Podcast appearances and mentions of aaron perzanowski

Today, some companies are working hard to prevent consumers from repairing products on their own. In many cases, repair can only be done by the original manufacturer, if at all. With limited repair options available, we end up buying new and throwing more items out. So, how exactly do companies prevent repair? And what can consumers do about it? Aaron Perzanowski investigates. [Directed by Nick Hilditch, narrated by Addison Anderson].After the talk, Modupe focuses on the term "planned obsolete" and why you should advocate for more transparent repair options. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You do not have the right to repair your own belongings because of intellectual property rights granted to corporations by Congress in 1998. In this episode, listen to the debate happening in Congress about if and how they should grant customers the right to repair and get a status update on the multiple efforts under way in the current Congress, including one with a good chance of becoming law. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes McDonald's Ice Cream Machines Andy Greenberg. December 14, 2023. Wired. Joseph Fawbush. March 29, 2022. FindLaw. John Deere Luke Hogg. January 8, 2024. Reason. Internet of Things Updates and Maintenance Márk Szabó. August 27, 2024. WeLiveSecurity. Massachusetts Auto Repair Law Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. DoD's Revolving Door OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Reid Champlin. June 18, 2019. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Salary.com. Military Right to Repair Issues Kyle Mizokami. February 11, 2020. Popular Mechanics. Max Finkel. February 8, 2020. Jalopnik. Elle Ekman. November 20, 2019. The New York Times. Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019. Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) Jennifer Zerkee. November 8, 2023. Simon Fraser University. Cyber Risks Sam Curry et al. January 3, 2023. samcurry.net. Apple Lawsuit Brandon Vigliarolo. December 18, 2023. The Register. NDAA Sec. 828 Jason Koebler. August 28, 2024. 404 Media. AdvaMed et al. July 30, 2024. DocumentCloud via 404 Media. Laws Bills Sec. 828 : REQUIREMENT FOR CONTRACTORS TO PROVIDE REASONABLE ACCESS TO REPAIR MATERIALS. Fair Repair Act Audio Sources May 16, 2024 Senate Armed Services Committee Witnesses: Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy Clip Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So the Navy acquires everything from night vision goggles to aircraft carriers through contracts with big defense contractors, but the contractors often place restrictions on these deals that prevent service members from maintaining or repairing the equipment, or even let them write a training manual without going back through the contractor. Now the contractors say that since they own the intellectual property and the technical data underlying the equipment, only they have the right to repair that equipment. These right to repair restrictions usually translate into much higher costs for DOD, which has no choice but to shovel money out to big contractors whenever DOD needs to have something fixed. So take the Navy's littoral combat ship, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin considered much of the data and equipment on the ship to be proprietary, so the Navy had to delay missions and spend millions of dollars on travel costs, just so that contractor affiliated repairmen could fly in, rather than doing this ourselves. Secretary Del Toro, when a sailor isn't allowed to repair part of their ship at sea, and a marine isn't allowed to access technical data to fix a generator on a base abroad. One solution is for the Navy to buy the intellectual property from the contractors. So can you say a little bit about what the benefits are of the Navy having technical rights for the equipment that it has purchased. Sec. Carlos Del Toro: The benefits are enormous, Senator, and we've actually had tremendous success, I'd say, in the last year and a half to two years, through the taxpayer advocacy program that we initiated when I came in. There have been three examples, one, gaining the intellectual property rights for the new ACV class of ships that will replace the AAVs. The F-35 negotiations really proved themselves out in a significant way as well, too. And lastly, the 20 F-18s that the Congress authorized in ‘22 and ‘23, we were able to make significant gains in terms of the government finally getting the intellectual property rights that were necessary for us to be able to properly sustain those moving forward. Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So I am very, very glad to hear this. I like the taxpayer advocacy project and how you're training contract officers to secure technical equipment that the Navy buys, but I think you should have the support of Congress on this. Senator Braun and I have introduced the Stop price gouging the military act to give DoD more tools to get cost and pricing data so that you will be in a better position to negotiate better deals with contractors. There's also more that we can do to ensure that the Navy and the rest of the services have the rights they need to bolster readiness. So let me ask you, Secretary Del Toro, would having a stronger focus on right to repair issues during the acquisition process, like prioritizing contract bids that give DoD fair access to repair materials, and ensuring that contract officers are looking into buying technical rights early on, would that help the Navy save costs and boost readiness at the same time? Sec. Carlos Del Toro: Very much. Senator, in fact, one of the things that we have prioritized since I came in as Secretary of the Navy, given my acquisition background, is actually those negotiations need to happen as early as possible before that we even as we develop the acquisition strategy for that contract to go out to bid, and by doing so, we will reap tremendous returns. July 18, 2023 House Judiciary Committee Witnesses: Aaron Perzanowski, Thomas W. Lacchia Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School , Legal Fellow, Hudson Institute's Forum for Intellectual Property Kyle Wiens, Co-founder and CEO, iFixit Paul Roberts, Founder, SecuRepairs.org; Founder and Editor-in-Chief, the Security Ledger Scott Benavidez, Chairman, Automotive Service Association; Owner, Mr. B's Paint & Body Shop Clips 41:25 Scott Benavidez: My name is Scott Benavidez. I'm the Chairman of the Automotive Service Association's Board of Directors. I am also a second generation shop owner from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mr. B's Paint and Body Shop. Scott Benavidez: We do have concerns when some insurers insist on repairs that are simply cheaper and quicker, without regard to quality and safety. Repairers understand better than anyone the threat of replacement crash parts or lesser quality. We can and should have a competitive marketplace that doesn't compromise quality or safety, deciding to only cover the cheapest option without understanding implications for quality leaves collision shops and their customers in a tough position. Very few consumers have the knowledge about these types of crash parts used on their vehicles as numerous crash parts in the marketplace, such as OEM (original equipment manufactured) parts, certified aftermarket parts, aftermarket parts, reconditioned crash parts, and recycled crash parts. Repairers can make recommendations, but their customers are unlikely to hear if the insurance won't cover them. 46:45 Paul Roberts: My name is Paul Roberts, and I'm the founder of Secure Repairs. We're an organization of more than 350 cyber security and information technology professionals who support the right to repair. 46:55 Paul Roberts: I'm speaking to you today on behalf of our members to make clear that the fair access to repair materials sought by right to repair laws does not increase cyber risk, and in fact, it can contribute to a healthier and more secure ecosystem of smart and connected devices. Paul Roberts: Proposed right to repair legislation considered by this Congress, such as the Repair Act, or last session, the Fair Repair Act, simply asks manufacturers that already provide repair information and tools to their authorized repair providers to also provide them at a fair and reasonable price to the owners of the devices and to third parties that they may wish to hire to do their work. 47:35 Paul Roberts: By definition, the information covered by right to repair laws is not sensitive or protected, as evidenced by the fact that the manufacturers already distribute it widely to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of workers for their authorized repair providers. This could be everyone from mechanics working at auto dealerships to the folks staffing the Geek Squad at Best Buy. 48:00 Paul Roberts: Also, we have yet to find any evidence that the types of information covered by right to repair laws like schematic diagrams, service manuals, diagnostic software and replacement parts act as a portal to cyber attacks. The vast majority of attacks on internet connected devices - from broadband routers to home appliances to automobiles - today exploit weaknesses in the embedded software produced and distributed by the manufacturers, or alternatively, weak device configurations so they're deployed on the internet in ways that make them vulnerable to attack. These security weaknesses are an epidemic. A recent study of the security of Internet of Things devices, by the company Phosphorus Labs, or a cybersecurity company, found that 68% of Internet of Things devices contained high risk or critical software vulnerabilities. As an example, I'd like to call attention to the work of a group of independent researchers recently led by Sam Curry, who published a report, and you can Google this, "Web Hackers vs. the Auto Industry" in January 2023. That group disclosed wide ranging and exploitable flaws in vehicle telematics systems from 16 different auto manufacturers. At a leading GPS supplier to major automakers, the researchers claimed to obtain full access to a company-wide administration panel that gave them the ability to send arbitrary commands to an estimated 15.5 million vehicles, including vehicles used by first responders, police, fire and so on. Hacks like this take place without any access to repair materials, nor is there any evidence that providing access to repair software will open the doors to new attacks. 50:05 Paul Roberts: For the last 25 years, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has given manufacturers an incentive to deploy software locks widely and to limit access to security researchers. That's kind of a model what we call in cybersecurity, security through obscurity. In other words, by keeping the workings of something secret, you're making it secure. But in fact, that doesn't work, because cyber criminals are very resourceful and they're very determined, and they don't really care what the law says. 50:35 Paul Roberts: Section 1201 has also enabled what one researcher has described as dark patterns in the design and manufacture of hardware that includes everything from locking out customers from access to administrative interfaces, administrative features of the products that they own, as well as practices like part pairing, which Kyle will talk to you more about, in which manufacturers couple replaceable components like screens and sensors and cameras to specific device hardware. Such schemes make manufacturers and their authorized repair providers gatekeepers for repairs, and effectively bar competition from the owners of the devices as well as independent repair providers. 