15 years ago had very little mobility to enjoy much more. But when those wheelchairs break down, the companies that make them often make them so hard to repair, it can take months. Months for a simple problem because it's a closed box. And let's be clear, it's very easy for companies to make things hard to repair in ways that are quite invisible. They can pop the electronics and all sorts of all sorts of things that are really hard to make it to get to the electronics. And I've even I believe there's even a story of a wheelchair activist whose wheelchair was broken and took so long to replace the condition they had worsened and they died waiting for a wheelchair repair. So, this problem has an actual body count. And it's really vital that, you know, wheelchairs are a much more specialized thing than farm equipment. Repair people for those are even harder to find. And we absolutely should have a culture in which a wheelchair a wheelchair owner could go to a place in their city and have that wheelchair repaired that day rather than waiting for several months. >> So, let me pose the sort of obvious question that channeling the wheelchair company. Well, we can't have people fixing it themselves cuz then they'll do it wrong. And they'll And And that's going to create liability for us or or just or hurt them. So, yeah, we have to be able to control this precisely because these are such important equipment. >> Yep. I I look, I totally think that there are there's movement on both sides to understand this culturally. Um absolutely to me the idea that that you could get into trouble repairing something That's a That's absolutely true. Um but I one of the other things that's going on with all of this software being attached to everything is that uh the data about us is out there. And one of the things that's personal bailiwick of mine within right to repair is a right to the privacy of the things that I own. That my devices aren't dropping dime on me and telling every company around the world what I'm doing with those devices. This is another secret thing that John Deere does with their tractors. They log all this data and it's not doesn't belong to the farmers. They don't make it available to them. Um I can't remember what your original question was. I'm on the middle of my rant. >> [laughter] >> No, that's okay. I actually think that's quite I'm I'm glad you raised that because I do think it comes back to one of the questions I asked earlier, which is what's the overlap between right to repair and ownership and civil liberties. Like what's the connection? And one of them is, I think, that one of the things you might want to do is tinker with your stuff so it's not phoning home. Perhaps or even to find out like I would like to know if my smart TV is sending signals back and are those signals encrypted? Is someone monitoring my TV behavior, my driving behavior? We know that's a thing that's happening. Um and >> My sleeping behavior. See, Pat, machines log our sleeping behavior. There's I mean, we're leaking information constantly. >> Yeah. Yeah, and it's a thing I think that people are really unaware of and it's like it's it's in the house. Right? >> Mhm. [laughter] >> The issue is inside your house. >> The problem is inside. >> [snorts] >> But there's lots of but the other thing too and I and I think I fixit tries to facilitate this and other organizations do as well. Like there are lots of people, more than you'd think cuz we hear from the EFF, who actually know how to do stuff. They know how to tinker with their stuff or they or they have friends that do. And so there's it's sort of like and I think Adam, you were kind of getting at this a little bit earlier, too. There's this sort of like progressive like disempowerment. Um whereas like we're getting monitored in all these ways and we can't really do anything about it. And right to repair is kind of a way of helping you be able to do something about it yourself and giving sort of individuals that power. >> Well, and speaking of that, when useful tools come up to be able to analyze our equipment, like something like the Flipper Zero, uh which is a useful tool for analyzing all sorts of different pieces of equipment, uh corporations go bananas over that. They're terrified that the Flipper Zero is somehow a a car stealing tool, which it is no long no more a car stealing tool than a hammer is. Uh >> [laughter] >> within reason. Uh and you know, these tools for analysis uh get get turned into they get demonized by the corporations that don't want us using them to analyze their equipment because, you know, a lot of times when you use uh stuff to analyze a piece of equipment, it's not up to the specs that it's telling you it was. But there's no way for you to know that unless you have access to these verified pieces of equipment. >> Right. Yeah, yeah. Uh Kyle, I feel like you want to get in on this. [laughter] >> Well, we we have to find a way to to you know, open up open up tinkering again. And uh it's it's about it's about ownership for us. It's about enabling enabling the you know, the smart creative uh fixers, the wheelchair uh folks who want to be able to repair their machines. It's also about creating an an an economy, right? If you think about Main Street America uh is a post office and an auto mechanic. Uh and and that the ability to maintain and and take care of our things uh is is integral to to what makes societies resilient, what knits people together. Um there's an amazing book called