The right to repair is a movement and policy argument asserting that people who own devices — phones, cars, tractors, medical equipment, appliances — should have the legal and practical right to repair those devices themselves or through independent repair shops of their choosing. Cory Doctorow has been one of the movement's most prominent advocates, particularly in connecting repair rights to broader digital rights and monopoly analysis through the electronic-frontier-foundation and pluralistic-blog.
The Problem
Manufacturers — Apple, John Deere, medical device companies, and many others — have used a combination of technical and legal mechanisms to foreclose independent repair:
The effect is to convert the aftermarket for repair services into a manufacturer-controlled monopoly, eliminating independent repair competition and forcing users into expensive authorized service channels — or simply disposing of and replacing devices they might otherwise have repaired.
Doctorow's Contribution
Doctorow's analysis connects right to repair to his broader framework of monopoly, switching costs, and adversarial-interoperability. His key contribution is the argument that repair rights are not merely a consumer convenience issue but a structural element of competitive markets and democratic ownership.
In his framing, the question "can you repair your device?" is the same question as "do you actually own it?" A device you cannot repair is a device where the manufacturer retains effective ongoing control — you are, in functional terms, licensing a physical object rather than owning it. This argument extends the logic of self-help-ip (the idea that IP law is increasingly deployed to prevent users from exercising control over things they have purchased).
He also emphasizes the environmental dimension: a world where devices cannot be repaired is a world of accelerated obsolescence and e-waste, driven not by genuine technological obsolescence but by manufacturer-engineered lock-in.
DMCA Exemptions
Doctorow and the electronic-frontier-foundation have been active in the triennial DMCA Section 1201 rulemaking process, petitioning the Copyright Office for exemptions that would allow circumvention of technological protection measures for repair purposes. Some exemptions have been granted (for certain vehicles, medical devices) but the process is cumbersome and partial — EFF has consistently argued that piecemeal exemptions are inadequate and that Section 1201's anti-circumvention provisions should be reformed rather than managed through exemptions.
Policy Landscape
Right to repair legislation has advanced at state level in the US (Massachusetts, New York) and at federal level in the EU, where comprehensive repair legislation passed in 2024 covering electronics and other product categories. The FTC under lina-khan published reports on repair restrictions and signaled enforcement interest. These developments represent partial vindication of arguments Doctorow and the EFF have made for over a decade.
Connection to Broader Framework
Right to repair sits within Doctorow's larger argument about the expansion of IP law to foreclose competition and user autonomy. It connects directly to digital-rights-management-critique (DRM is one of the tools used to prevent repair), to adversarial-interoperability (the ability to fix or modify a device is a form of interoperating with the manufacturer's design), and to self-help-ip (manufacturers using IP to control post-sale behavior of products they have sold).