ESA Concedes Device Designs Help Keep Costs Down as CR Seeks Right to Repair

comments. The FTC, which hadn't fulfilled our FOIA request, didn't comment on whether the filings just released are all of them. "TPMs and other design choices reflect a necessary weighing of multiple risks," said the Entertainment Software Association, which noted its members include Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Sony Interactive Entertainment. "As a practical matter, the use of TPMs tends to limit the ability to make certain types of repairs to consoles and other products to authorized parties." ESA noted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits "tampering with the digital locks that copyright owners use to protect this software." "Despite these design decisions" of component integration and cutting manufacturing costs and prices as well as energy use, consoles "generally do not require proprietary tools to open or repair them," the group said in docket FTC-2019-0013. "Compatible tools, such as tri-wing screwdrivers, are inexpensive and widely available." On adhesives, which other commenters that released their filings raised concerns about, console makers sometimes use them "to optimize product design and for safety reasons," ESA said. "Adhesives serve an important safety function in preventing access to lithium-ion batteries, which present special safety considerations (both for repair and proper disposal)." Batteries also came up in the proceeding (see report in this issue.) Consumer Reports, whose comments also were just posted, "does support right to repair generally," a spokesperson emailed when we asked about CR's principles on this matter. "We have been advocating for bills in multiple states." Many states recently introduced such legislation, but some consumer tech interests oppose them (see 1903190031). ESA couldn't immediately provide us with its own right to repair principles, beyond its intellectual property concerns. CR has "developed a model state law, and are working to help enact effective right-to-repair laws in a number of states, including co-sponsoring a bill currently under consideration in California," it said: "Adverse reliability reports" to the product research and ratings provider "demonstrate the common consumer experience of having products break and need repair, and the importance of having convenient and affordable options to obtain repair." CR's model state law is here. Last week, a representative of the group testified for a New Jersey digital right-to-repair bill. It would "require manufacturers to make basic technical information and repair protocols available to independent repair shops and consumers, so consumers can more easily and cheaply get their digital devices repaired, and in some cases, fix the devices themselves," the group's spokesman noted.