It’s time for Congress to hold a Right to Repair hearing
If it has a microchip in it, chances are, there are issues fixing it. Our members -- from repair, refurbishing and recycling businesses across every industry -- have been raising the alarm about how manufacturers are pushing to monopolize repair of everything from appliances, to farm equipment, to servers and routers and even hearing aids.
As we’ve built momentum for the Right to Repair across the country, supporting bills in 40 states, we believe it’s time for Congress to get off the sidelines.
Yesterday, March 16, the Repair Association, along with more than 50 different organizations, sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Ranking Member Jim Jordan; Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Chairman David Cicilline, Ranking Member Ken Buck; and Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chairman Hank Johnson, and Ranking Member Darrell Issa calling for the full House Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on the Right to Repair. The letter includes signatures from trade associations, small businesses, public interest groups, environmental advocacy organizations, and agriculture groups.
Congress is weighing a number of bills on the subject, including Senator Ben Ray Lujan’s bill introduced earlier this week (S 3830). The Repair Association needs the Judiciary Committee to weigh in, especially on Representatives Mondaire Jones and Victoria Spartz’s Freedom to Repair Act (HR 6566). This bipartisan bill is currently referred to the House Judiciary Committee because it seeks to amend Section 1201 of the Copyright Act to allow for repair, diagnosis, and maintenance.
In our letter, we explain to Congress that:
“Companies that make products from tablets to tractors are using an oversight in copyright law to deny us the right to repair our own devices or take them to local small businesses. 17 U.S.C. § 1201 (known as “Section 1201”) is designed to protect copyrighted works from piracy and makes it a crime to bypass a digital lock set up to protect copyrighted content like music, video games, or movies. But some manufacturers have exploited that provision to lock consumers into their own expensive, inaccessible repair services by locking repair functions, too.”
Hopefully, the groundswell of support on the Right to Repair motivates these Members of Congress to schedule this hearing and ultimately pass the Freedom to Repair Act.