I figured that right to repair is a topic many of us are interested in. The survey below by ISED Canada, a department of the Government of Canada, is open until September 26, 2024.
Canadians can provide their input at the following link: https://ised-isde.survey-sondage.ca/f/s/RTR
Cue manufactures: “we can’t make parts or manuals available because [safety/cyber/copyright/patent/think of the children]”
I wish it was possible to stab corporations over the internet. I’ve been maintaining an almost 40 year old set of home appliances since inheriting them 15 years ago and they are hardly dangerous with some basic internet learned information. Except for the microwave maybe… Newer appliances haven’t really changed much either. They just break more and have costly proprietary parts that don’t even work as well. We had sensor dry laundry 4 decades ago and it works better to this day. The work laundry is new and stupidly expensive yet has had 4 sensor swaps, a primary circuitboard swap, 3 lint traps swapped, and a lint trap slot outer molding swap pending. The old dryer lint trap is literally a rectangle of mesh with twice the cm² and has never broken. Bosch dishwasher has a soap tray that for some reason needed to slide open and closed instead of the traditional latch and it keeps failing open so the soap gets washed away first phase. The old one I don’t even know what brand it is because the exterior is worn right down but the parts are all generic and anything that looks the same and fits will probably work and has so far.
These fuckers are doing it on purpose and they should pay for it.
I filled mine out - please note that this covers both traditional appliances (i.e. your fridge) and consumer electronics. E-waste is a serious issue that some pretty light regulations could meaningfully reduce!
Definitely bring up the problem of e-waste!
I also responded that manufacturers shouldn’t be allowed to artificially inflate the cost of replacement parts, as it would firewall any benefits from having a right to repair law. If found doing so, they should be fined. It needs to be a law that parts be made available at a reasonable cost, in my opinion.
I’d say the specifications of the design should be made public domain after some time (say 5 years for high-tech and 10 otherwise) or if the OEM shuts down the factory.
It’s a bit unreasonable to keep parts in stock 50 years after the product was last sold, but if the designs are available any company can start a new run, or even just a guy with a nice shop. The big exception to this is silicon chips, there are only a few companies that can even make integrated circuits, let alone processors. Public access to designs might encourage competition though…
It’s a bit unreasonable to keep parts in stock 50 years after the product was last sold
Depends on the part, of course :)
But realistically, if manufacturers were forced to… say… keep batteries and parts available for 10 years, they may actually start to design their products using more efficient (i.e. same parts), lower waste, and with durability in mind.
It would certainly slow down or stop manufacturers from making proprietary parts for every new model they make.
But having designs public domain sounds like a great idea, and if the right to repair becomes a thing, I would expect schematics to be made available anyway.
batteries
And actual new batteries, not 10 year old “new old stock” batteries that only last a week in use.
Right to repair is good but a few other things need to happen as well.
- Longer mandatory warranties like in Europe. Stop manufacturers from using cheap components that die quickly in a race to the bottom price. 2 years on consumer electronics and 5 years on major appliances
- Include significantly higher deposits on purchase that are refunded if repaired instead of replaced.
- ensure manufacturers can supply parts for the more extended warranty cycles and nearly at cost with inexpensive shipping.
- Incentivize trades schools to train people for appliance repair
Filled it out, thanks for sharing.
Our government doing something useful is a unique surprise these days.
Well, a consultation is basically the bare minimum. We’ll have to wait to see if this leads to even the possibility legislation.
Two bills of interest on this are C-244 and C-294, both amendments to the Copyright Act. The first is to allow circumvention of technological protection measures to diagnose, maintain or repair, and the second is to allow the same to make one computer software program or embedded device interoperable with another.
Both bills are 5 out of 6 steps done from becoming law but they need to before the next election, else it will be delayed even more.
Damn, that’s pretty cool. C-244 would do a lot for me personally, so I hope that goes through.
They have to toss the people a bone or else the NDP might be the decision makers. Our market is small and we don’t manufacture much, so right to repair wouldn’t ruffle many corporate feathers.
Thanks for sharing, filled it out!
Thank you for that link. It allowed me to get some things off my chest. lol
Something that doesn’t get a lot of airtime with most of us “city-folk” is the fact that Farm Equipment manufactures enact the same policies for farmers whose combines and other equipment break down. This represents untold millions in lost productivity during harvest, and it’s something that I hear a lot about because of my small city’s proximity to a number of large farm operations.
I also talked a lot about releasing an appliances software kernel as FOSS once that appliance has reached the end of manufacturers support. But that would be an added bonus that I don’t see ever coming to fruition sadly.
