The Fight for the Right to Repair: Restoring Ownership in a Digital World

Surrounded by flickering screens, Jim Moore pilots at home MotherBoards Tech [“La Tech des cartes mères”], his computer repair company, for nearly twenty-five years. Gradually, the small repair shops – once a staple in the United States – have all but disappeared around his home.

Ce “absolute geek”, as he describes himself, even wonders if independent workshops like his have the right to exist in an age when proprietary software is embedded in almost every device. Jim Moore explains:

“Brands now control their products. We no longer own anything.”

The control room that sits in his living room, in the suburbs of Savannah [en Géorgie], is at the heart of a growing campaign in the country. It’s about taking back power from big business and restoring the basic right to fix it yourself – whether it’s a tractor, a phone or a Harley-Davidson.

All handymen

Launched in half of the American states, these legislative initiatives are inseparable from a debate that dates back to ancient Greece: what does property really mean? The answer goes back to a deep-seated sense of justice – when we buy something, we assume it belongs to us. But in this country of do-it-yourselfers where weekend mechanics have long been the norm, the question also touches on the natural ingenuity of Americans.

Society may change as the nature of ownership changes. But these legislative proposals seek to preserve a traditional conception of private property in an increasingly digital world.

Not so long ago, there was always a camera repair shop downtown. The vacuum cleaners made a good living. The mechanics of Sunday tinkered without fear of invalidating the guarantee of their racing car.

Yet nearly twenty-five years after Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [loi sur le droit d’auteur numérique, en 1998], the question arises more and more often as to whether we have the right to troubleshoot an object that belongs to us. And if it is forbidden, does this object really belong to us?

This law aimed to thwart hackers by allowing software developers to protect well-deserved intellectual property. But its critics point out that it has also granted large corporations the power to extract infinite rents.

Planned obsolescence

Some printers are now marketed with a self-destruct setting that