Changes in the Mexican Federal Copyright Law have risen concerns in various Associations related to digital rights. One of the points that have created more doubts it’s about repairing electronic gadgets.
As the reform punishes with ten years of prison to people that brokes digital locks, repairing cellphones or other devices can become illegal. A small independent device repair business needs to bypass these locks to repair anything from a cell phone to a car.
Other issues related to Copyright Law affect media companies. A journalist could not use fragments of protected works to make a criticism or disseminate it or use it for documentary work.
If this fact is not enough to get worried, the collateral damage of this law is memes. Memes use fragments of other creators to do jokes, but for that reason could be tagged like an infringement of the Federal Copyright Law.
Are these First-world problems for a Third-world country?
In the United States, some associations have reclaimed the people’s “right-to-repair” their phones. And big tech companies had spent in lobbying to avoid that.
In 2017, Apple lobbied against New York State to stop the bill called the Fair Repair Act that compels electronic companies to make available information about how to repair their devices.
In the United States, shops and customers face the problems of repairing electronic devices. These issues are not restricted to Apple’s products. Microsoft’s Surface tablets so tightly that people need to broke it before to fix it, according to a technician. Asus is another computer maker that refuses to sell parts.
The main argument of Apple to stop any “right-to-repair” legislation is the fact that customers could “hurt themselves” trying to repair their own devices.
But their main differences between the Mexican legislation and the US legislation. Tech companies in the United States are fighting against laws that require them to share their info about how to repair electronic devices, meanwhile, the Mexican legislation has forbidden the right.