Shop Classes Soulcraft. Uh Matthew Crawford uh was he got a PhD in philosophy. He went and did the think tank thing in DC for a while and he found his life was just empty and it didn't feel like it had meaning. And so, he quit, he left, and he started a motorcycle repair shop, and he feels like he's part of his community. And you know, his neighbors are are bringing him their bikes to fix, and then he's at the at the football games with their kids, and and that's, you know, the the connection between us and our physical things is a large part of what makes society work. And so, I think the question, well, what is a what is a digital civil liberties group do in in the midst of this? Well, we are shifting to a world where there is software, right? Where there's software in everything. And so, we need to find a way to make tinkering possible in the age of software. The problem with repairing these wheelchairs is not necessarily a mechanical problem, it's that there's an app that you need to calibrate things. Let's say, um the weather changes and you want to change to different tires, uh and then you need to change the diameter of the tires, right? There's a setting in the app that just, you know, tiny little software calibration. That software tool is not available to uh wheelchair owners. It should be, and so we passed a right to repair law in Colorado that requires the wheelchair manufacturers to make the tool available. Uh and so, if you live in Colorado, you can get access to this app. Uh and and it's a it's a great app. Uh folks are very happy with it. If you live in California, we have not passed a right to repair law that covers wheelchairs in California yet, and so you are out of luck. Uh and that's that's the sort of quality that's the fight that we have to have. And unfortunately, we're having it kind of category category after category. We have to fight for wheelchairs separate from tractors, separate from cell phones, but really this is a broad uh issue that has to do with the transition of uh of products from non-software to software, and therefore from no IP to an IP-regulated regime. Uh and and if we aren't out there fighting, advocating for this, the default is that we're going to have these Disney-era, you know, copyright IP laws applied to all the physical products in our lives. And that is sort of an accident of history, but that accident of history will be used by these large corporations to lock us out of all of our things and turn us all into consumers the way that that the iPhone has. And this is the moment in history to stop that. >> So, I want to talk about solutions in 1 second, but I feel like I need to set something up just a little bit. Um so, part of the accident of history isn't just, you know, that there's copyright in software. It's also that we passed a law 20 years ago that said it's illegal to break the locks on that software. So, software usually comes with what digital rights management, some kind of basically digital lock. And more often comes with that it when it comes in your products. And so, in order to repair those products, it's not just that you need the diagnostic codes or you need specialized parts, you might need to break the lock. Uh and often it's trivially easy to do that. It's not that hard to do. People Many people know how to do it and they can teach you how to do it, but doing that is illegal uh in many circumstances. And the reason it's illegal is because we passed this law um section 1201 of the DMCA 20 years ago. And the point of the law that just said it's illegal to break locks on um copyrighted content when it's controlled, basically. And um but the reason that was passed was because Hollywood was really worried about people pirating DVDs and CDs and so on. And so, it was supposed to be extra protection for that. I don't think Congress was contemplating the software in your refrigerator when they passed that law. And I feel like when I talk to folks in many different circumstances, they sort of get it. They're like, "No, that's dumb. That doesn't make sense. Like, this law that we have for DVDs doesn't really doesn't make sense to apply it to farm equipment. Um so just with that a little bit more of setup, what can we do? Can we change that law? Can What What's What's on the table to help us fight fight back? Who wants to start? >> I wanted to talk about uh one of the key ways, I think, culturally is a reassessment of what ownership is. Um we've been hearing the news stories about uh car companies starting to put things like heated seats behind a subscription wall after you've bought the car. That begs a really important question about what I'm buying when I buy a product. And if they can turn on and off software features of that product after I've bought it, I feel like we have a I feel like no one would disagree with me that that's a very weird idea about what ownership actually is. Um and I feel like the the sense of what ownership is is where the rubber meets the road with this about how we control the products that benefit our lives, that we can use to benefit our lives, uh and also that we can improvise with. Um so many important discoveries are using tools and materials and equipment for things it was never intended for. That is almost the soul of MythBusters. >> [laughter] >> Right, and that's a feature. It's not a bug. >> Indeed. >> Right. >> [snorts] >> Um all right, so what else can What else can we do? Cuz I There's a movement. It's underway. What's happening? Hailey