54:45 Kyle Wiens: You think about what is local? What is American? Main Street you have a post office and a repair shop. And unfortunately, we've seen the whittling down of Main Street as the TV repair shops went away when the manufacturers cut off access to schematics, as the camera repair shops went away when Nikon and Canon decided to stop selling them parts. We've seen this systematically across the economy. In the enterprise space, you have Oracle and IBM saying that you can't get security updates to critical cyber infrastructure unless you buy a service contract with them, so they're tying long term service contracts with the security updates that are necessary to keep this infrastructure secure. 56:45 Kyle Wiens: Over the last decade plus, I've been working on Section 1201, trying to get exemptions for the ability to repair products. The challenge that we've had in the section 1201 process every triennial I go back and we ask for permission to be able to fix our own things is that the exemptions we've gotten really only apply to individual consumers. They aren't something that I could use to make a tool to provide to one of you to fix yourself. So in order for someone to take advantage of a 1201 exemption that we have, they have to be a cybersecurity researcher and able to whittle their own tools and use it themselves, and that just doesn't scale. 57:45 Devlin Hartline: My name is Devlin Hartline, and I'm a legal fellow at the Hudson Institute's forum for intellectual property. 57:50 Devlin Hartline: I'd like to start with a question posed by the title of this hearing, is there a right to repair? And the answer is clearly no. A right is a legally enforceable claim against another, but the courts have not recognized that manufacturers have the duty to help consumers make repairs. Instead, the courts have said that while we have the ability to repair our things, we also have the duty not to infringe the IP rights in the process. So it is in fact, the manufacturers who have the relevant rights, not consumers. 58:30 Devlin Hartline: Right to repair supporters want lawmakers to force manufacturers to make the tools, parts, and know-how needed to facilitate repairs available to consumers and independent repair shops. And the assumption here is that anything standing in the way of repair opportunities must necessarily harm the public good, but these tools, parts and know-how, are often protected by IP rights such as copyrights and design patents. And we protect copyrighted works and patented inventions because, as the Constitution recognizes, this promotes the public good. We reward creators and innovators as an incentive for them to bring these things to the marketplace and the public benefits from the introduction of new products and services that increase competition. Thus, the right to repair movement isn't based on a pre-existing right. It's instead asking lawmakers to create a new right at the expense of the existing rights of IP owners. 1:00:45 Devlin Hartline: IP owners are merely exercising their federally protected IP rights, and this is not actionable anti-competitive conduct. It is instead how the IP system is supposed to work. We grant IP owners exclusive rights so they can exclude others, and this, in turn, promotes the investments to create and to commercialize these creative innovations in the marketplace, and that promotes the public good. Aaron Perzanowski: My name is Aaron Perzanowski. I am a professor of law at the University of Michigan, and for the last 15 years, my academic research has focused on the intersection of personal and intellectual property rights in the digital economy. During that time, the right to repair has emerged as a central challenge to the notion that we as consumers control the devices that we buy. Instead consumers, farmers, small businesses, all find that manufacturers exert post-sale control over these devices, often in ways that frustrate repair. Aaron Perzanowski: Repair is as old as humanity. Our Paleolithic ancestors repaired hand axes and other primitive tools, and as our technologies have grown more complex, from the Bronze Age through the Renaissance, to the high tech devices that we all have in our pockets here today, repair has always kept pace. But today, manufacturers are employing a range of strategies that restrict repair, from their hardware and software design choices to clamp downs on secondary markets, and we also troublingly see attempts to leverage IP rights as tools to restrict repair. These efforts are a major departure from the historical treatment of repair under the law, the right to repair is not only consistent with nearly two centuries of IP law in the United States, it reflects half a millennium of common law property doctrine that rejects post-sale restrictions on personal property as early as the 15th century. English property law recognized that once a property owner sells an item, efforts to restrain how the new owner of that item can use it are inconsistent with the essential nature of private property and obnoxious to public policy. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, IP laws' respect for the property interests of purchasers of copyrighted and patented goods was profoundly shaped by this common law tradition. In 1850, the Supreme Court recognized that the repair of a patented machine reflected "no more than the exercise of that right of care, which everyone may use to give duration to that which he owns." A century later, the Court held that the repair of a convertible car roof was justified as an exercise of "the lawful right of the property owner to repair his property." And just a few years ago, the court reaffirmed the rejection of post-sale restrictions under patent law in Impression Products vs. Lexmark, a case about refurbishing printer ink cartridges. Copyright law, not surprisingly, has had fewer occasions to consider repair restrictions. But as early as 1901, the Seventh Circuit recognized "a right of repair or renewal under US copyright law." When a publisher sued to prevent a used book dealer from repairing and replacing damaged components of books, the court said that "the right of ownership in the book carries with it and includes the right to maintain the book as nearly as possible in its original condition." A century after that, Congress itself acknowledged repair as a right that owners enjoy, regardless of copyright restrictions, when it enacted section 117 C of the Copyright Act. That provision was designed to undo a Ninth Circuit decision that allowed copyright holders to prevent third party repairs of computers. Section 117 C explicitly permits owners of machines to make copies of computer programs in the course of maintenance or repair. And finally, the US Copyright Office over the last decade has repeatedly concluded that diagnosis, repair, and maintenance activities are non-infringing when it comes to vehicles, consumer devices, and medical equipment. So the right to repair is firmly rooted in basic principles of US IP law. Aaron Perzanowski: Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it practically impossible for consumers to exercise their lawful right to repair a wide range of devices, from tractors to home electronics, even though the copyright office says those activities are not infringing, and the weakening of standards for design patents allow firms to choke off the supply of replacement parts needed to repair vehicles, home appliances, and other devices. Aaron Perzanowski: One way to think about a right is as an affirmative power to force someone else to engage in some behavior, and in some cases, that is what we're talking about. We're talking about imposing, especially on the state level, regulations that impose requirements on manufacturers. I think that's true of the Repair Act on the federal level as well. But, I think part of what we also need to keep in mind is that sometimes what you need to effectuate a right is to eliminate barriers that stand in the way of that right. So we can think about this, I think, helpfully in the context of tools that enable people to engage in repair. The state level solution has been to require manufacturers to give their own tools to repair shops, sometimes compensated under fair and reasonable terms. The other solution would be to change section 1201 to say, let's allow independent repair shops to make their own tools. I think both of those solutions have some value to them. I also think it's really important to keep in mind that when we're talking about IP rights, there are always multiple sets of interests at stake, and one of the key balances that IP law has always tried to strike is the balance between the limited statutory exclusive rights that the Patent and Copyright Acts create and the personal property rights of consumers who own these devices. And so I think a balancing is absolutely necessary and appropriate. 1:15:20 Aaron Perzanowski: I think the best solution for Section 1201 is embodied in a piece of legislation that Representatives Jones and Spartz introduced in the last Congress, which would create a permanent exception to Section 1201 for repair that would apply not only to the act of circumvention, but would also apply to the creation and distribution of tools that are useful for repair purposes that does not open the door to broad, unrestrained, creation of circumvention tools, but tools that are that are targeted to the repair market. 1:16:40 Devlin Hartline: He cited a case about where you can repair a cover on a book. That's very different than recreating the book, every single word in it, right? So there's a difference between repairing something and then crossing the line into violating the exclusive rights of IP owners in the patented product or the copyrighted book. And so the things that repair supporters are asking for is that, if somebody has a design patent that covers an auto body part, well, they have the right to exclude other people from making that part, but repair supporters say they shouldn't have that exclusive right, because, you know, we could increase competition if we just took away their design patent and now other people could make that part, and so that's competition. But that's not the type of competition that IP law and competition law seek to support. That's like saying, if we just let the Pirate Bay copy and distribute all of the Disney blockbuster movies, then that's competition, and prices would go down. But that's not the way that we do it, right? So competition means other people come up with new products and new services, and so that's what we should be trying to support. 