For years, fixing your own stuff quietly became illegal-in-practice. Not because a law forbade it, but because the manufacturers made it impossible: they wouldn't sell you the part, wouldn't give the independent shop the diagnostic tool, wouldn't publish the manual, and sometimes wrote software that "paired" a part to the device so a replacement you installed yourself simply wouldn't work. The result was a hidden tax on ownership — a cracked screen or a dead battery meant a trip back to the manufacturer, on the manufacturer's terms and at the manufacturer's price, or a landfill.
Minnesota did something about it.
What the Digital Fair Repair Act does
Minn. Stat. § 325E.72, the Digital Fair Repair Act, says that if a company makes "digital electronic equipment" and provides parts, tools, and documentation to its own authorized repair providers, it must also make those same things available to you, the owner, and to independent repair shops — on "fair and reasonable terms."
Read the definition of "fair and reasonable terms" and you can see the law anticipating every dodge. Parts must be offered at costs "fair to both parties," and — crucially — the manufacturer cannot require that a part be registered, paired with, or approved by the manufacturer before it works. That "parts pairing" trick, the thing that bricks a self-installed battery, is specifically targeted. Tools, software, and documentation have to be offered at costs and on terms "equivalent to the most favorable" the manufacturer gives its authorized shops. In plain English: the manufacturer can't starve independent repair by making the real repair information a secret.
Minnesota was among the first states in the country to pass a broad consumer-electronics repair law — following New York, and joined since by California, Colorado, and Oregon. It's enforced as a violation of Minnesota's deceptive-trade-practices law, which means the Attorney General is the cop on this beat.
Why it's worth caring about
Three reasons. Your wallet: an independent shop that can actually get the part and the manual will fix your laptop or phone for a fraction of a manufacturer swap. The planet: the fastest-growing waste stream on earth is electronics, and most of it dies of a $30 part nobody was allowed to replace. Fair competition: repair is a market, and a manufacturer that monopolizes the repair of its own products is using a sale to capture you for life. Right-to-repair is, at bottom, an anti-monopoly idea — the same instinct that says the company that sold you a car can't be the only one allowed to change your oil.
The honest limits
This is where I have to be straight with you, because the carve-outs matter. The Digital Fair Repair Act is written for consumer electronics and appliances. It does not reach some of the equipment people most want to fix — notably motor vehicles and, the big one, farm equipment. The tractor company's locked-down software is the most infuriating repair monopoly in America, and Minnesota's law, as written, doesn't break it. Medical devices, game consoles, and cybersecurity tools sit outside it too. Those fights are real and unfinished.
And there's the enforcement question this series keeps running into: the Act is enforced by the Attorney General, with no private right of action. A right that only a state agency can vindicate is only as strong as that agency's attention. A statute on the shelf helps no one.
What we can do
Extend it to the tractor and the truck. The single most valuable expansion is agricultural and heavy equipment. A Minnesota farmer stranded in a field during harvest because only the dealer's laptop can clear a fault code is exactly who a repair law should protect. Cars come next.
Enforce the parts-pairing ban. The law already forbids the software lockouts that defeat self-repair. Make testing and enforcing that a priority, publicly, so manufacturers know Minnesota is watching.
Give people a way to enforce it themselves. A limited private right of action, or a clear complaint path to the Attorney General with real follow-through, turns "fair and reasonable terms" from a phrase into a habit.
You paid for it. It's yours. The law now agrees — and the job is to make that true for the tractor and the truck, not just the toaster and the phone.
First the facts. Then the fix.
Sources
Minn. Stat. § 325E.72, the Digital Fair Repair Act (2023 Minn. Laws), verified against raw text at revisor.mn.gov: the short title (subd. 1); the definitions of "authorized repair provider," "digital electronic equipment," "documentation," and "embedded software" (subd. 2); and the "fair and reasonable terms" requirements for parts, tools, software, and documentation, including the prohibition on conditioning a part on registration, pairing, or manufacturer approval before it is operational. Minnesota is among the first states with a broad consumer-electronics right-to-repair law, following New York's Digital Fair Repair Act and preceding similar laws in California, Colorado, and Oregon; enforcement runs through Minnesota's deceptive-trade-practices framework and the Attorney General.
The Act's full list of exclusions and its exact effective date were not pulled verbatim this pass; the carve-outs described (motor vehicles, farm and heavy equipment, medical devices, game consoles, cybersecurity tools) reflect the Act's general scope and the standard category exclusions in comparable state laws, and should be confirmed against the enrolled bill before relied upon. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com.