Colorado Denied its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Colorado Denied Its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony:

Colorado's proposed right-to-repair law was simple and clear. At 11 pages, the legislation spent most of its word count defining terms, but the gist was simple: It would let people fix their own stuff without needing to resort to the manufacturer and force said manufacturer to support people who want to fix stuff.

For the purpose of providing services for digital electronic equipment sold or used in this state, an original equipment manufacturer shall, with fair and reasonable terms and cost, make available to an independent repair provider or owner of the manufacturer's equipment any documentation, parts, embedded software, firmware, or tools that are intended for use with the digital electronic equipment, including updates to documentation, information, or embedded software," the proposed bill said.

Right-to-repair is often spoken of in the context of broken phone screens, but it doesn't just affect people's personal devices. Agricultural and medical equipment are increasingly impossible to fix because manufacturers want to maintain a monopoly on repairing the product. These issues can make the right-to-repair literally life and death.

The Colorado House Business Affairs & Labor committee met to consider the law on March 25. Twelve legislators voted to indefinitely postpone considering the bill. Only one voted for it. I still have a lot of questions. I still have a lot of concerns," Rep. Monica Duran (D) said at the end of the committee hearing. She voted no on the bill.

[...] It was a stunning statement given just how many people testified on behalf of the right-to-repair legislation and how few questions the committee asked them.

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