1:26:45 Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Repair advocates argue that section 1201, prevents non-infringing circumvention of access controls for purposes. But Congress contemplated this use when it passed the DMCA in 1998, allowing for a triennial exemption process. Is the exemption process working as intended? And if not, are there actions Congress can take to expand exemptions or make them easier to acquire? Devlin Hartline: What's important about the triennial rulemaking is that the proponent of an exemption has to come forward with evidence and demonstrate that there's actually a problem and it relates to a certain class of works, and then they can get a temporary exemption for three years. And so it is true that the Librarian of Congress, the last few rulemakings, has said that because using a copyrighted work in a way for repair, maintenance, etc, is Fair Use that they grant these exemptions. But these exemptions are quite narrow. They do not allow the trafficking of the computer programs that can crack the TPMs. And so it's very narrowly done. And the concern is that if you were to create a permanent exemption that opens things all the way up with access controls, copy controls and trafficking thereof, is now you're getting to the point of why we even have these TPMs under 1201 in the first place, and that's because they guard against piracy. And so the concern is that you're opening the piracy floodgates. You make these devices less secure, and then content owners are going to be less likely to want to put their content on these devices. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): How does section 1201 of the DMCA impact the ability of consumers and independent repair shops to modify or repair devices that have proprietary software and data in the consumer electronics industry? Aaron Perzanowski: Thank you so much for the question. As we've been talking about the copyright office in 2015, 2018, 2021, and they're in the process for the current rulemaking, has determined that engaging in circumvention, the removal or bypassing of these digital locks for purposes of repair, is perfectly lawful behavior, but there is a major practical mismatch here between the legal rights that consumers enjoy under federal law today and their practical ability to exercise those rights. And that's because, as Devlin was just describing, the section 1201 rulemaking does not extend to the creation or distribution of tools, right? So I have the right under federal law, to remove the technological lock, say, on my video game console, if I want to swap out a broken disk drive. How do I do that? I'd like to think of myself as a pretty technologically sophisticated person. I don't have the first clue about how to do that. I need a person who can write that code, make that code available to consumers so that I can. All I'm trying to do is swap out a broken disk drive on my video game. But you would argue that code is proprietary, correct? So I'm talking here about a third party making their own code that is simply allowing me to engage in activity that the Copyright Office has repeatedly said is non-infringing. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): So you want to give them a map. Is that, essentially, what you're saying? Aaron Perzanowski: Absolutely, yes, I do. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): Do trade secrets play a role in the right to repair debate? Aaron Perzanowski: There are occasions where trade secrets are important. I don't think in the context that we're talking about here with section 1201, that we're typically running into trade secret issues. The state-level bills that have been introduced do typically address trade secrets and often have carve outs there. And I think that's something worth considering in this debate. But I think it's important to keep in mind that just because we have some hypothetical worry about some unknown bad actor taking a tool that I use to fix my video game console -- Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): It's not unknown. The Chinese do it all the time. Aaron Perzanowski: I don't think the Chinese are particularly worried about whether or not I can fix my video game console, and in fact, I think that point is important, but the bad actors already have these tools. All we're trying to do is get very targeted tools in the hands of law abiding citizens who just want to repair the stuff they buy for their kids for Christmas, right? If the Chinese are going to hack the PlayStation, they've already done it. 1:32:25 Aaron Perzanowski: So the 1201 process is what established the legality of circumvention for repair purposes. But when Congress created that rulemaking authority, it only extends to the act of circumvention, the actual removal. Congress did not give the [Copyright] Office or the Librarian [of Congress] the authority to grant exemptions to the trafficking provisions, and that's where I think legislative intervention is really important. 1:39:00 Kyle Wiens: One of the challenges was section 1201. It doesn't just ban repair tools, it also bans the distribution of cybersecurity tools. And so we've seen security researchers....Apple sued a company that made a security research tool under 1201 and that tool has markedly made the world more secure. It's very popular amongst government security researchers. So I think that's kind of the sweet spot is, allow some third party inspection. It'll make the product better. 1:41:25 Kyle Wiens: These ice cream machines are made by Taylor, and there is an incredibly complex, baroque set of touchscreens you have to go through. And then there's a service password you have to be able to get past in order to access the settings that really allow you to do what you want. And so, in an ideal world, you'd have an entrepreneur who would come along and make a tool to make it easier for McDonald's, maybe they could have an app on their phone that they could use to configure and help them diagnose and repair the machine. Unfortunately, the company who made that tool is struggling legally because of all these challenges across the board. If we had innovation outside of the manufacturers and to be able to develop new tools for fixing ice cream machines or anything else, you have a whole flowering ecosystem of repair tools right now. It doesn't exist. The US is like this black hole where innovation is banned in software repair. There's all kinds of opportunities I could see, I had a farmer ask me for help fixing his John Deere tractor, and I had to say, I can't do that particular repair because it's illegal. I'd love to build a cool app for helping him diagnose and fix his tractor and get back back in the field faster. We don't have that marketplace right now. It's like farmers have been forced to, like, use cracked Ukrainian versions of John Deere diagnostic software, right? Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So it's not just ice cream machines. I led off with that, but it's farmers, it's farm equipment, it's iPhones, it's somebody's Xbox, right? I mean, these are all things.... in your experience, what are the challenges that these customers and stakeholders face when they're trying to repair their own devices? What are some things that they face? Kyle Wiens: It's absolutely infuriating. So my friend, farmer in San Luis Obispo, Dave grows all kinds of amazing products. He has a $300,000 John Deere tractor, came to me and said, Hey, there's a bad sensor. It's going to take a week to get that sensor sent out from Indiana, and I need to use the tractor in that time. Will you help me bypass the sensor? I could hypothetically modify the software in the tractor to do that. Practically, I didn't have the legal ability, and so he had to go and rent an expensive tractor for the week. This is impacting people's lives every single day. 1:43:50 Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So, to pivot a little bit, what role do you see from a federal side, from legislation, and what specific measures do you think might be included in such legislation? Kyle Wiens: So we've seen the solutions being approached from two angles. At the state level, you have states saying John Deere and other manufacturers, if you have a dealership that has fancy tools, sell those tools to consumers and to independent shops, allow that competition. At the federal level, what we can do is enable a competitive marketplace for those tools. So rather than compelling John Deere to sell the tool, we can say, hey, it's legal for someone, an entrepreneur, to make a competing tool. And you have this in the car market. You can take your car down the AutoZone, you can buy a scan tool, plug it into your car, and it'll decode some of the error messages. Those tools exist on the auto market because we have a standard diagnostic interface on cars that you can access without circumventing a TPM. We don't have that for any other products. So another farmer in my town, he showed me how if he has a transmission go out on a truck, he can fix that. But if he has a transmission go out on his John Deere tractor, he can't. He can physically install the transmission, but he can't program it to make it work. I'd love to be able to make a software tool to enable him to replace his transmission. Aaron Perzanowski: So I think if we see passage of the SMART Act, we can anticipate significant reductions in the expenses associated with auto collision repairs. Estimates are that design patents on collision parts are responsible for about $1.5 billion in additional expenditures. We see price premiums on OEM parts over third party parts often reaching into like the 40% range, right? So these are pretty significant cost savings associated with that. Part of this problem, I think, does relate back to the kind of unique structure of this market. Most consumers are not paying out of pocket for collision repairs. Those costs are being covered by their auto insurance provider, and so the consumer doesn't see that the - I'm pulling this from memory, so don't hold me to this figure - but the side view mirror of a Ford Fiesta costing $1,500, that's not something that the consumer is confronted with, right? So this goes back to the question of notice. Do consumers know when they buy that vehicle that the repairs are going to be that expensive? I think in most cases, they don't. And so I think the SMART Act is a very targeted solution to this problem. I do think it's important to note that the design patent issue for replacement parts is not limited to the automotive industry. I think it's the most, I think that's the area where the problem is most pressing. But home appliances, consumer electronics, we see companies getting design patents on replacement water filters for refrigerators so that they can charge three times as much when the little light comes on on your fridge to tell you that your water might not be as clean as you want it to be. So I think we have to think about that problem across a range of industries, but the automotive industry, I think, is absolutely the right place to start. Paul Roberts: I mean, one point I would just make is that with the Internet of Things, right, we are facing a crisis in the very near future as manufacturers of everything from home appliances to personal