talk to me about states. >> Well, I see Kyle also muted. I'm going to set Kyle up because uh you know, we've got to work together in a lot of states um and uh have made a I mean, really, I give all credit to Kyle. I've made a lot of progress um on sort of the you know, making sure that people have the right to access tools and parts and information so that they can fix their electronics and their appliances. Um and you you uh been very successful in after years of advocacy and sort of getting law makers to understand this and um and you know, also kind of evolve the the laws a little bit to kind of get around the ways that the little tricks that companies play to kind of say like, oh yeah, we'll give you the parts but we'll give you the parts in you know, in all bundled together or you know, anyway. So I will I will throw it to Kyle but yeah. >> Yes, so we're tackling this on a few different fronts. We are passing right to repair laws around the world. Uh we passed 10 across the US. About a third of people who live in the US live in a state with a right to repair law. We passed in California, New York, Texas, uh a whole bunch of other places. And those laws say, hey, if you're going to make a complicated product, you have to make the parts, tools, and information available to consumers. The exact same information and parts that you make available to your repair network. So if a manufacturer has a repair network, you can have access to it. And almost every manufacturer has agreed to apply those those laws nationwide. So effectively across the US, we have those right to repair laws. It even helps people around the world because if they're sharing the repair manual online that Samsung posted a repair manual in the US, they're not blocking people in the UK from accessing that. So we're creating this ratchet effect where access to information is is improving around the world. That's awesome. That helps in terms of a quality of repair with manufacturers. But what happens if you want to be able to do a repair that the manufacturer never anticipated? Uh someone was posting in the chat about about uh using Kobo they're taking these Kobo e-readers and using them as controllers I think on model airplanes or something, which sounds awesome. Probably not in the design brief for this e-reader. Uh and so they want to be able to jailbreak um the e-reader. Well, in order to jailbreak that, you have to break a digital lock on e-reader that's protecting access to a copyrighted work. In this case, you know, the books that are on the on the e-reader. And so we have applied uh with the Copyright Office for exemptions to DMCA section 1201 to be able to jailbreak these things. Uh and in many cases we've gotten exemptions to be able to make your own jailbreak. So, if you're a software engineer, you can jailbreak your own product. But, what we would like is to be able to legalize broad tools so that I could give you or sell you a tool for jailbreaking your e-reader or your PlayStation, whatever it is. And in order to fix that, we have to pass a law at the federal level. So, uh EFF and I fix it have worked together on this for at least 15 years. Cory and I have been trying to solve this. We've both testified in Congress on this. We've both been intensely frustrated that we haven't solved it yet. Um but, there's really there's two thrusts. There's at the state level right to repair laws to guarantee access to the manufacturer tools, and then federal laws to legalize our ability to make and distribute tools for fixing and repurposing all kinds of products. >> So, I want to get into that a little bit more, but like I I keep coming back to feeling like this is such a no-brainer. So, why haven't we reformed section 1201 yet? What what what is like what's Congress's problem? >> What >> It feels obvious. >> I want to point out I think Kyle, you and Haley know much more about this than I do, but I mean within the passing of right to repair laws, there's also been uh our enemies are very arrayed and coordinated against us because a lot of right to repair laws when they get passed, the companies come in in between the passing and the signing of that legislation and seek very hard to weaken it in every way they possibly can. It's very important to them that this not pass, and they don't want this discussion. I like I agree with you. As soon as you as soon as you engage the average person in this discussion, you're right, it is a no-brainer. Um but, it requires proselytizers like us out in the world telling people that this is a big problem and what the long tail of that problem is. >> Yeah. Well, okay. but there is one thing. Um which is timely because it's coming up in this fall. Um so we're still in before we fix 1201. Someday it will happen. Um but it's also unconstitutional by the way. Uh but that's separate conversation maybe we'll have time for. Um but there is built into that particular federal law an exemption process. So they built in sort of a safety valve that says um you can get Sure. Is is 1201 in the way of this thing you want to do with something that would be a lawful fair use so therefore lawful under copyright and you just need to break the digital lock to do it. Um and just so people know repair normally would be a fair use like almost everything you're doing is it would be um lawful under copyright except um unless there's a sole impediment like a digital lock that you have to break along the way. So um there's this exemption process. Who wants to