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Y C for more

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information. In.

2:16

The right to have their movement As

2:19

and push for legislation that forces companies

2:21

to give consumers more options to repair

2:23

their own devices. I come bearing good

2:25

news. There's been actual improvements in the

2:28

situation. It's Monday, June third and you're

2:30

listening to sign. Spread it. I'm

2:36

somehow producer d Peter Smith from with

2:38

your phone like a battery or broken

2:40

screen you might decide to just buy

2:42

new from completely because many factors often

2:44

make repairing those devices yourself extraordinarily difficult

2:46

or expensive. A For years now, the

2:49

Right To Repair movement in the Us

2:51

has been trying to provide consumers with

2:53

more options to fix the products they

2:55

actually own instead of having to go

2:57

through the manufacturer to fix it for

2:59

them. And they've had recent

3:01

success in some state legislatures. Here's.

3:03

Guess those arrow do a morass with more. Here.

3:06

To break down recent developments in the right

3:08

to. Repair Movement is Jason Kepler

3:10

cohost of the For For Media

3:12

Podcast where he covers a number.

3:14

Of. Issues in tech including bright to

3:17

repair. Season. Welcome back

3:19

to Science Friday! Hey thanks for having

3:21

me. Thanks for being here! How would

3:23

you define right to repair? Well.

3:26

I think it's is very american

3:28

idea that when you buy something

3:30

you own it. And. You

3:32

should have the ability to fix

3:34

it if it breaks. the example

3:36

that Rights repair advocates often talk

3:38

about. his. Trucks. And cars.

3:40

It's like you can change your own

3:42

oil. You can change your own breaks.

3:44

and that should apply to your laptop,

3:47

to your refrigerator, to your phone. If

3:49

the screen breaks, you should be able

3:51

to fix it. But for years, it's

3:53

been pretty difficult to do that. There's

3:55

also an environmental aspect to this to

3:58

rent. Yeah, the absolute best. The thing

4:00

that you can do for the environment

4:02

is to keep your devices for longer.

4:04

If. You're buying a new I phone

4:07

every year. That is Not. Great.

4:09

For the environment like the mining of the

4:11

materials, the manufacturing, the shipping of the materials.

4:14

That is all very bad. For the environment.

4:16

But. If you're able to keep a

4:18

device for longer you know, say,

4:20

three, four, five years you're doing

4:22

and exponentially good thing for the

4:25

environment because you're preventing those materials

4:27

from ever being mind right to

4:29

tell me about the barriers that

4:31

exists to repairing devices like a

4:33

son these days. Yes, for the

4:35

most part. It has been

4:37

really difficult to repair a device on

4:39

your own. And. This is because

4:41

the parts are difficult to get. The

4:43

repair guides are very difficult to get.

4:46

And. Often they require specialized tools

4:48

and then once you're in there

4:50

you know you you need a

4:52

specific part to to go and

4:54

fix anything and increasingly. These.

4:56

Parts are paired to a specific device

4:58

and so Apple will need to go

5:00

and since the unlock apart so that

5:03

will work with your existing phone. And.

5:05

Youth send this not just to phones

5:08

but again to appliances to tractors hand.

5:10

You have a situation where lot of

5:12

people think it's just easier to go

5:14

and buy a new one when something

5:16

breaks. So the last time you joined

5:18

us to talk about this was in

5:20

twenty nineteen so number of years ago.

5:23

And. The movement wasn't a very different

5:25

place at that time, and since then.

