The Right to Repair movement scores a small victory
A few decades ago, auto manufacturers trusted their customers enough to give them manuals that included information on how to pretty much rebuild the entire car from scratch. Fast forward to today and the same manufacturers are now recommending that you should take your car back to them for service and that no one else should touch it, even you, the owner. What Right to Repair activists are fighting for is the right to fix their products. A huge part of the movement involves making it easier for consumers to gain access to information and components necessary to perform repairs. In this particular case, we’re talking about current-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. The most recent US court ruling now allows unauthorized repairs, but there’s a catch. The US Copyright Office is allowing repairs from third-party sources, but only to those with optical drives. This is great if you have the standard PS5 or the Xbox Series X. Unfortunately, it’s not good news for digital PS5 and Xbox Series S owners. The silver lining here is that activists can use this ruling in the future for a more extensive right to repair gaming consoles. It might just be a small step, but any progress counts when you’re fighting against manufacturers for the right to have the same access as they do when it comes to information and components. If you think that you are not affected by this, you might want to reconsider. Proprietary technology isn’t easy to repair, especially when important information and components are scarce. Not to mention, most companies end repairs for their devices after a few years, which makes it near-impossible to repair an older console on your own. A more extensive ruling would give hobbyists, owners, and independent repair shops access to cheaper parts, which would lower repair costs. In addition to this, manufacturers will have no choice but to guarantee the lifetimes of their systems for much longer. TLDR; everybody benefits if end users had just as much of a right to fix gaming consoles and other devices as their manufacturers.
