You know that iPhone you bought? Or that home appliance? Or that tractor? They're not yours. Not completely, I mean, because if something breaks, you'll have to repair them through the official repair services of the hardware maker. You can try to repair them by yourself, but you'll probably have a lot of trouble doing it or even getting an unofficial technical service to do it. Oh, and until now it even wasn't legal for you to try. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung or John Deere have turned repair control into an art form. The DRM they impose on their products is becoming more and more complex, and there are lots of devices that are very complicated to open to try to repair.

Agencies like EFF have long been fighting for the so-called "right to repair" movement to try to fight these kinds of strategies, and these days those efforts have paid off. The Librarian of Congress and US Copyright Office have adopted "exemptions to the to the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that prohibits circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works". This means that from now on, users will be able to hack the software and fix the hardware on (some of) their devices in order to repair or maintain them. The new rules apply to smartphones, "home appliances" and "home systems", but they go beyond there and will allow users to repair cars, tractors and other motorized land vehicles (no boats or planes, though) by modifying their firmware.Kyle Wiens, founder of iFixit, explained in a blog post the importance of this decision. He knows what he's talking about, because iFixit has made it their right to repair their mission in this world: for years they have been publishing guides to repair all kinds of devices, as well as selling tools to facilitate those processes. Wiens explained how he and several other experts (Cory Doctorow or Jay 'Saurik' Freeman among them) met some time ago with officials at the Copyright Office to discuss the subject, and it seems that these conversations have had a clear effect on current legislation.

The exemptions to section 1201 of the DMCA allow for example that users will be able to jailbreak their smart speakers, unlock their phones (not only used ones, but also new ones), or try to repair a large number of home appliances and home systems, although there is one exception to this coverage: it is still illegal to try to repair consoles independently.

The victory isn't total because companies will be able to continue to make their DRM mechanisms more complex and make it more difficult for those who try to repair their devices on their own. Even so, it is undoubtedly a very important step forward in recovering that right to repair that not long ago seemed implicit in any product we bought and that was gradually disappearing from our control.