electronics to equipment, as those products age and those manufacturers walk away from their responsibility to maintain them. So we're no longer supporting the software. We're no longer issuing security updates. Who will step in to maintain those devices? Keep them secure, keep them operating right? The manufacturers walked away. Do we just get rid of them? No, because the equipment still works perfectly. We're going to need a market-based response to that. We're going to need small businesses to step up and say, hey, I'll keep that Samsung dishwasher working for another 20 years. That's a huge economic opportunity for this country, but we cannot do it in the existing system because of the types of restrictions that we're talking about. And so this is really about enabling a secure future in which, when you buy a dishwasher with a 20 year lifespan, or 25 year lifespan, it's going to last that 25 years, not the five to six years that the manufacturer has decided, you know, that's how long we want to support the software for. Paul Roberts: My understanding is the use of design patents has increased dramatically, even exponentially, in the last 10 to 15 years. If you go back to the 90s or 80s, you know, parts makers, automakers were not applying these types of patents to replaceable parts like bumpers and rear view mirrors. Somebody had a business decision that, if you can do so, then we can capture more of that aftermarket by outlawing identical aftermarket replacements that has a huge downstream impact on car owners and on insurers and on all of us. 2:10:15 Paul Roberts: Both of the things that we're really proposing or talking about here, which would be changes to Section 1201 of the DMCA as well as passage of robust right to repair laws, would empower a market-based response to keeping the internet of things working, secure and functioning. DMCA 1201 reforms by making it clear that you can circumvent software locks for the purpose of repair and maintenance and upkeep, right? So that would take the threat of the federal crime away from small business owners as well as security researchers who are interested in, you know, plumbing that software for purposes of maintenance, upkeep and repair. And on the right to repair by making the tools available to maintain and upkeep products - diagnostic software, schematic diagrams, service manuals - available. Once again, you'll be empowering small business owners to set up repair shops and say, I'm going to keep your smart appliance running for its full 25 or 30 year lifespan, and I'm going to support my family doing that locally, and not be basically choked out of business by a company that says, Well, you don't have the right to access this product. From a cybersecurity perspective, that is really important, because one thing we don't want is a population of millions or tens of millions of out of date, unsupported, unpatched, insecure internet connected home appliances, webcams, home routers out there available to nation state actors, cyber criminal groups, to compromise and use for their own purposes. And that's something we already see, particularly around broadband routers and other types of devices, and it's a real threat going forward that I think this type of these types of changes would support. Aaron Perzanowski In a lot of instances, this conversation, and we've touched on this earlier, focuses on cost savings, right? And cost savings are an important consideration, right? Farmers aren't thrilled that they have to pay a technician from the John Deere dealer to drive maybe hours to get to their farm and connect their laptop and, you know, download these payload files to enable their equipment to work. But in the agricultural space, the thing I hear most often in the conversations I have with farmers is and Kyle touched on this a bit earlier, is a real concern about the time sensitivity of their work. If your tractor is out of commission for a week or two in the wrong part of the season, that is going to have disastrous effects, right, not only on that farm's economic outlook, but collectively, it can have an impact like, not to be hyperbolic here, but on our national food supply, and so I think it's really important that farmers have flexibility in terms of where and how they execute repairs, so that they can get their equipment back up and running. If my laptop breaks and I can't get it fixed for a week or two, I'm annoyed there will be emails that go unanswered, but like the world will continue to spin. That is not the case in the agricultural space where we, I think, have to be much more concerned. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): If I remove from my BMW, at least during certain models, I remove the radio, unplug it, and then plug it back in, simply because I was fiddling around with the dash, I now have to go back to the dealer to reinstall it. Similarly, the transmission example. I've got two John Deere tractors. One's got a busted engine, the other's got a busted transmission. Currently, they will prohibit you from moving the transmission from one to the other. From a standpoint of intellectual property, where, in God's green earth or the Constitution, are any of those designed to be rights that belong to the manufacturer, rather than rights that belong to the owners of those two John Deere tractors? Devlin Hartline: So those are a bunch of different situations, and so I think there would be underlying facts that differ with each right. So we started on the iPhone, and I was going to point out that iPhone will actually give you the tool to synchronize it. In those other situations, I don't know the business justification for it. How is that an IP problem? Right? So if that's locked up with the TPM, and you have to bypass the TPM, well then that's a violation of 1201, so that's how they can that's how they can lock -- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): So what you're saying is that Congress has created impediments to the right to repair. Mr. Roberts, would you say that is correct? That, in fact, the right to repair, were Congress never to have done anything since, you know, George and Thomas were our presidents, so to speak, knowing those two presidents, we'd be able to do things we're not able to do because they're now prohibited by acts of Congress. Paul Roberts: Yes, and we certainly know going back to the 50s, 60s, 70s, there was a much more you know....First of all, companies would ship products with service and repair manuals with detailed schematic diagrams with the understanding that owners would want to replace and service them. And what I would say is, yes, absolutely. I doubt very much. And I know we had members who were here in 1998 authoring the DMCA. I think if you had said to them, in 25 years time, this law will be used to prevent somebody with a broken dishwasher from getting that serviced by their local repair shop or by for fixing it themselves, this law will prevent them from doing that, I doubt very much they would have said, yeah, that's pretty much what we want. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): Well, I will tell you that the I was the chairman of what is now the Consumer Electronics Association in 1998 and we did predict a lot of these items were going to be expanded beyond the scope of the original. Paul Roberts: Right now this is not an urgent issue, because most of the cars out there are older vehicles. As we move forward, as telematic systems evolve, as automakers continue their trend of moving more and more information to telematic systems, this is going to become a bigger problem. I'll point out another problem, which is the Massachusetts law is contingent on data transfers of diagnostic and repair information via the OBD or onboard diagnostic two port under the dashboard. That's only there because of federal Clean Air law. Electronic vehicles don't have that port because they don't have emissions, and so in the very near future, as we shift to electronic vehicles, that data access port will no longer be there. It will all be telematics data, and so the utility of the Massachusetts law is going to decline over time, going forward. And again, I you know, when you start talking about right to repair, you become like this crazy person who talks about right to repair every time it comes up. But one thing I try and stress to people when I talk to them about auto repair is, if you live in Michigan or California and you have taken your vehicle to the local independent repair shop, you have only done that because the voters in Massachusetts passed a ballot measure over a decade ago and then updated it in November 2020. That is the very thin thread that our right to use independent auto repair hangs by in this country. That's not the way it's supposed to be. This is something that affects vehicle owners, hundreds of millions of them in all 50 states. And it's a type of thing that the federal government needs to address with federal legislation. It should not hang by this very thin thread. 2:30:20 Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Are software updates new creations, and thus copyrightable? Devlin Hartline: Software updates, yeah, they're computer programs, and so Congress said explicitly in 1980, but it was understood before then, that computer programs are literary works and they're protected, just like any other copyrighted work. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Thank you, Professor Perzanowski, do you disagree? Aaron Perzanowski: I don't disagree at all that software updates are protectable subject matter under the Copyright Act. But what I think is important to keep in mind right is the Copyright Act and copyrights exclusive rights, and all of the exceptions and limitations to copyrights exclusive rights are created by Congress, and so if you think those rights are interfering with other important issues and concerns, then I think Congress clearly has the power to make changes to the copyright law in order to best serve what you ultimately determine to be in the public interest. 2:35:30 Aaron Perzanowski: Access to firmware and other code is really essential to the functioning and repair of lots of devices. I think there's some important differences between the standard essential patent context and kind of what we're talking about here in that in the standard essential patent context, we're relying on standard setting bodies to identify technologies and to require companies to license their patents under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. We don't quite have that infrastructure in place in the copyright context, but what we do have are compulsory licenses that exist within the Copyright Act already, one of which you were alluding to earlier, the mechanical license for musical works. We also have compulsory licenses for retransmissions of satellite and broadcast content that essentially say the copyright owner is entitled to compensation of some form, but they're not entitled to prevent people from using or accessing that underlying work, and I think that could be a useful framework here for getting owners of devices access to the firmware that they need. Music by Editing Production Assistance

