Posted on 06/13/2026 10:48:28 AM PDT by MikelTackNailer
Tennessee families are being squeezed from every direction. Grocery bills are up. Fuel costs more. And when something breaks, whether it’s a car, an appliance, or a piece of farm equipment, getting it fixed has become its own financial ordeal. Some of that is inflation. But some of it is federal policy, and that part is fixable.
Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally written to protect intellectual property. Few could have anticipated that manufacturers of refrigerators, smartphones, and farm equipment would later use it for an entirely different purpose: embedding proprietary encryption and software locks in their products, then invoking federal copyright law to ensure that only their authorized dealers can touch them.
The practical effect is that even when a repair is entirely lawful, accessing the diagnostic software to perform it may not be. Independent repair shops and small, community-based businesses fully trained and equipped for the work are legally shut out. Consumers who want to take their vehicle, appliance, or tractor to a local shop are denied that choice. They can pay whatever the manufacturer’s authorized network charges or buy something new. That is not a free market. It is a rigged one.
The economic damage is real and widespread. Auto repair shops across Tennessee are losing out on critical revenue because manufacturers restrict access to repair data. Farmers lose time and money waiting on manufacturer-dispatched technicians while equipment sits idle during planting season. These barriers extend far beyond cars and tractors. From refrigerators and power tools to bicycles and consumer electronics, any digitally enabled product is a potential target. The more technology advances, the wider the manufacturer’s grip becomes.
Reforming Section 1201 would not touch copyright protections for artists or innovators, the original objective of the law. It would simply stop manufacturers from using copyright law as a shield against competition in the repair marketplace. Consumers could choose where their products get fixed, whether at a local shop, a national chain, or their own garage. Independent businesses could compete for that work on an equal footing. That is how markets are supposed to function, and it is how this one would function if Congress updated a statute that has been exploited by large corporations.
This is not a partisan question. It is a question of whether federal law should prop up large manufacturers at the expense of working families and small businesses. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have talked for years about supporting competition and keeping costs down. DMCA reform is a concrete opportunity to deliver on these goals. Representatives Harshbarger and Rose have already led on legislation targeting these restrictions in the automotive sector, and other members of Tennessee’s delegation have engaged the issue in agriculture – a significant part of Tennessee’s ecoonomy. The moment is right to bring these efforts together behind a broader fix.
For Latino families in Tennessee that take pride in self-reliance, work hard to balance their budgets, and build their livelihoods from the ground up, the freedom to repair what you own is not an abstract idea. It is an everyday reality. Our elected leaders should treat it like one.
I have experience with several early RCA TV models, none had schematics inside. No idea about GE or Dumont, though.
It was actually quite common for early transistor radios to have schematics inside, but they were generally too small to be useful, even with a magnifier.
Bottom line...you need more than a schematic to fix more complex problems, to do alignment, and the like. It really makes no sense to include a schematic inside the cabinet, it just encourages Mr. Fixit types to fiddle around and cause more problems.
I know. I drove my parents nuts that way when I was a kid!
Yeah, the days of the analog oscilloscope, sweep generator, marker generator, grid dip meter, VOM. It is sort of stunning to realize that inductor/capacitor tuned circuits have given way to tiny resistor/capacitor active filters. No alignments necessary. Quite a contrast to a tube radio with eight or more stages to align.
The schematics in the sets were intended for the TV/radio repairman in that tiny shop at the back of the appliance store.
Ha ha! The replacement printer head came with off brand cartridges. The printer scolded me when I put them in, but after several print head alignments they work just fine.
I thought a court ordered John Deere to make its late model repair technology available to the general public. For a while, if you had a problem with a late model John Deere tractor, you had to take it to the dealer to read diagnostic trouble codes and get it fixed. On the other hand, if you own a Tesla, you can access to the service manuals online, and access the service menu and all of its systems and subsystems. You can even buy components directly from Tesla from the service menu.
It served us well for something like 10 years. I bought a new one $400 and got that installed and working before the second hot and muggy night on Thursday. Then I started digging into the old one. Found a bad thermistor, didn't respond at all to ice water or a hot lamp, the other one responded instantly doubling the resistance.
Ordered 2 from Ebay $12.50 free shipping. If I get it working I'm going to have an air conditioned garage.
I worked as a GM and Chrysler service tech back in the 80's. There was plenty of planned obsolescence back then.
sounds like my 87 Supra 7M-GTE engine.
In this case the head bolts were under-torqued from the factory.
Eventually every engine would blow it’s head gasket....like mine did.
Toyota knew about this prob for years and did nothing about it.
I actually had my valve covers off while replacing those gaskets once....the head bolts were RIGHT there, i coulda torqued them down....ugh
This was before the internet and i had no idea about the prob at the time..
Thanks toyota...
Thanks for the tip Well that sucks to lose your Supra.
IMHO don’t just retorque ‘em, replace them. Apparently they were specified to go past the elastic limit, i.e. they want them to stretch to fit or something. That’s would be a recipe for failure or misfit at rated torque in time.
If they stretch to fit inelastically (semi-plastic instead of fully elastic behavior ) it would explain you thinking they must have been undertorqued from the factory, after the dissimilar metals had expanded and contracted over and over.
I want that Camry back and my daughter never stuck beside the road and where that might have gone, and I’m sure you would want your Supra back if you are like my Supra lover friend from those good ol’ days.
Regards and Cheers, or I should say Kanpai!
Get some vintage Maytag washing machines. Easy to fix with readily-available parts...
I ended up getting the Haynes manual for my 2013 Ram... but never used it. You’re right about the internet. There’s a YouTube video for practically everything.
In the six months I’ve had my P.O.S. Ram (which I love), I’ve had to replace the water pump, the driver’s side CV shaft, one U-joint, and had to weld on a new bracket for the forward fuel tank strap (the tank was trying to fall out due to rust). All through Google AI and YouTube instead of paying $2000 per year for a subscription.
I should also mention that there is a website called Factorymanuals.com or something that sold a 2013 Ram manual for $70... what a waste. It was a 28,000 page .pdf without an index or page numbers. It’s an “internet scrape” and completely useless. Tried to find the water pump section by searching with the .pdf tools for “water” and “pump” but thousands of hits came up and never found the section after checking the first few hundred hits.
Sucks we can’t get the nice detailed physical service manuals any longer. How far we have fallen.
What goes into modern landfills is shredded first, sorted, then buried with a bacteria that can decompose the material.
What a pampered society!
Get some vintage Maytag washing machines. Easy to fix with readily-available parts...
Perhaps in our better-run places. Having observed this work first-hand where I live (Middle Tennessee/aka Middle Erf) only large bulky stuff got sorted out while the rest was squished down with dozers, then a layer of treated earth over that before the next layer.
The complex is surrounded with "treatment towers" that spray a fine mist of antibacterial deodorizer that everyone has no option but to breathe while there.
So there's food refuse mixed with lumber mixed with broken toys mixed with soiled diapers mixed with defunct electronics...all squished down for future archeologists to ooh and ah over.
Yes, the future look bright for some.
If a manufacturer builds a product so that only “they” can fix it, that part of the repair should be permanently warranted. Makes sense if a manuf. says they are the only ones qualified.
Of course if manufacturers were using their heads, they wouldn’t be building such complication into their products in the first place. We don’t need all that junk anyway.
I recently bought a new refrigerator. I asked the dealer what it used for refrigerant & sid it is something like propane. It is said to be flammable. I will likely never last as long as the old one which was still working. New one was a cheaper model, but by no means cheap.
Civilization? Do you see "civilization" somewhere?
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