After decades of providing instructions, parts and advice to customers who wanted to fix a broken tool or machine, manufacturers often no longer do so, advocates say, adding that the original manufacturers of a given product send back often their clients to themselves or to approved services. third-party repair shops.
“It’s so easy for manufacturers to block repair,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, a nonpartisan network of businesses that advocates for so-called right to repair legislation. at the state and federal levels. interview.
Gordon-Byrne, who worked in the computer industry, said a watershed moment came in 2010, when computer company Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems and then blocked the independent repair option for equipment made by Sun. “Oracle shocked people in 2010 when it took over Sun Microsystems,” Gordon-Byrne said.
Opposite Gordon-Byrne and other supporters, who include farmers, ranchers, hobbyists, hobbyists, consumer rights advocates and environmentalists, are companies that make electronics and machinery who claim that passing remediation laws would infringe on their intellectual property, hurt rural American regional economies, and pose security concerns.
“The dangers associated with remotely hacking into a machine for nefarious purposes or an adversary of the United States having access to this technology have broad economic and security ramifications,” said Ken Taylor, president of a heavy equipment in Ohio at House Small. Works Council in September.
