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Lexmark Invokes DMCA in Toner Suit
Rhyas writes "Seems as though Lexmark has decided it wants all the pie when it comes to the printing world, as they are suing a company that does reselling of chips that allow third party toner cartridges to work in Lexmark printers. Cindy Cohn, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said she expected more cases like the one brought by Lexmark. 'We have long said that the DMCA's potential use as an anti-competitive tool has been great,' Cohn said. 'Now we're seeing it happen.'" The European Union is taking action against the practice of embedding chips in printer cartridges which make it difficult for third parties to sell refills.
The chips attached to the cartridges are, and they authenticate with the printer to allow the cartridge to be used.
It is a federal court after all.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
I would be concerned/offended/interested if it were a company that actually made GOOD printers that was doing this :)
Lexmark printers are pretty much junk anyway (and their market share bears me out on that) so this will likely only hurt them.
Now if HP or Epson try to pull this, I'll be alarmed.
Finkployd
You got a prebate cartridge somehow. That was a goof by Lexmark.
In case anyone else is wondering, Lexmark has a 'prebate' program where you can buy cartridges cheaper than 'non-prebate' cartridges. When you buy one of these, you have to agree to mail the cartridge back. When we would order them for the computer lab I worked in, they always came with a UPS label to mail it back. I'm pretty sure a printer is supposed to come with a regular cartridge.
Remember IBM typewriter ribbons? IBM tried to pull this a long time ago saying 3rd party ribbons would void IBMs warranty. Magnuson-Moss was the result of this.
This warranty act allows for 3rd party consumable replacement parts, and, in the event of a warranty claim, it is the burden of the warranty provider to prove the 3rd party product caused the damage.
-ted
More and more car brands can/could be maintained and repaired only with proprietary equipment and electronics. Only selected dealers can rent this equipment, shutting out competition.
Thus the car makers could make extra profits on car maintenance (inderectly through their dealer network) and make cars a bit cheaper to lock in/tempt the buyer.
The EU also has forbidden this practice, and forces car makers to open the specifications of electronic and computer interfaces to the diagnostics subsystems. Also a new law enables each dealer to represent and repair any brand of car, i.e. it has become illegal for car makers to restrict the number of dealers (such as only those that do not do business with others) or to set up their own dealer network.
I think it is the same tactics, one that has been prevented now, shall be prevented too for the print cartidge market and hopefully too for video consoles and the like.
In general, the business model to almost give away some piece of equipment and then afterwards cash in on the required consumables or assecoires should be prevented, since it is misleading for the public and unethical.
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Thera are a number of aftermarket companies who make modifications to the vehicle's stock program to alter its performance. The old way was to physically replace an eprom, or add a "chip". The new way is to use the vehicle's communication bus, pass a PROPRIETARY authentication algorithm, and then reflash the vehicle computer. In either case, the "new" program fundamentally contains the copyrighted code from the manufacturer plus a few slight parameter changes. And the authentication algorithm was definitely circumvented. The ramifications for this go beyond the chip companies. Aftermarket hardware such as turbo, blowers, cams, all require changes in the air / fuel ratio or timing to work. They can dammage the car otherwise. With modern EFI this can only be done by modifications to the vechicle's program.
It's not impossible at all. I'm in the UK (R2) and I buy most of my DVDs from overseas, either US (R1) or Australia (R4). Why? Because it's cheaper - yes, even including shipping half way around the world, australian DVDs are considerably cheaper than I can get them from UK based suppliers. It's a mad world I tell ya :)
All you need is a multi-region player, most of the cheapo non-brand ones are multiregion from the box, and most of the decent ones can be chipped or hacked for $0-$50. I'm currently on a Pioneer which came ready-chipped from the supplier - it's all totally legal over here as region coding has no actual basis in law. I'm under the impression that multi-region players like the Apex are popular in the US (even though the quality sucks) but I'm not sure how easy it is to get decent players chipped over there.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
These are not $30 inkjet cartridges, more like $300+ laser printer toner cartridges. The printer I bought last year is no longer available this year, and guess what, the toner cartridge for this year's model is more expensive, by about $50, even though they look almost identical.
Others have suggested that Lexmark is trying to recoup their losses from selling their printers as a loss leader, but again we aren't talking about $89 inkjet printers. These are $1,100 laser printers. I really can't believe the hardware is sold at a loss.
When the toner runs out, I have 2 choices. I can pay lexmark $300 for a replacement cartridge, or I can take it down the street and have it rebuilt (toner refilled, image drum replaced, wiper blades and other internal parts replaced, etc) for $150 and the print quality is just as good. The guy that refills them for me says that $50 of that cost is for the computer chip that has to be replaced each time. If the print quality is still good, the cartridge can be refilled, without having to be rebuilt, but the chip still has to be replaced.