Professor Aaron Perzanowski of the University of Michigan Law School explains how many artistic communities flourish as commons, without copyright protections that privilege private ownership and marketization. Tattoo artists, fashion designers, chefs, and stand-up comedians are among the communities that don't strictly own their primary creative works. This ethic of bottom-up collaboration and sharing also flourishes in many repair commons, where resourceful people have created pools of shared knowledge and peer-support to fix broken products. Corporate manufacturers are trying to suppress the "right to repair" movement, but repair-commoners are making significant gains these days.

Aaron Perzanowski, JD, joins Michigan Minds to talk about digital ownership, the tradeoffs that occur when purchasing digital products instead of physical, and issues that consumers should be aware of involving user constraints, permanence, and privacy. Perzanowski is the Thomas W. Lacchia Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and teaches and writes about the intersection of intellectual and personal property law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From iPhones and tractors to medical equipment, many products are designed to be unfixable by the average person. Host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with YouTuber and owner of the Rossmann Repair Group, Louis Rossmann, and Law Professor at the University of Michigan, Aaron Perzanowski to discuss how manufacturers limit customer's repair options, the environmental impact of purchasing new products rather than repairing old ones, why it costs consumer's more, and how the right to repair movement is hoping to fix this consumer issue. Original Air Date: April 18, 2023. Beyond the Scenes is a podcast from The Daily Show. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts, or watch at YouTube.com/TheDaily Show See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From iPhones and tractors to medical equipment, many products are designed to be unfixable by the average person. Host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with Youtuber and owner of the Rossmann Repair Group, Louis Rossmann, and Law Professor at the University of Michigan, Aaron Perzanowski to discuss how manufacturers limit customer's repair options, the environmental impact of purchasing new products rather than repairing old ones, why it costs consumer's more, and how the right to repair movement is hoping to fix this consumer issue.    Watch the original segment:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA7hZDfQDwsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The bombshell that led to the resignation of Toronto Mayor John Tory underscores some long term trends affecting many in the Zoomer demographic: a lengthy marriage in trouble, a much younger woman, a relationship apparently born during a very intense and stressful time at work. Libby Znaimer talks with Family Demographer Rachel Margolis, of the University of Western Ontario. AND It seems unfair. Many manufacturers force consumers to use only their own proprietary services and components when they need to repair products they have paid good money for. The Right to Repair is the movement to change that. Libby reached Aaron Perzanowski, a Professor of Law at University of Michigan

