Louis Rossmann wants you to own what you buy

The problem with your phone

Apple's self-repair service requires renting nearly eighty pounds of equipment and using official parts. Third-party parts can lock you out of features because the phone does not recognize them.

It goes way beyond iPhones

Manufacturers have put digital locks on video game consoles, cars, and smart home devices, making them hard to modify and harder to restore after firmware updates render features unusable.

A movement takes shape

Right-to-repair advocates believe consumers have the right to maintain, fix, or modify any hardware they have purchased.

Meet Louis Rossmann

YouTuber and consumer rights advocate Louis Rossmann recently organized the Own Your Shit tour, which went around the US earlier this year to call for the death of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright…

How Rossmann teaches repair

Rossmann avoids lecturing about right to repair. Instead, he shows customers the cost difference between his repairs and Apple's, then explains how manufacturers block access to parts and information.

Over one thousand repair videos

Rossmann has posted over one thousand repair videos on YouTube showing people how to fix devices. Some viewers say they learned to repair boards on eBay and now make triple what they earned before.

The thermostat that charged to work

A thermostat company sent out a firmware update after going bankrupt that required customers to pay one hundred seventeen dollars a year to get functionality they had before.

Rossmann's awakening in Nebraska

In two thousand seventeen, Rossmann attended a legislative hearing in Nebraska and found a room full of farmers discussing problems with their tractors.He realized right to repair was not just his problem but affected everyone.

Ownership is the real issue

Rossmann says ownership is being taken away over the past ten to twenty years. Everything is turning into a subscription, and devices must connect to the manufacturer's server to work, meaning they can disable your…

Samsung's repair program falls short

Samsung released an independent repair program making screens and batteries available, but the battery cost over two hundred dollars because they glued it to the screen. Customers had to buy both together.

What Section 1201 actually does

Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to bypass a technical protection measure to gain access to a protected work, even for repair. It was put in place to stop piracy.

How the law got passed

Congress repeatedly said no to Section 1201. Architect Bruce Lehman negotiated it into an international treaty, then told Congress the US had to pass it to meet treaty obligations, potentially sidestepping Congress.

The locked closet problem

Rossmann compares it to buying a house for six hundred thousand dollars and finding a locked closet.Once you own the house, you should be able to break that lock.

The law did not stop piracy

Section 1201 was created in the late nineteen nineties before most people had the internet. The architect admitted in two thousand seven and two thousand thirteen that it did not stop piracy at all.

AI tools and digital locks

People now use Claude Code to remove bloatware from smart TVs and access repair guides. Rossmann loves seeing AI used to break digital locks and give people access to what companies have taken away.

The bounty program begins

At two am editing a video about a Futurehome thermostat, Rossmann offered five thousand to ten thousand dollars to whoever made it work again.

Politicians are listening now

After the midterms, Democrats control the Senate and House. Politicians including Josh Turek in Iowa and Jake Johnson in Minnesota have spoken out about right to repair and are now in office.

Building political will

Rossmann says his job is showing elected representatives that enough people care about right to repair that spending twenty minutes on it will work in their favor.

What comes next

Rossmann hopes for durable legislation that does not require yearly exemptions.He is starting with repair, the most reasonable area.If you want to fix what you bought and paid for, that should not be a crime.

“If you want to be able to fix what you bought and paid for, that should not be a crime.”