Right to Repair (draft report by Productivity Commission)

The productivity Commission has been conducting an enquiry into the
right to repair in Australia, and have come up with a draft report,
available at the following link. 
https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/repair

They have been looking at software related issues as a part of the
investigation, and have some information requests.

If you can handle responding to reports like this, or know someone who
can, i encourage your to have a look, productivity commission has a lot
of influence, opportunities for change in this area don't come around
very often and things wont change unless we can articulate how its
broken.

Some key points ive noticed from a quick look, the second one (5.1) is
most important which is talking about changing copyright law.

INFORMATION REQUEST 3.1 REPAIR FACILITIES, SPARE PARTS AND SOFTWARE
UPDATES
To better understand whether consumers have reasonable access to repair
facilities, spare parts and software updates, the Commission is seeking
further information on:
• <snip>
• <snip>
• whether consumers are experiencing problems using their products due
to a software fault or lack of software updates, including specific
examples where manufacturers have not addressed the problem because of
claims that it is not covered by consumer guarantees
• the costs and benefits of requiring that software updates be provided
by manufacturers for a reasonable period of time after the product has
been purchased.

INFORMATION REQUEST 5.1 IMPROVING ACCESS TO REPAIR INFORMATION
The Commission is considering recommending amendments to intellectual
property laws to improve access to repair information through the
options outlined in draft finding 5.2.
It is seeking views on each option, in particular:
• whether the proposed reform options will assist repairers in
accessing repair information, and therefore facilitate third-party
repair
• what types of contractual arrangements that could override such
reforms are most likely to be of concern
• the costs, benefits and risks of pursuing each option.

The draft finding its referring to is;

DRAFT FINDING 5.2 OPTIONS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO REPAIR INFORMATION
There are two main options to amend intellectual property protections
to improve access to repair information.
• Amend the Copyright Act 1968 to allow for the reproduction and
sharing of repair information, through the introduction of a fair use
exception or a repair-specific fair dealing exception.
• Amend the Copyright Act 1968 to allow repairers to legally procure
tools required to access repair information protected by technological
protection measures (TPMs), such as digital locks. This may also
require the Australian Government to clarify the scope and intent of
the existing (related) exception for circumventing TPMs for the
purpose of repair.
To reduce the risk of manufacturers using contractual arrangements
(such as confidentiality agreements) to ‘override’ the operation of any
such reforms, it may also be beneficial to amend the Copyright Act 1968
to prohibit the use of contract terms that restrict repair-related
activities otherwise permitted under copyright law


Cheers

Glenn

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