5:28

For states has passed a right

5:30

to repair legislation, can you sum

5:32

up what's happened? Yeah. so when

5:34

I was on and twenty nineteen

5:36

I think it was a lot

5:38

of right to repair activists who

5:40

are sort of shouting from the

5:42

rooftops saying we can't six are

5:44

things and talking about all of

5:46

the kind of harms. the environmental

5:48

harms, the economic harms, and sort

5:50

of deceit. Frustration of that and

5:52

I come bearing good news, which

5:54

is. It's. Not just people

5:57

shouting from the rooftops anymore. There's

5:59

been. A. Sure improvements in

6:01

the situation. So as you

6:03

mentioned, New. York, Minnesota, California,

6:06

Oregon, and soon to be

6:08

Colorado have all passed legislation

6:10

that in shrines the rights

6:12

or a pair manufacturers electronics

6:14

are required to make repair

6:16

parts available to the general

6:19

public. Repaired. Guides available to

6:21

the general public and the tools

6:23

required to repair device available to

6:25

the general public. Back. When

6:27

we talked in twenty nineteen. That. Was

6:30

not the case. There were essentially no options

6:32

for people who, when it's it's it's

6:34

their own devices. So if you been living

6:36

in a state that has recently pass this

6:38

legislation, a lot of them go into

6:40

effect on June first. So. That

6:42

means you may have a different experience starting

6:45

as soon as this weekend. And

6:47

I think Oregon what I live. Ah

6:49

has even stricter. Provisions around something

6:51

called part spelling. ah what

6:53

is that? Yeah. So this

6:56

is huge news. Essentially, in the

6:58

aftermath of some of these are

7:00

their rights. Her pair laws being

7:02

passed manufacture sound other ways to

7:04

dominate what happens to a device

7:07

after they've sold it. And

7:09

it's this regime called parts pairing where

7:11

if I take the screen off of

7:13

my I phone fifteen and I'm trying

7:16

to put it on your I phone

7:18

sixteen, it won't work because that part

7:20

is paired to my it's initial device

7:23

and the only way that it can

7:25

be paired to your device would be

7:27

if Apple were to like run its

7:30

own software that is not available to

7:32

the general public to pair that device.

7:35

What? The Oregon law says is that will

7:37

no longer be allowed. And. Colorado

7:39

just passed and signed a

7:41

similar law that also bands

7:44

parts pairing so starting next

7:46

year. That. Will no longer be

7:48

allowed and I think it may be

7:50

sounds abstract. It's like why would we

7:52

swap phone screens but where you buy

7:55

a broken phone that has some good

7:57

parts and you can harvest those parts

7:59

and. Those parts to fix another

8:01

phone that is very common in the

8:03

independent repair world. Michael do use to

8:06

do that all the time. And.

8:08

They'll be able to continue to

8:10

do that once Parts Perry is

8:12

banned. Why are some of these

8:15

companies fighting so hard against this

8:17

kind of legislation? Yeah, so for

8:19

years, I wasn't just individual companies,

8:21

but it was also lobbying groups

8:23

that represented the entire electronics industry

8:26

were lobbying against these bills in

8:28

states all over the country. And.

8:30

For a while they were pretty successful at

8:33

getting them killed. And then another

8:35

new story would come out where

8:37

for example a school district would

8:39

say. We. Are unable to

8:41

six chrome bucks and were unable to

8:43

afford to buy more Chrome books and

8:46

the store would go viral and it

8:48

would become just another example of. Like.

8:51

Manufacturers saying we should control

8:53

what happens to devices after

8:55

we sell them and sort

8:57

of over time. There's been

8:59

enough media coverage and also

9:01

enough politicians who have started

9:03

to understand the problem. Where.

9:05

These arguments that are made by

9:08

manufacturers were they say repairs insecure

9:10

or people are going to hurt

9:12

themselves if they try to repair

9:14

something and the battery explodes because.

9:17

You. Know their care less. These are sort

9:19

of fear mongering excuses that have been

9:21

used to kill rights her appear in

9:23

the past. And. I think

9:25

that manufactures have made these arguments because.

9:28

After market repair. Is

9:30

not something that they want to

9:32

deal with. They wanna be able

9:34

to control what happens to a

9:36

phone or laptop or an appliance

9:38

after the fact because all of

9:40

them have these authorized repair situations

9:42

where they are making money from

9:44

the repair of a device, right?

9:46

And even better than that they

9:48

think is. If. Something breaks as

9:51

the consumer as the buy a new

9:53

one. Well that's another sale right? Not.

9:56

Every company has been citing this

9:58

stuff, right? I can you talk. The

10:00

differences between Google and an Apple,

10:02

for instance. Yeah. It's very

10:04

interesting because Apple was one of the

10:07

biggest lobbying entities against rights for a

10:09

pair for a very long time. And

10:12

sometime last year, Apple actually supported

10:14

a right to repair bill in

10:16

California, But this rights repair bill

10:19

allowed for the parts pairing that

10:21

we were talking about earlier. And

10:24

this still allowed Apple's have a

10:26

huge level of control over the

10:28

repair of I phones. And. Then

10:30

in Oregon there this bill that

10:32

would ban and good band parts

10:34

pairing and what Google figured out

10:36

was how to allow Android phones

10:38

to be repaired without parts pairing.

