New Yorkers Get Their Right To Repair Today. Here’s What You Need to Know.
The Empire State was the first to pass a broad, electronics right to repair law, and will be the first to see it take effect -and deal with the challenges of enforcement.
A year ago, Governor Kathy Hochul of New York signed a first-of-a-kind electronics right to repair law, leading the pack of states that would soon follow. After being overwhelmingly passed by a veto-proof bipartisan majority in the state legislature, the bill was trimmed by Governor Kathy Hochul at the behest of industry lobbyists, limiting its scope and adding exemptions that limited the scope of the new law.
Still, the bill, known as the Digital Fair Repair Act (DFRA for short) was a milestone: the first broad, right to repair bill passed in any state. Previously, only industry or product-specific right to repair laws like Massachusetts’s automotive-repair law and Colorado’s powered wheelchair law have taken effect. New York will be the first state to try its hand at enforcing a broad electronics repair law that affects pretty much everyone (after all: 85% of people in the U.S. own a smartphone).
It was intended to:
require original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make diagnostic and repair information for digital electronic parts and equipment available to independent repair providers and consumers if such parts and repair information are also available to OEM authorized repair providers and servicers... Far too often, repairs of digital items are difficult to accomplish due to limited accessibility to parts and tools as well as a lack of manuals and diagrams.
As signed by Governor Hochul, the law applies to any covered equipment that was manufactured on or after July 1, 2023 and gives exemptions for equipment sold under specific business contracts or those with security concerns.
Are you a New York resident who can’t get access to repair documentation, parts or tools to fix a product manufactured on or after July 1, 2023? File a complaint with the New York Attorney General’s Office!
Today, December 28th, the bill takes effect -one year after it was signed into law. So what should New York residents (and the rest of us) expect? Here are some thoughts:
Lots of stuff is covered (some stuff isn’t)
As mentioned, New York’s law is broad and not limited to any specific category of product. Given the mind blowing variety of digital “stuff” that exists, it is easier to talk about what isn’t covered under the law than what is. As written the Digital Fair Repair Act excludes the following categories of products (this list is courtesy of US PIRG):
Medical equipment
Motor vehicles (already covered under a Massachusetts law and auto industry MOU)
Farm equipment
Home alarm systems
Police and emergency response equipment
Commercial or industrial electrical equipment
E-bikes
Technology sold under business to business (B2B) or business to government (B2G) contracts
Off road equipment, recreational vehicles
Power tools
That’s an unfortunately long list and contains some gaping loopholes - especially the exemption for technology sold to businesses and governments. However, it leaves off major categories of consumer electronics that are the biggest generators of repair business, namely: smart phones, laptops and tablet computers, smart televisions and other home entertainment- and video game systems, and more.
Consumer Reports has put together information on what the law entails and how consumers can take advantage of it. Check it out by clicking the thumbnail below. CR has also prepared versions in Spanish and Simplified Chinese!
Manufacturers on the hook for parts, tools, and documentation
Under the terms of the law, manufacturers of devices sold in New York State must make available to consumers and independent repair shops the following:
Documentation. Manufacturers are required to provide access to documentation which the law defines as “any manual, diagram, reporting output, service code description, schematic diagram, or similar kinds of information required for effecting the services of diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of digital electronic equipment.” The information must be supplied free of charge, unless it is requested in a physical format.
Tools - Tools needed for repair are also required to be provided by manufacturers, with “tools” defined as a “software program, hardware implement, or other apparatus” used in the repair process. As PIRG notes: that includes software or other tools needed to pair or calibrate a new part in order to return the device to “fully functional condition.” As with documentation: software tools must be provided free of charge, whereas physical tools must be sold at the “reasonable, actual costs of procuring, preparing and sending such tool.”
Parts. Critically, the New York law requires that OEMs provide parts, or “assembly of parts,” supplied to a manufacturers’ authorized repairers for repair jobs to be sold to independent shops or device owners without “substantial obligation or restriction” such as requiring the shop to sign an invasive contract with the manufacturer.
Expect (some) trouble
One of the biggest critiques of the law that Hochul signed was that the many last minute carve-outs for industry clouded an otherwise clearly written law, and put the onus on the state’s Attorney General to clean up the mess. The first tests of that lay ahead, as New York’s AG is forced to contend with how to handle non-compliant companies.
As PIRG notes in its analysis of the New York Law, the language on video game consoles is a great example. While video games are covered by the Digital Fair Repair Act, the law includes seemingly contrary language that says that manufacturers of consoles do not have to share materials “in a manner that is inconsistent with or in violation of any federal law.”
What does that mean? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the language invoking federal ‘preemption’ is consistent with industry challenges to other right to repair laws. For example, since November 2020, automakers have successfully hamstrung implementation of Massachusetts expanded automotive right to repair law law by suing the state in Federal court for what they say are requirements in the law that run counter to federal safety laws about vehicle cybersecurity. (Which don’t exist, but that’s besides the point!) Some vehicle makers have shut off telematics features for drivers so they don’t have to comply with the telematics data-sharing requirements of the law. It will fall to New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, to sort out the (many) ambiguities.
Change is coming
Despite its faults, the New York laws is already having an affect and pushing manufacturers to lean into the right to repair. For example, Apple recently made remote diagnostic tools available to customers that can be used to fix late model iPhones and Macbooks, while Google is expanding repair tools and options for its Pixel phone and introducing a “Repair Mode” that helps enable third party repairs while protecting owner data.
And while the gaping loopholes Governor Hochul punched in the New York law may limit the reach of the nation’s first electronics right to repair bill, legislation passed in California and Minnesota will go into effect on July 1st and do not contain many of the same restrictions (for example: on business to business or business to government technology) as New York’s law.
If nothing else, 2024 will bring contest of wills between ambitious and determined attorney generals like Ms. James in New York or Keith Ellison in Minnesota, and the phalanxes of attorneys working for industry groups and determined to bog down important new consumer rights laws with litigation and other challenges. A year from today, we’ll have a better idea of how that battle will play out!