A happy new year to all our readers! To kickstart this year's edition of Technopolitik, we have assembled a list of predictions for 2023 across tech sectors, ranging from online regulation, biotech and outer space. Maybe we can take stock of these predictions and see how much of it we got wrong (or right) at the end of this year!Beginning from this edition, we also introduce a new section to our newsletter called Biopolitik, while will cover all the fascinating tidbits about the biotechnology industry and its intersection with policy and politics.Be sure to check out our Reading Menu. This edition lists some of the best books that the authors have read from last year. With that, we wish you a great year ahead!Cyberpolitik #1: Regulatory tech battles in India— Shailesh ChitnisBig tech is vulnerable. For the first time in big-tech history, technology platforms are confronting slowing growth and bottom-line pressures. Aggressive expansion during the pandemic years has given way to cost-cutting during a cooling economy.Amazon recently announced plans to cut 18,000 workers, mostly in the retail, recruiting and devices businesses. Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, has cut more than 11,000 workers, or about 13% of its staff. It's a similar story across other platforms — Salesforce, Snap, Twitter — no one seems immune.Against this backdrop, regulators are getting more active in reigning in what they see as an overreach by these platforms. In the past, Indian regulators had given technology platforms a free hand. But increasingly, the Indian government has signalled its intention to shape the country's technology landscape.In a series of rulings in October, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google almost Rs. 2,300 crores for abusing dominance with its Android operating system and the Play Store. The government is also getting into specifics of technology implementation with new rules around standardising chargers (USB-C) and upholding consumers' right-to-repair for devices.In 2023, expect more activity. The gatekeeping role of Apple and Google, which they exercise through their app stores, will be challenged. But since commissions from these stores are a significant revenue source for both these companies, any moves to change this structure will be a long legal battle. With the government's active role in market design, expect more public battles between incumbent tech and the government. Adding to the tech vs regulators battle, India will also be gearing up for general elections in 2024. As the elections draw closer, we can expect the conversations and controversies on the role of social media platforms in disseminating information to be pitched even further.Indeed, 2022 was a busy year for technology policy-making with the semiconductor manufacturing policy and a revised draft of the much-awaited digital data protection bill. But this year, the government has promised to introduce a complete overhaul of the IT Act, which governs much of the digital ecosystem. The IT Act was passed in 2000 and needs to be set up for all the complexity of the internet today - from intermediaries and platforms to AI and data privacy. We also expect the bill's first draft to cover a wide range of online platforms, including social media sites, e-commerce entities and ad-tech platforms.This act can have far-reaching consequences for businesses and civil society since all problems are now technology problems in some form.Biopolitik: Pandemics and regulatory politics— Saurabh TodiThe World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2023 is expected to accelerate negotiations on a draft international pandemic treaty governing prevention, preparedness, and response to future pandemics. The World Health Assembly (WHA) in December 2021 launched the process of negotiating a historical global accord. It established an International Negotiating Body (INB) to formulate a 'WHO convention, agreement or another international instrument' to aid a united global response to any infectious disease crises in the future. Countries felt the need for a new treaty due to various challenges made conspicuous by the experience of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These include equitable distribution of vaccines and health services among and within countries, knowledge and data sharing, and strengthening countries' capabilities to respond to health emergencies. Although there has been a broad consensus on the ways of working and broad policies that will guide this process, there are also significant disagreements between member states.A central sticking point is the legal nature of this treaty. While the majority of the WHO member states favour a legally-binding instrument, there are differences in how to approach this issue. For example, the WHA has agreed to adopt the global instrument under Article 19 of the WHO constitution, which enables the assembly to draw up binding agreements on a wide range of issues under its mandate. But some countries want the treaty to fall under Article 21, which limits the number of topics that can have binding agreements. Furthermore, some prefer "non-legally binding recommendations" in the draft.In December 2022, at the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), a Conceptual Zero Draft (CZD) of the instrument was released, which has been developed by the Bureau of the INB following widespread consultation. During the meeting, the task fell on INB to develop a "zero draft" in order to start negotiations at the fourth INB meeting scheduled for February 2023. The WHO has committed itself to a timeline where INB will deliver a progress report to the 76th World Health Assembly in 2023 and; submit an outcome document for consideration by the 77th World Health Assembly in 2024.Interestingly, India has maintained a studied silence over its position on this proposed treaty. As an advocate of the interests of the global south, it must ensure the security of the interests of the developing countries during these negotiations. Given the difference of opinion among countries on these issues, it would be interesting to see how the global community reaches a consensus on this crucial initiative.Antariksh Matters: A Space Policy at Last?— Aditya RamanathanAgainst my better judgement, I am going to make predictions that may be largely wrong. First, the easy part: sometime in 2023, the Indian government will release a Space Policy. While the release of this policy has been long-promised, it is more likely than not to be finally made public this year. Now, the more difficult part: predicting some of the broad contours of the policy. I'll start with some brief background. In 2017, the government released a draft Space Activities Bill for comments. The bill was an important step in laying down a legal framework under which space companies can operate. However, the feedback wasn't good. The bill had vague definitions and granted excessive discretionary authority to government officials. As an example of vagueness, the bill only covered Indians or private entities registered in India, leaving foreign collaborators in a regulatory dead zone.Similarly, it defined ‘space activity' so broadly that even a start-up doing preliminary research and development might find itself coping with a barrage of licensing requirements. The draft bill also offers little clarity on liability. India is a signatory to the 1972 Liability Convention, which makes states liable for damage caused by space activities. The bill simply states that the government will decide the amount of money for which a private entity is liable - the sort of provision that is virtually guaranteed to scare off investors. A lot has changed since 2017. The government has pledged to revise the 2017 draft bill based on comments received. It has also created the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to act as a nodal agency for private space companies. The next steps are to release a Space Policy followed by the heavily modified Space Activities Bill. So here are my three predictions for the Space Policy:One, the policy will be genuinely oriented towards encouraging private sector space activity and will identify it as a key priority for India. There's enough evidence that the government takes this seriously. The private space economy is (rightly or wrongly) seen as an important component of the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” vision of a self-reliant India. The space economy is also seen as a key catalyst for high-technology industries. The Indian Prime Minister's push for the creation of the industry body Indian Space Association (ISpA) is indication enough that this support extends to the apex of the political leadership. Two, despite this commitment to private industry, the verbiage of the space policy will still place the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the centre of India's space aspirations. Indeed, it is quite likely that the policy will consider the primary role of India's private sector to be a supporting ecosystem for ISRO rather than a dynamic entity in its own right. This is a somewhat shakier prediction to make, and it is, more than anything else, a hunch based on statements made by ISRO officials and an awareness of the influence ISRO and the Department of Space wield. Three, the policy will likely offer a potential solution to the issue of liability. I suspect the proposal it will come up with is the creation of a space liability fund that can act as a sort of insurance pool. Typically, such funds will be built by space companies pledging a portion of their profits, but the details would probably only become clear in the Space Activities Bill. So that's my largely optimistic prediction for 2023. Whatever the actual outcomes, we'll dissect them in detail for you in this newsletter.Cyberpolitik #2: In Service of the Digital Public Infrastructure— Bharath ReddyAs we enter 2023, we will see increased deployment of different facets of digital public infrastructure (DPI). As we have seen with UPI, this can lead to financial inclusion and empowerment of citizens, but it comes at the cost of centralising platforms in the hands of the government.Different facets of DPI, such as the Account Aggregator framework, Open Credit Enablement Network, UHI for health, and enhancements to Aadhaar and Digilocker, are expected to be deployed and adopted widely. These improvements will likely lead to the seamless delivery of services and unlock easy access to citizens' data across different silos. In addition to this, as Rahul Matthan writes, DPI will also serve as a techno-legal framework for data governance. Across the world, governing how data is collected and used has proved to be a challenge. Regulations have yet to be successful. Companies have been able to circumvent the law, and the capacity required for enforcement is also relatively high. Moreover, since DPI can be encoded into the public infrastructure, they might offer a better solution for compliance. Requests for data, consent and provision of minimal purpose-specific data can be built into the infrastructure, making compliance easier to enforce.However, these advantages come at the cost of concentrating power over the platforms in the hands of the state. The state has access to large amounts of citizens' personal data and is responsible for safeguarding it. It also has regulatory control and gatekeeping privileges for these critical platforms. Concerns over regulatory access are critical given that we expect the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDPB) and Telecom Bill to be tabled in Parliament this year. The broad exemptions granted to government entities and the lack of independence of the proposed Data Protection Board in the draft DPDPB, 2022, are a cause for concern. The draft Telecom Bill 2022 has expansive definitions and allows for greater state surveillance. Since both bills have received comments already, we can expect them to be passed this year. The checks and balances they will enforce will play a crucial role.Our Reading Menu[Book] Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller.[Book] 10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness by Allana Collen.[Book] Human-Build World: How to Think about Technology and Culture by Thomas P. Hughes.[Book] The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy by Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Do we really own the devices we buy? ‘The Right to Repair' author Aaron Perzanowki joins Adam to explain how companies are using their power to control the products we buy from them, even after they've left the store, and prevent us from repairing them ourselves. They discuss how this affects the environment, the livelihood of farmers, and the longevity of AirPods, and Aaron shares resources on how we can take power back and do our own repairs. You can purchase Aaron's book at http://factuallypod.com/books

This month, we welcome back Aaron Perzanowski to the show to talk about his new book, The Right to Repair: Reclaiming the Things We Own. The post Restart Podcast Ep. 75: The law and repair: it's complicated, with Aaron Perzanowski appeared first on The Restart Project.

