It is in the news that Colorado governor has signed a 'best in the world' right-to-repair law. This is described as prohibiting parts pairing:
The new rule adds a complete prohibition on parts pairing technology often used to stymie repairability by requiring manufacturer consent to install new parts in a damaged device.
This is the phenomenon of parts pairing, wherein your iPhone freaks out if anyone replaces a component without Apple's blessing.
"Replacing your display will remove True Tone and break Auto Brightness. A new battery will disable Battery Health. A new front camera will break Face ID, portrait mode and cinematic mode. A rear camera will only give you a warning message. And lastly, replacing the logic board will trigger all of the previous penalties," Jeffreys said, describing the practice as anti-third party repair locks.
On a practical level this sounds very like High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), the technology that proving digital rights management (DRM) control in HDMI, DP, DVi and other modern display equipment, including I assume iPhones. This works by restricting how components interact such that it is supposed to not work if you connect an unauthorised display screen to your device.
How does this law handle this? Is device pairing allowed for DRM (which would seem to include most of the components of a smartphone)? Is HDCP banned in Colorado now? Is it the usual answer of "it depends"?