10:41

And they have been lobbying very

10:43

hard for the bill that is

10:45

now a lie in Oregon because

10:48

they're essentially able to differentiate themselves

10:50

from Apple by saying hey, Android.

10:52

Phones are a parable. If. You want

10:55

to keep your phone for a

10:57

longer time by in Android device.

10:59

Now the reason we wanted to

11:01

talk to you today is because

11:03

of the most recent Samsung News

11:05

which for for media actually broke

11:07

your outlet broke the news at

11:09

Samsung has been trying to get

11:11

repair shops to sign a contract

11:13

with some pretty shocking provisions at.

11:15

What? Within that leaked contract that you

11:17

published. And why was it such a big deal? Yeah.

11:20

So in order to my

11:22

repair parts directly from Samsung

11:24

for Galaxy phones, independent repair

11:26

shops are required to sign

11:29

a contract with Samsung saying

11:31

that. If. Of customer brought

11:33

in a phone that used in

11:35

aftermarket parts meaning a third party

11:37

non Samsung part. They. Would

11:40

have to quote disassemble the device

11:42

and then immediately notify Samsung of

11:44

this potentially like. Breaking.

11:46

The device right? That's what we're talking

11:48

about here. potentially destroying the device and

11:50

I don't know if I was the

11:53

customer and I took my fucking through

11:55

an independent repair shop and they you

11:57

know said a sorry I did disabled

11:59

as and I'm. Telling Samsung I

12:01

think I would be pretty upset if.

12:03

Any of this legal. I. Mean you

12:05

would be shocked what's legal under end user

12:07

license agreements and contract wine and so on

12:09

and so forth. But this is exactly the

12:11

type of thing that rights or a pair

12:14

laws are trying to prevent. In. States

12:16

that have right to repair laws.

12:18

Any independent shop that wants to

12:20

buy parts from a manufacture would

12:22

not be required to sign anything

12:24

like this. The. Manufacturer would have

12:26

to sell it to them with out

12:28

onerous terms. One of the stories that

12:31

I've associated with the Right To Repair

12:33

movement for years now is that of

12:35

that John Deere Tractors. Can you remind

12:37

us what the core issue is there

12:39

and what's happened more recently. Yeah.

12:41

I think site something that has

12:44

really driven home the problem of

12:46

repair ability is with John Deere

12:48

Tractors because. I. Don't know. I

12:50

have an I phone if I break the I

12:52

phone and I have to buy a new one.

12:55

It is very expensive but we're talking about a

12:57

thousand dollars. Whereas. If

12:59

a farmer break their tractor. This.

13:01

Can cost upwards of five hundred

13:04

thousand dollars. Farming is also something

13:06

that super time intensive and time

13:08

sensitive. So. If a tractor

13:10

breaks during see harvest moment, for

13:13

example, And. You have to wait

13:15

hours or days for a John Deere

13:17

dealer to come out and tried of

13:19

six a tractor. That. Can mean

13:21

a loss to Crouch. I've talked to

13:24

a lot of farmers who have had

13:26

soybeans of built on the vine because

13:28

they been unable to get their tractor

13:30

repaired. So. John Deere is

13:32

now facing a class action lawsuit

13:34

in Illinois where around twenty farmers

13:36

are alleging that they have material

13:38

losses because they were unable to

13:40

get their tractors fixed and the

13:43

judge they're just refuse to throw

13:45

out the case. Class action lawsuits

13:47

often and notoriously take many years

13:49

to go through the litigation process.

13:51

My but the farmers with a

13:53

good enough argument that the lawsuit

13:55

move forward which is a huge

13:57

deal because it's already been in

13:59

court. The three years right? Well thank

14:01

you so much season for taking the

14:03

time to break this down with us.

14:06

Yeah, thank you so much for having

14:08

me at all the time we have

14:10

for today. Lots of folks who make

14:12

the show happen including as planning Santiago

14:14

Flotus, Diana plaster joined and cost. Next

14:16

time we'll find out about plants ability

14:18

to communicate, store memories and more. I'm

14:21

cipher producer d Peter Smith see them.

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