Five years ago, we were joined on the podcast by author and law professor Aaron Perzanowski to discuss his book about the impact of copyright on property in the digital age, The End of Ownership. That book touched on the issue of repairing devices and the ways companies make it difficult, but his new book, The Right To Repair, puts this topic in the spotlight. This week, Aaron joins us to discuss the history and future of the right to repair around the world.

Massachusetts is the only state with an active right-to-repair law, ensuring third-party vendors and independent car repair shops can access materials and data they need to fix some modern tech. Today we’re joined by Aaron Perzanowski, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, to hear about existing and proposed legislation aimed at giving car owners greater control of their own data. Marketplace is for public good, not for profit. We count on you, our listeners, to help cover the cost of the tech and business reporting you rely on. We’re going to remain free and accessible to everyone. That’s part of our mission. But if you’re in a position to donate, we’re counting on you. You can use this link to donate now.

Massachusetts is the only state with an active right-to-repair law, ensuring third-party vendors and independent car repair shops can access materials and data they need to fix some modern tech. Today we’re joined by Aaron Perzanowski, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, to hear about existing and proposed legislation aimed at giving car owners greater control of their own data. Marketplace is for public good, not for profit. We count on you, our listeners, to help cover the cost of the tech and business reporting you rely on. We’re going to remain free and accessible to everyone. That’s part of our mission. But if you’re in a position to donate, we’re counting on you. You can use this link to donate now.

Massachusetts is the only state with an active right-to-repair law, ensuring third-party vendors and independent car repair shops can access materials and data they need to fix some modern tech. Today we’re joined by Aaron Perzanowski, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, to hear about existing and proposed legislation aimed at giving car owners greater control of their own data. Marketplace is for public good, not for profit. We count on you, our listeners, to help cover the cost of the tech and business reporting you rely on. We’re going to remain free and accessible to everyone. That’s part of our mission. But if you’re in a position to donate, we’re counting on you. You can use this link to donate now.

What rights do you have over the things that you own? It used to be that if you bought something and it broke, you could pull it apart and fix it yourself. But over the last few decades, companies have used design decisions, intellectual property law and software controls to make that much harder. It all adds up to a lot more purchases and a lot more waste. In the Drawing Room, Aaron Perzanowski, the John Homer Kapp Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and author of The Right to Repair, explains how we got to this point, and how change could occur.

What rights do you have over the things that you own? It used to be that if you bought something and it broke, you could pull it apart and fix it yourself. But over the last few decades, companies have used design decisions, intellectual property law and software controls to make that much harder. It all adds up to a lot more purchases and a lot more waste. In the Drawing Room, Aaron Perzanowski, the John Homer Kapp Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and author of The Right to Repair, explains how we got to this point, and how change could occur.

The right to repair, whether consumer electronics, farm machinery or even health and medical equipment, is an issue that affects everyone. Given the implications for consumer and property rights, the sustainability of the agricultural sector, and protecting the environment, ensuring a right to repair would seem like an obvious political winner. Yet the issue has lagged, not the least of which because of restrictive copyright laws that can limit the ability to repair personal property. Aaron Perzanowski is a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio and the Associate Director of the Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Arts. Professor Perzanowski is the author of the forthcoming book, The Right to Repair, to be published by Cambridge University Press early next year. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain why the right to repair matters, how copyright fits into this, and what reforms are needed to address the issue. The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod. Show Notes: Aaron Perzanowski, The Right to Repair: Reclaiming the Things We Own (Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming 2022) Credits: Tomorrow Unlocked, No Right to Repair: Farmers are Forced to Hack Their Own Tractors

Wherein we are joined by law professor Aaron Perzanowski to discuss his new book The Right to Repair! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you click “buy” on a digital product at Amazon or Apple, as opposed to “rent,” what do you think that means? Most folks think of it like buying a physical copy of a thing: they can sell it or pass it down to heirs. But as Aaron Perzanowski, a professor at Case Western, notes in his sit-down with Sonny Bunch, that's not really the case: you're just buying a license to a thing. And if that license to Amazon or Apple ends? Well, so does your access to the thing you think you “bought.” On this week's Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Sonny discusses the tricky nature of ownership in an increasingly digital world—and what you need to know before you click “Buy.” If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend!

We unexpectedly become fascinated with clowns and their make-up, including Joseph Grimaldi. See links below. Leichner Kosmetik: https://www.cosmeticsandskin.com/companies/leichner.php Dave Fagundes and Aaron Perzanowski, The fascinating reason why clowns paint their faces on eggs, BBC Future (6 December 2017): https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171206-the-fascinating-reason-why-clowns-paint-their-faces-on-eggs Costume worn by Joseph Grimaldi (1800-1823), Museum of London: https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/794735.html Carold Reed (director), Veniero Colasanti (costume design), Trapeze (1956): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049875/ Mode Circus Knie, Textilmuseum St. Gallen (7 March 2019 – 19 January 2020): https://www.textilmuseum.ch/modecircus/ Jean-Antoine Watteau, ‘Pierrot, formerly known as Gilles’ (c. 1718-19), Musée du Louvre, Paris: https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/pierrot-formerly-known-gilles Playbill for The Great United Circus Alhambra Palace (1858), Victoria & Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1462318/the-great-united-states-circus-playbill-horner/ National Fairground and Circus Archive, The University of Sheffield: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca

Dave is joined by law professor Aaron Perzanowski as we dare to dive into the increasingly complex world of intellectual property law. It shapes our relationship with our physical stuff more than we know. The post Restart Podcast Ep. 51: Copyright law, ownership and crisis with Aaron Perzanowski appeared first on The Restart Project.

This week's Computer Talk Radio Broadcast includes: Aaron Perzanowski, law scholar and issues of ownership; military drones using hydrogen; moving too fast with tech; HVAC issues; Virtual Private Networking; Cyberchondria, fake news,paranoia come together

This week's Computer Talk Radio Broadcast includes: Aaron Perzanowski, law scholar and issues of ownership; military drones using hydrogen; moving too fast with tech; HVAC issues; Virtual Private Networking; Cyberchondria, fake news,paranoia come together

Chef Lior Lev Sercarz on holiday spices. Sean Pager of Michigan State University; Rick Carnes, President of the Songwriters Guild of America; Aaron Perzanowski of Case Western University and Filmaker Kirby Ferguson of Everything is a Remix on a debate about copyright laws in the internet age

