Which DIY Repairs Are Legal Under the Latest DCMA Copyright Regulations
Every three years, the US government hears arguments from individuals, small businesses, technical experts, and large corporations about what types of repairs or modifications users should be legally allowed to perform on their technology. The last of these hearings was held earlier in 2018, and this week the US Copyright Office released its final ruling, giving users the ability to legally perform certain repairs on their smartphones, smart home hubs and more.
Below you will find a breakdown of the changes by device category. For now, here’s a little more background to this week’s ruling.
Section 1201 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act
It may sound strange, but due to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) passed in 2001, companies can sue users for performing repairs or operations on their devices if the company considers it to be in breach. her copyright. However, the law also gives citizens the ability to apply to Congress for exemptions from certain repairs and other procedures that would otherwise violate Section 1201 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The 2015 ordinance gave device owners the ability to unlock and jailbreak certain smartphones, tablets, TVs and other smart devices; change software on 3D printers and ground motorized vehicles; and allowed users to conduct safety studies on all of the aforementioned devices, as well as on some medical implants.
This year, the Copyright Office heard the case for: bypassing HDCP copyright protection on HDMI video signals; hacking smart home devices; and allowing users to bypass the digital locks that manufacturers install on smartphones, among other things. You can read a detailed explanation of Section 1201 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the legal fine print, and the first-person report from this year’s hearing on the iF ixit blog .
2018 Copyright Notice Changes
Here is a list of what permissions were (and were not) granted in the final 2018 ruling:
Legal Notice: Hacking and Installing New Firmware on Voice Assistant Devices
The law now allows users to jailbreak their voice assistant devices. This includes pretty much everything that runs on Alexa – Amazon Echo speakers, Amazon Fire TV Cube, and more – and other voice assistants. A solution means you can bypass the DRM on those devices in order to repair or install new software.
Legal Issues: Hacking Smartphones / Rooting Smartphones
As with voice assistant devices, it is now allowed to root / jailbreak your smartphone to fix the problem yourself – which previously voided the warranty in some cases. Likewise, new smartphones purchased tied to a network or provider can now be unlocked immediately. Previously, only used phones could be unlocked.
It will be interesting to see if this exclusion affects the way certain manufacturers sell their phones, for example, Verizon forces users to activate “unlocked” devices like the Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL on their network to actually unlock them.
Legal issues: hacking / rooting smart home appliances and smart home systems
Smart appliances and hubs also receive a general “repair” exemption that extends to rooting firmware to fix problems. The iFixit article cites the Revolv app and smart home hub as examples, which Google forced and permanently blocked by shutting down Revolv servers back in 2016. With this change, users who kept their Revolv hub can root the system’s firmware to restore its usability, and the same is now true for any smart home device.
Legal issues: Repair of land vehicles and their software.
You can legally repair / modify the software of any powered ground vehicle such as cars (including Tesla and other electric vehicles), trucks, tractors, construction vehicles, motorcycles, etc. This change also gives users the ability to access the telematics system their vehicles. diagnostic data to diagnose mechanical and software problems.
Legal: Third party repair
Not only can the owners of the devices listed above can perform repairs on their own, it is now also legal for third-party service centers and companies to perform repairs without suing, which was surprisingly not true prior to this change.
Illegal: Distributing DRM Bypass Tools
Ironically, distributing DRM cracking software or cracking tools is illegal. Users are completely legal to download and use tools to jailbreak their personal devices, but you may still face legal consequences if you are caught developing or downloading such software.
Illegal: Game Console Repair
Repairing your own game consoles is still illegal. While you can perform the same authorized upgrades, such as replacing a standard PlayStation 4 hard drive with a larger one, replacement of optical drives or other components is not covered. Such replacements and any repairs to hardware or software must continue to be performed by the manufacturers.
Illegal: Modification of software on water and air vehicles and smart devices.
Exceptions made for motorized land vehicles, smartphones, smart devices and voice assistant devices do not apply to airplanes, boats or other land vehicles / smart devices.
Illegal: Bypass HDMI copy protection
It is still illegal to bypass the HDCP protection used for HDMI video signals.