The Right to Repair
Reclaiming the Things We Own

The Right to Repair reveals how companies stop us from fixing our devices and explains how we can fight back.

Aaron Perzanowski (Author)

9781108837651, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 February 2022

364 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 2.1 cm, 0.61 kg

'The Right to Repair is a riveting account of the multi-faceted ways in which developers of a wide range of devices today inhibit or thwart the ability of consumers to fix those devices, ways in which laws sometimes reinforce the developer restrictions, and various strategies by which a repair-friendly landscape could be renewed. Consumers have largely ignored the high costs of buying unfixable devices - not just to their pocketbooks but also to the environment. The nascent right to repair social movement is gaining momentum. To understand why, read this book!' Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law

In recent decades, companies around the world have deployed an arsenal of tools - including IP law, hardware design, software restrictions, pricing strategies, and marketing messages - to prevent consumers from fixing the things they own. While this strategy has enriched companies almost beyond measure, it has taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of consumers and imposed massive environmental costs on the planet. In The Right to Repair, Aaron Perzanowski analyzes the history of repair to show how we've arrived at this moment, when a battle over repair is being waged - largely unnoticed - in courtrooms, legislatures, and administrative agencies. With deft, lucid prose, Perzanowski explains the opaque and complex legal landscape that surrounds the right to repair and shows readers how to fight back.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Why repair matters
3. The history of repair
4. Breaking repair
5. Repair and intellectual property
6. Repair and competition
7. Repair and consumer protection
8. Rebuilding repair.

Subject Areas: Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Intellectual property law [LNR], Environment, transport & planning law [LNK], International environmental law [LBBP], Ethical issues: scientific & technological developments [JFMG]