tell me about it and why is it not good enough? >> Sure. Uh okay, so every 3 years every 3 years we go with our hat in hand to the copyright office and say, "Please, sir, can we please uh fix our uh cell phones or game consoles or whatever it is?" And a handful of lawyers at the copyright office uh decide whether you can fix your things or not. And uh we went uh I think this gosh 12-15 years ago and asked for the ability to uh unlock cell phones so we can move them from one carrier to another. Uh and the copyright office said, "No, you can't unlock cell phones." And so then uh we went to Congress and actually got Congress to override the copyright office, which is pretty cool. So it's legal to unlock cell phones so you can move it from AT&T to Verizon. Cool. So then every 3 years after that we apply for more exemptions. We applied for uh tractors in 2015 and said, "Hey, farmers would like to be able to jailbreak their tractors so that they can fix them. We had to pull together all kinds of evidence. We went and interviewed farmers across California in English. We submitted testimony to the Copyright Office of farmers in Spanish and in Central California talking about how they couldn't fix their tractors. They gave us permission to do that. The every 3 years we expand and we ask for a different different set of exemptions. Now again, the problem is broad, right? We care about fixing everything, but every 3 years we have to apply for something different. So we did tractors one year and then we did game consoles got that another year. We asked for kind of all consumer products. So this is your your home smart refrigerator and your Alexa and that kind of thing. We got exemptions for those. But last time we asked for industrial equipment. So let's say the air conditioning system in an office building. That is not covered right now. So we are going to be going to the off Copyright Office this fall and asking for an exemption for all commercial and industrial equipment. And we'll see what they say. They tend to like to split the baby. Last time we asked for all commercial equipment, including as an example McDonald's ice cream machines. Because if you know, if you've ever gone to McDonald's and wanted ice cream and it didn't happen, it's because Taylor makes this incredibly complicated self-pasteurizing, self-cleaning ice cream machine that the poor McDonald's employees don't know how to fix. So they have to call Taylor technicians to come out and fix it. They're ludicrously complicated. Uh and if I want to make a tool to make it easier for McDonald's to fix their ice cream machines, I cannot because it is a violation of section 1201 of the DMCA. So uh there's a direct line between you being hot and thirsty and overheated >> [laughter] >> every day and copyright law. And we are trying to fix it. So we asked the Copyright Office and said, "Please, all commercial industrial equipment, such as McDonald's ice cream machines, this is a problem." And they responded and said, "All right, we'll give you an exemption for fixing commercial restaurant equipment." So we can fix the mixer in the bakery, but not the air conditioner, so we still have some work to do. >> So, it sounds like one of the things that I'm hearing is um The thing is you have to go for a specific thing and a specific thing and a specific thing. And then you also you have to renew it every 3 years, by the way, which is not an incredibly onerous process, but nonetheless, it just means there has to be someone out there who's monitoring this this process all the time. And also I would point out that this is all work that you have to No one's paying folks mostly to protect the public interest here. So, EFF will do it, a whole network of clinics and law schools will do it every 3 years represent people cuz most of the people who need these exemptions can't afford to hire fancy lawyers to go through this whole process cuz it's a it's a long process. You have to You have to submit it, you have to provide evidence to support why you should get this thing. It's not automatic. And then of course you have to convince a bunch of copyright lawyers that you're right. And meanwhile, they're listening to a bunch of arguments about whether there's an environmental risk, which as if they're in a good position to evaluate that. So, one year when we were looking for we were going for a right to repair for um for cars um there's a the automakers association said, "Well, no, we can't have people messing with their cars because that then they might tinker such that it'll create emissions problems." And they're sort of making all these arguments and I'm thinking, "I don't think the copyright office is in a super good position to evaluate whether we have an emissions problem or not." And maybe that's not what copyright's for. And maybe that's what we don't do with copyright. Um but that is a but also you have to go through every 3 years and you have to anticipate, "This is what I'm going to need for the next 3 years." And like what if something comes up in between? Cuz you can't just go just go to people for education purposes. You can't just I can't just go tomorrow and say I'd like an exemption. I just like submit my form. I have to wait until the process opens and then we jump in to that little window and hope we get the thing and hope we get the thing that will allow that we need for the next 3 years. Um so I think this is why um I think Kyle's point about like wanting to have like really broad exemptions