Anticircumvention laws are the reason no one can sell you a “jailbreaking” tool so your printer is able to recognise and use cheaper, generic ink cartridges. It’s why farmers couldn’t repair their own John Deere tractors until recently and why people who use powered wheelchairs can’t fix their vehicles, even down to minor adjustments like customising the steering handling.
These laws were made in the US but they are among America’s most successful exports. The US trade representative has lobbied — overtly in treaty negotiations; covertly as foreign legislatures debated their IP laws — for America’s trading partners to enact their own versions.
The quid pro quo: countries that passed such laws got tariff-free access to American markets.
With the tariffs being imposed at Trump's whim, it's worthwhile for the rest of the world to revisit their laws which limit peoples' ability to control the software on devices they own.
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