In this episode, Dave Fagundes, Baker Botts LLP Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, and Aaron Perzanowski, Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University College of Law, discuss their paper "Clown Eggs & Property Norms," which will appear in the Notre Dame Law Review. Among other things, Fagundes and Perzanowski describe the Clown Egg Register, an collection of (mostly) ceramic eggs used to document the appearance of well-known clowns. They explain why the Register was created, and how clowns use it to not only to police informal ownership norms in their appearance, but also to promote and regulate their profession. You can see many of the clown eggs in Luke Stephenson & Helen Champion's book of photographs, "The Clown Egg Register."Keywords: norms, property, informal ownership, registration, copyright, trademark, creativity without law, IP without IP See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ep #194- The Daily Best of GB Podcast: 10/3/18  -Did Dr. Ford Lie Under Oath? -President Trump Did Not Mock Dr. Ford -'The End of Ownership' (w/ Aaron Perzanowski)  -'The Creepy Line' (w/ Peter Schweizer)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hour 1 Did Dr. Ford lie under oath?...about 'never' coaching others to take polygraphs...act of perjury?...the America people must recognize we are fighting 'postmodernism' or we are done...'individual justice' is Christian, 'collective justice' is not? ..."President Trump has balls", unlike the last few Presidents, Obama, Bush, Clinton ...Last week Kavanaugh's chances looked 'dicey', this week, not so much?...a victim of 'mob justice'?...Difference between assumed and presumed?...look at facts and play the odds = numbers don't lie   Hour 2  America is $21 Trillion in Debt?...Unsustainable ...The End of Ownership with Aaron Perzanowski, Professor of Law, Case Western...Article: What we buy when we 'Buy Now'?...the results of the first study of impact of marketing language and the behavior of digital media consumers...Do we really own what we buy online, books, movies, music, etc.?...No we don't?...You don't Own it ...TheEndOfOwnership.com   Hour 3 The Tail of Two Guys?...Kavanaugh vs. Ellison?...Most Democrats believe Kavanaugh, but not Keith Ellison accuser?...hypocrisy on high ...Documentary: 'The Creepy Line' with producer and author, Peter Schweizer...joins to show us how Google is using its mysterious search algorithm...Our worst suspicions are confirmed that the meddling and intervening done by Google and Facebook on their supposedly ‘neutral platforms’...Google WANTS us to talk about 'fake news'...Apple is indeed in bed with Google...Could Google swing an election?...How do we regulate without regulation? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk with Dave Fagundes about sharing, abandoning, and property law's role in promoting happiness. Topics include the usual nonsense, notions of happiness, consumption and acquisition, charity, and home ownership. This show’s links: Dave Fagundes's faculty profile (http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/print.asp?PID=5033) and writing (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=522757) David Fagundes, Why Less Property Is More: Inclusion, Dispossession, and Subjective Well-Being (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3014320) About Life Is Beautiful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful) About Marie Kondo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Kondo) David Fagundes, Buying Happiness: Property, Acquisition, and Subjective Well-Being (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2733617) Roger Crisp's entry on Well-Being (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (including discussions of Bentham's notion and preferentist accounts) About Mr. Burns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Burns), character from The Simpsons Rebecca Solnit, The Loneliness of Donald Trump (http://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-the-loneliness-of-donald-trump/) Juliet Schor and William Attwood-Charles, The Sharing Economy: Labor, Inequality and Sociability on For-Profit Platforms (http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/sociology/pdf/SocCompass%20Sharing%20Economy%20v3.pdf) David Fagundes, The Social Norms of Waiting in Line (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2568322) Oral Argument 150: Shutting Down Hal (http://oralargument.org/150) (guest Christina Mulligan); Christina Mulligan, Revenge Against Robots (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3016048) Lior Strahilevitz, The Right to Abandon (http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/law_and_economics/565/) Eduardo Peñalver, The Illusory Right to Abandon (http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/209/) Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz, The End of Ownership (http://www.theendofownership.com) Joshua Fairfield, Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom (https://www.amazon.com/Owned-Property-Privacy-Digital-Serfdom/dp/1107159350) Special Guest: Dave Fagundes.

The basic impetus behind DRM is obvious: a frantic, misguided desire to make digital products behave like physical ones. But the truth is DRM goes far, far beyond that, restricting all sorts of activities that are intrinsic to the idea of "owning" something. Two people who have thought a lot about this are law professors Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz, authors of the new book The End Of Ownership. This week, Aaron and Jason join the podcast to discuss the book and the worrying status of DRM today.

The internet of things, End User License Agreements, and Digital Rights Management are increasingly being used to give electronics manufacturers control and ownership over your stuff even after you buy it. Radio Motherboard talks to Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz, authors of The End of Ownership about what we stand to lose when our songs, movies, tractors, and even our coffee makers serve another master.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Christian finds himself among two telecommunications and IP experts, Joe and guest Aaron Perzanowski, to discuss the FCC’s recently issued regulations mandating some form of “net neutrality” on broadband internet providers. Will these regulations hold up? Why does your cable company want to provide you with “antivirus” software? What did we receive in the mail last week? Which listener thinks we’re full of it? It’s all in this week’s show. This show’s links: Aaron Perzanowski’s faculty profile and writing Episode 52 and Episode 53 on King v. Burwell William Baude, Could Obama Bypass the Supreme Court?, and Michael Dorf, Obama Wouldn’t Circumvent SCOTUS on Subsidies We’ve reached North Dakota! Our earlier shows on net neutrality: Episode 49, Episode 16 (with Jim Speta), and Episode 10 (with Christina Mulligan) About the FCC’s Open Internet Order Download page for the Open Internet Order and Commissioner statements About the FCC Computer Inquiries of the 1960s and 1970s AT&T v. City of Portland National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services Verizon v. FCC About the FCC’s Incentive Auction for the 600MHz band Special Guest: Aaron Perzanowski.

From far northern climes, we are joined by Sarah Schindler, land use and property expert, hipster scholar, and lawn destroyer. In this episode we discuss Maine, backyard chicken raising, zoning, Brasília, the virtues and pleasures of law-breaking, and banning lawns. Sponsored this week by the Monsanto Corporation. Not really. This show’s links: Sarah Schindler’s faculty profile (http://mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty/profiles/schindler.html) and writing (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1099143) Errata! Jukkasjärvi and its ice hotel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukkasjärvi) are in Sweden, not Finland. Apologies to our Swedish listeners. Aaron Perzanowski, Tattoos and IP Norms (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2145048) David Fagundes, Talk Derby to Me: Intellectual Property Norms Governing Roller Derby Pseudonyms (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1755305) Hella Blitzgerald (http://classiccityrollergirls.com/about/skaters/hella-blitzgerald) Sarah Schindler, Of Backyard Chickens and Front Yard Gardens: The Conflict Between Local Governments and Locavores (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2030526) backyardchickens.com (http://www.backyardchickens.com); City of Longmont Backyward Chicken Hen Permit (http://www.ci.longmont.co.us/planning/permits/documents/henpermit.pdf) Some articles on local food and energy: USDA Economic Research Service, Energy Use in the U.S. Food System (http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-report/err94.aspx#.UtnMXHn0C2w); Stephen Budiansky, Math Lessons for Locavores (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html); Wikipedia on Local Food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food) Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8376015914752485063) Brasília (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasilia) US PIRG, Transportation and the New Generation (http://www.uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/Transportation%20%26%20the%20New%20Generation%20vUS_0.pdf) Nicole Stelle Garnett, Redeeming Transect Zoning? (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2188084) Tiebout Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiebout_model) Paula Franzese, Privatization and its Discontents: Common Interest Communities and the Rise of Government for the Nice (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=871289) St. Augustine Confessions, Book 2, Chapter 6 (http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/saints/augcon2.htm#chap6) (“I stole those simply that I might steal, for, having stolen them, I threw them away. My sole gratification in them was my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy; for, if any one of these pears entered my mouth, the only good flavor it had was my sin in eating it.”) Scott James on illegal pop-Up restaurants (https://www.baycitizen.org/columns/scott-james/underground-dining-illegal-tasty/) Eduardo M. Peñalver and Sonia Katyal, Property Outlaws (http://www.amazon.com/Property-Outlaws-Squatters-Protesters-Ownership/dp/0300122950) Adverse Possession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession): trespassing until it’s yours Guerrilla bike lanes in Cleveland (http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2013/08/guerrilla_stripers_add_bike_la.html), New York (http://untappedcities.com/2013/09/25/guerrilla-bike-lanes-appear-nyc-cycling-advocacy-group-right-of-way-6th-avenue/), New York again (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/unauthorized-bike-lanes-created-in-midtown/), and Seattle (http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2013/04/04/guerrilla-road-safety-group-politely-installs-illegal-bike-lane-protectors-on-cherry-street/), and everywhere (http://www.bicycling.com/news/advocacy/paint-your-lane) Sarah Schindler, Banning Lawns (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2279544) Special Guest: Sarah Schindler.