that you could apply across the board. That's really what you need, not the So you have things that you can't necessarily anticipate. Um and the flexibility there. >> I wanted to say uh speaking of restaurant equipment, I just had this occurrence where uh I have a plancha uh uh uh a hot an electric hot plate in my house cuz I like cooking certain things on it. And its heating element went out recently. And I girded my loins for looking up its service manual. Found it within like 10 seconds, figured out the part number, ordered it for 75 bucks, and repaired my thing almost immediately. Now this plancha is an expensive item. It cost about $1,000 new. And it felt so good to be within this ecosystem where that was a repairable, reusable, lifetime piece of equipment. Like that was clearly what this piece of equipment was built to be part of that kind of ecosystem. I want that for all my stuff. >> Yeah. [snorts] All right. Well, Um I was just going to add I was just going to add, you know, like you were talking about how non-responsive, right, this system has to be. And you know, like as just as an example, like oh, there was a pandemic that none of us expected. And there was a bunch of medical equipment that people couldn't fix and really couldn't have any access or they had no avenue to fix. And so, uh you know, I just to like underscore your point, like I think these are these are devices that people rely on and that we really need to be able to make sure that they can that it can be a very easy thing to fix them because when we're without them, we're in real trouble. >> Yeah, that's a really, really good example. Um it was like a persistent problem throughout the pandemic and if people remember just a few years ago particularly early on there was like all kinds of rules about even getting into hospitals. So let's say you are the person who knows how to fix the thing. Can you get into even fix the thing? Wouldn't it be better to be able to just empower people actually in the hospitals to do their work and do their work more effectively? Um preaching to this choir here I suspect but >> Well let me ask you this go go ahead Kyle you go. >> Philips [snorts] >> has been particularly litigious. The medical device manufacturer Philips they make all kinds of equipment they want their technicians to go in the hospitals. Uh they're suing maintenance companies using section 1201 saying you're bypassing locks on our equipment. Uh there are several active lawsuits now is regular. So we talk about 1201 is this problem well it's not academic people are actively like businesses are repairers are shutting down because these huge companies are abusing copyright law to prevent them from fixing things. >> All right I just realized that we I I promised that we'd have 15 minutes for questions and we starting to eat into that time. So let me let me open it up and then if we have time we'll circle back to some of this more. But there's a specific question here about a bill in the California Senate AB 2047 uh that's trying to do what Adam is talking about stopping requiring our private computers and 3D printers to share our data with um well this person calls them truly evil companies I won't because I'm a lawyer so anyway companies. Uh so they want to hear this question is basically asking about these efforts and specifically in California that um would require private um require um com computers and 3D printers to share our data. Um so Haley are you familiar with this bill AB 2047? >> I am familiar with this bill. Um we are opposing this bill. Uh we have been working really hard to, you know, speak up again like uh you know, like we've been talking about, speak up for individuals who uh you know, don't have the resources to come down to the California legislature and wait in a 5-hour hearing to speak for 2 minutes. Um and so uh you know, the bill has the bill is still bad. Like I'm I'm not >> Can you explain the Can you explain the bill a little bit more so we just understand what it what it is? >> Yeah, sure. Um give me just a second. Um >> Is this the one that has to do with Is it 3D printers and guns? >> Yes. >> Okay, tell me a little bit more about it. >> Sure. Um Actually, I'm sorry. As current as I have been uh I've been out for a little bit and >> I mean, I can give you a picture of the bill. So, what it's saying is it you cannot use a 3D printer to print gun parts is the is the idea behind the bill. That's what they're trying to do. And it this bill, I think to all of us nerds, seems absolutely insane that you would you would do this, but take this from the perspective of legislators who are very frustrated with gun violence. They've been trying to find ways to pass uh various gun control laws and they have failed because of the political system that we're in, right? It's it's very difficult to pass any kind of gun control legislation. And so uh some uh actually a startup came out with a out of Spain has a software that will identify gun parts inside the 3D printer. And so they've been proposing laws. New York actually passed this law the other day, and now California's on the verge of passing another one. And what it says is that the printer needs to have DRM in it that inspects uh the uh the parts that you're printing and refuses to print gun parts. So, the goal is let's make it so that you cannot 3D print a gun. Now, there are a lot of problems with this. Adam, do you want to like explain the technical problems of like why you can't do this? >> It