You see, if you simply refill the cartridge, and try and put it back into the printer, the printer says "wait a minute, last time I saw this cartridge, he was empty, and now he's full. Something fishy is going on here, so I'm not going to let him print".
We have used Lexmark laser printers exclusively for the last 8-10 years, and have been pleased with them from a quality standpoint (we are producing camera ready copy for printing, so quality is important) but over the years, the printers haven't gotten any cheaper but the toner costs have tripled. It's getting hard to justify staying with lexmark when they have such a restrictive business model, not to mention the environmental costs of having to buy a new cartridge each time as opposed to reclycling a perfectly good cartridge.
Then there's their "prebate" program where they charge you an additional $50 for a non-prebate cartridge (with a prebate cartridge you agree to return the empty cartridge to lexmark and not have it refilled). Lexmark's justification is that for the extra $50, you gain unrestricted use of the cartridge, and can refill it if you like, but guess what, now that they are destroying the aftermarket chip suppliers, you won't be able to use the cartridge that you paid extra for, because you won't be able reuse it without a chip. Figure that out. Basically it's a EULA for toner cartridges.
"the universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle" - Stapp's Law
Off the origonal topic here, but just wanted to give you some more information about the consoles.
The NES had no protection. I used to write code for it (amature) and if you feed it asm it will run it.
The only 'special' chips used are the (many many) different memory bank controllers.
But there is nothing from stopping one from making their own (As each game company seemed to have done) or even not using one if your ROM needs are small.
Im also pretty sure the SNES had no protection either, but wont swear to this.
The first sega console (The Master System) had no protection either.
The first system from Nintendo I saw with protection was the gameboy.
Its protection was the nintendo logo bitmap was not only in your code, but in the firmware of the gameboy itself.
It would display the logo in your rom image, and then the firmware would compare that bitmap with its copy. It would only continue to run if they matched.
What this means is to make playable gameboy software, you had to put nintendo's logo in it. The logic is doing so is a copyright violation or something.
Even systems as recent as the dreamcast and PS1 only used this form of protection, which is a Good thing (tm) because once the systems are discontinued and not cared for, hobbiest can write code, infringe on the copyright, and Nintendo not really care.
Only with Really recent systems such as the PS2, xbox, etc are there actual real technical measures and special data needed to even get code to run.
Static control has a section of their website devoted to descibing the obstacles they face. It features a whitepaper describing the technical challenges (some of these chips are full-custom and some are RF), a letter from their CEO, and a whole lot of information on printer security chips.
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For example, let's say that you have a Canon ImageClass C2100 color laser copier. You go to CompUSA and buy some generic brand of high gloss paper that claims to be compatible. You pop a sheet in, and the third sheet melts in your fuser. Canon will not always honor the damage caused by that third party product, of course, because Canon has no way of testing the material beforehand, and they have no control over the third party's production techniques and claims. On the other hand, if you use approved Canon media and supplies, then you have nothing to fear under their very nice and expansive warranty.
Furthermore, this is no secret, but Canon manufactures almost all HP engines. Almost all other manufacturers lease out many Canon patents to make their stuff work. Why bother going second-hand when you can just buy directly from the source?
Yes, I am a satisfied Canon customer of three years. After dealing with Lexmark and HP for years at my past job, I couldn't dream of ever switching from Canon.
At work I recently researched an issue involving the repair vs reconstruction doctrine governing patented items. I ran across a case which I kept because it was funny. A suit for infringement was brought by the owner of a toilet paper holder against a company who manufactured replacement toilet rolls. The case is Morgan Envelope Co. v. Albany Preforated Wrapping Paper Co., 152 US 425 (1984). The patent did cover the combination of the holder and roll. It went to the Supreme Court, but the patentee lost.
Sorry, but you're wrong on both the NES and SNES protection. They did have protection, and it was circumvented (as usual):
x t
c h. htm
NES:
http://nintendope.iodized.net/thisoldnes/lock.t
SNES:
http://www.thepong.com/Sites/Left/Nintendo/SNTe
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The way the DMCA is written - and this is exactly the way that Lexmark is using it - is that the third party chips are allowing ACCESS to a "protected" copyrighted work. It doesn't matter that the copyright on the work is not being infringed (you are not copying it after all). All that matters is that you are gaining access to it.
This "exploit" of the DMCA was identified long before it became law. Oh well, when the Librarian of Congress is required to report again on the DMCA maybe he can address this issue as he has decrypting the blacklists in censorware.
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