is I I mean, I I you know, one of the things I build here is props. And a lot of the props I make are what I would call GSOs, gun-shaped objects. They cannot fire anything, but they look maybe just like one. Um I believe that my 3D printers would all be inoperable within a couple of weeks if that legislation passes as advertised. And that's ludicrous. This is the idea of like, are you going to control or make legislation that goes after the person breaking the law or that affects absolutely everyone in the world? That's what this legislation is attempting to do. It's attempting to look at everything that anyone in that state might want to 3D print and somehow staunch this Oh my god, it makes me so mad. If there's a problem with gun control, it's not within 3D printers. >> [clears throat] >> Well, and going beyond that, like let's just say like let's ignore that you might want to print something that looks like a gun. Let's just talk about technically how you build this. You're going to have to have a block of proprietary code in an open-source 3D printer that takes the user's input, makes a decision, and says, "No, the user cannot do a thing." Right? So, what you're doing is taking autonomy of this thing that I own away from me, and you're doing it in a closed-source fashion. And that is still cracking. >> Also, I mean I It's mathematically impossible. It's mathematically impossible to take a look at all the possible objects that could be printed by a 3D printer and isolate the ones that will be useful for a gun. That That That is It's see It this is part of that nerd harder thing that legislation often tries to do that like, "Oh, come on, you guys are smart. Make that work." And it's it's unworkable. >> Yeah, we we I think we're all on it sounds like some of the folks in in the audience here are very familiar with this kind of like, "Yes, nerd harder." And you come back and you're like, "But here's the thing. Like the this this isn't that kind of problem. It's not It's not cuz we're not smart enough. It's because you can't do it. >> Well, and so I want to throw some cold water on us. Like this looks so ludicrous. Like this possible There's no way this could possibly happen. The overwhelming political likelihood is that this bill will sail through and pass. Uh so right now this bill is on the trajectory to pass the legislature and get signed by the governor. That's where we're at right now. Uh we need EFF has been talking about it. Some other folks have been talking about it. There has not been enough noise. Uh and it is probable I I just have to be a political bright is probable we will lose this unless some folks step up and and start making a lot more noise right now. And like the moment is now. It's on to like keep committee vote I think today uh in the appropriations in the Senate. >> Next week. >> Next week. Yeah. >> Yeah, so it goes to the appropriations committee next week and then we go to the full floor vote. Uh and the Democrats really want something that they can say that they did something around gun control. So there's a lot of politics around this opposing the like very sane logical nerd arguments that all of us have. >> And let's be clear about what the long tail of that is. If that legislation passes, um the way it's going to get overturned is by harming people and us banging the drum and telling the story of the people that it has harmed. That is this this will have a direct result and the only way out of it is to tell a better story. >> Right. And I'm just going to I see it's in the chat, but we do have an action up. So uh you can check out that URL and and help us help us out. Add your voice to the to the crowd. >> Yeah. I mean absolutely. Like audience, do you care about this? You should care about this. I hope you believe you should care about this. You can do something about it. Um and make your make your voice heard. Please do Please do that. Um switching gears a little bit. We have another question that I think is sort of interesting. Um so question I have a question about cheap parts that feel designed to break when you repair when you try to repair something like cheap screws that strip immediately, using glue. Does right repair encompass an ability to compel companies to shift away from using things like that? Is that sort of part of what we think about when we think about right to repair? >> I want to give a little addition to this because if we're talking about software that legislation that will pass controlling software what 3D printers print, right now it's about gun control, but corporations would be very happy if it was also about anything that resembled anything they ever built. And right now there's you know if something of mine breaks, I can design and 3D print a part to fix it, but I can absolutely see a reality in which corporations would love to pass laws restricting my ability to create specific shapes with my 3D printer that they feel might violate their copyright. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. [snorts] >> absolutely see this happening. Ford has been they have been filing for design patterns on bumper parts. So the the collision parts on a vehicle. So you're right, the bumper is the things that you're right. So if you get in a in a wreck or or fender bender, you want to replace your your bumper. You can buy the Ford one for $2,000. Maybe there's an aftermarket one for $500. Well, they want to use IP law to stop you from being able to have that that aftermarket bumper. Same kind of thing. So yeah, to to get to the core of your question, are we passing laws to stop people from making cheap crap? No, we're not. I don't know how to do that. I think it would be interesting. It would be tricky. I think the the free market is better at handling that. What we want is the companies who make quality products to float to the top. The companies who make cheap crap to get pushed out of the market. Hopefully that works. Hopefully we can you know use our individual purchasing preferences to buy better products. But then when things do break, you know, you have a plastic, you know, knob on your stove, absolutely, let's 3D print that. Let's create a marketplace. And we do upload 3D printed parts to iFixit, and we'll share it, and you can download and print them, and we'd like to >> Yeah, I mean, I do think the right to repair encompass it encompass it in the in in two senses. One is like enabling you to not be stuck with that cheap thing. You can replace it with something better, maybe that you that you use a whole a different kind of technology to build for yourself. Um also, I think it's um when people have the right to repair, it um creates some pressure on companies to do better. Because people get annoyed by it, right? Like cuz like their custom If you don't feel like you can do anything about it, right? Then then you won't discover the the cheap thing that's in the way of your of what you're trying to do. But when people are empowered, um then they start complaining. Um and I think that kind of takes us back a little bit to where to to some of what we talked about at the beginning, which is like, are we going to have a culture where people are where just access culture is rent only culture? It's, you know, where we where we're not owners with our sort of ability to pressure anybody, right? Cuz we don't have any power to do anything. Or are we going to have a culture where we have real choices? >> Um within within science fiction's ability to think about possible futures, there's a there's a In one of William Gibson's later books, there's just this small construction that he makes in the book of a community in the Southwest called the Sand Benders. And in this future, computers are now completely modular, keyboard, memory, screens, and people just buy these parts and put them in housings. And the Sand Benders are a group of artisans in the Southwest who custom make these silver and turquoise and natural material laptop housings that you just put all of your modular equipment into. I want to live in that kind of world. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, me too. All right. Well, listen, we have 1 minute left and I want to throw this question that's from the chat. I want to throw it to the group. Okay, we all get it. Good for us. How do we reach the normies? Well, I wish I don't want to just call people normies. How do we reach like regular folks who don't who just don't realize this is a problem? >> We've been doing this with legislators. The legislators aren't generally technically savvy. So, we talk with them. We just talk about the pain that people have. You Hey, you the last time your phone broke was it a pain to fix? Uh so, gateways into folks I'd say you you use stories and you use examples of things that are in in people's in people's lives. So, the phone that they had that broke that was frustrating or got too slow or they feel like control got taken away from them. The time they went to McDonald's and they wanted an ice cream and it was broken and then you explain there's actually this like vast conspiracy behind why you can't fix your ice cream machine. And the farmers who are in the fields who uh you know, miss a key harvest date because of a sensor was bad and John Deere didn't have a technician available to drive out and plug their laptop in. Those are the stories that resonate and they're working and and I would say we are winning. I mean, the overwhelming public support opinion is in favor of right to repair. So, we we just need to we need to continue the trend. But I think right to repair is it's also it's kind of a gateway drug to fighting for the broader right for ownership. >> Yeah, it's it's an easy one to take out in public, too. Everyone's going to agree with you. >> [laughter] >> Haley, go ahead. >> Yeah, well and just to echo like I think you know, everybody has a you know, an example in their own life that that actually relates to this. So, it's you just it's a matter of finding that and sort of narrowing in on it. Um and you know, I will just underscore Kyle like we need a lot of individual normal everyday voices to balance out some of the lobbyists that you know, that are interested in keeping this sort of the status quo that they're that they're building and that they're expanding. And so, uh every voice counts and you know, you never really know what constituent story's going to land with a legislator, but there's usually one that will really ring true. >> And now we're going to bring together the gamers and the farmers and the disability activists. We're going to get everybody. >> The knitters and the hackers. >> The gamers and the hackers together. All right. Well, I'm we're reaching 10:00 so I'm going to close this out. Thank you all. Thank you so much to our guests and thank you also to everybody who joined and and commented. It looks like it was quite the spirited discussion over there. So that is awesome. Thanks a lot. >> Thank you. >> Take care. Bye everybody.