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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.
This is very reminding of the recent article on Xbox keys, and how it restricts others from develping games without the MS overhead.
Lexmark, I dub thee the MS of printers!
--------
Free your mind.
I wasnt aware that toners were digital media.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
Seems as though Lexmark has decided it wants all the pie when it comes to the printing world
Isn't this fair? I don't know if it's a fair lawsuit under the DMCA, but it's fair for Lexmark to try and protect their interests. Lexmark is not a printer monopoly, and it certainly does not have 'all the pie' in the printing world.
The reason Lexmark is pissed is because it sells its printers as a loss leader, and then makes money on the ink cartridges.
This is not new. All console makers do the same thing. The XBox costs more than $149 to make, but MS sells them as loss leaders so they can make money on the games. Sony does the same. Nintendo does the same.
Yet most people would agree that hacking/chipping consoles so you can play stolen games is illegal, even if you don't think it's unethical.
What's different about the printer industry? They're just trying to make their money in the best way possible. After all, it's consumers who have forced them to offer printers as loss leaders rather than having expensive printers and cheap ink.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I wasnt aware that toners were digital media.
The chips in the cartridges that mean they're 'authentic' Lexmark toner are digital though.
Think about it.. what these rip-off toner companies are doing is equivalent to cracking smartcards on subscription digital TV.
mogorific carpentry experiments
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.
While passing its own version of the DMCA, ironically enough.
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
How on earth can they believe that such silliness will not backfire?
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
If the court ruling goes in favour of Lexmark, rather than in favour of common sense (you can put whatever toner you like in your printer, right? It's your printer after all), then the extension of the ruling to other cases is inevitable.
This means that there is the potential for manufacturers of other products that have consumables associated with them (your car, say) to put methods (a funny-shaped fuel filler, say) in to ensure that you can only use their consumables (fuel), and that a circumvention device (plastic funnel) so that you can use other consumables (fuel) will be ruled illegal.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Is there any kind of EULA to which a user must agree before using the printer?
Something such as "By using this printer I agree to only use Lexmark toner etc etc..."?
That's the only way Lexmark's attitude would make sense.
I think unless you prohibit certain potentially anti-DMCA activities at the outset, it's pretty cheesy to go after people later....
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
I for one am glad that I'm not a Kentucky citizen, ie. my taxes are being spent in part to entertain this trial.
Under section 1201 of the DMCA, it is generally unlawful to circumvent technology that restricts access to a copyrighted work.
Generally unlawful? Thats what they're hoping will win them this case? A broad statement...how general is the unlawfullness? LOL
the company claims the Smartek chip mimics the authentication sequence used by Lexmark chips
Is this something the consumer is aware of when purchasing the printer? That only Lexmark© carts will be "allowed"? Its amazing what the technology market can get away with as far as trying to control what the consumer, who owns the product, can do "lawfully" with it. This shiznit is out of control.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
Is this how the internet and all that was once free will come to it's end?
isn't there a master document we can cast into a mount doom to stop the madness?
and people wonder why I prefer fiction to reality, in fiction, you might actually win!
Machine9dotNet
Didn't HP get sued for attempting to corner the market on toner sales? I'm pretty sure they were sued for selling 1/2 empty cartridges with their printers, but could swear they (and others) were sued for having a monopoly on toner cartridges.
I like Lexmark printers, but knowing they're chipping their carts is going to keep me from buying or recommending them to others.
I hope this gets thrown out of court and whoever passed the DMCA into being a law (so loosly written and obvious that it'd be used for the greater good of corporations) get voted out of office.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Lexmark claims that Smartek "mimics the authentication sequence" of Lexmarks printers. That is classic backward engineering by observing the effect and trying to re-create it. If Lexmark succeeds in this, what effect will it have on other backwards engineering efforts? Will Microsoft be able to sue the Samba project because it "mimics the authentication sequence" of NT/Win2000?
Notice how regioning makes it (for practical purposes) impossible for USians to mail-order e.g. European/region 2 movies, TV shows, etc., over the internet, for absolutely no good reason?
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
I guess this'll cut down on all those lexmark .ISO files I keep seeing on Kazaa and eDonkey. Blasted toner cartridge pirates are cutting into Lexmark's profits!
How fscking utterly asinine.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
It is a federal court after all.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Anyone is free to sell a crappy product, that's what the free market is all about. They will survive if their product is worth the money ($5 for a crappy toner cart may be better then $30 for a quality one to some people).
Well, if they want to play that way, they may very well see the amount of printers they sell drop like a rock. I think a sort of boycott where nobody buys Lexmark printers would hopefully give them a kick in the butt that the computing public will not stand for moves like this.
.02
They RELY on people to buy their products to stay in business. If nobody does, OOPS, the revenues go down.
Screw 'em I say, SCREW 'EM!!!
Just my
The EU is doing it primarily so that users can refill the ink/toner cartridges they already own in a effort to decrease the amount of crap going into landfills or incinerators.
They are not, at least on the surface, doing it to discourage competition in the marketplace.
Talisman
Wanna get pissed?
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
We also know Lexmark is only using their interpretation of the DMCA to stifle competition. If nothing else, they figure they can bury the competition with legal bills.
First of all, MS is the *only* console vender that loses money on its consoles: both Nintendo and Sony made profit for each unit sold.
Secondly, if Lexmark let consumers know that only their toner cartridges worked with Lexmark printers, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But they don't. In fact, I'd bet they even tried to supress the lawsuit beacuse of the bad publicity it causes them.
Finally, consumers haven't forced them to do anything. They chose their own business model, and now they have to lay in it.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
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
If you use coded digital media somewhere in a product, even if its ridiculous, you can sue competitors that provide things to work with or replace that product.
I'm impressed. I never foresaw the DMCA protecting us from toner.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Imagine if Daimler-Chrylser, Ford, GM and others decided to implant devices in auto parts that communicated with the car's central processing unit. Then imagine your car not starting because you have a third party distributor cap or alternator. There would be an uproar and I'm sure it would be illegal. I think Lexmark thinks it can get away with this because it makes printers, designed to work with computers, and so might conceivably be covered by the DMCA. This is clearly a bunch of bullshit.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
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
If Lexmark can keep people from making discount printer cartridges, does this mean that I'll stop getting spam about people selling discount printer cartridges?
These products need to be labeled as "Non User Serviceable Supplies" when they are displayed for sale. This would inform the potential customer that they must purchase all replacement and support goods for this item through the manufacturer.
I'm not saying I agree with them, just that if they wish to conduct business in an underhanded fashion, consumers should know about it upfront.
I think I may go back to a dot matrix printer for most of my junk printing, yeah they can be slow with graphics (I don't print graphics too often), but you don't need to worry about paper for sometime if you buy the big box. A reinker for the cartages is fairly cheap as well.
I'm sure there are people like you that agree. Start your own company - you dont really have to worry about predatory pricing. Either that or buy a a laser printer
I do have a problem when they use copyright, a government enforced monopoly on the software, to extend that monopoly into another market, i.e. the ink cartridge replacement market.
I think this is the most succinct and lucid statement of the objection to Lexmark's conduct that I have seen. I'd mod you up if I had the points, but I don't so I'll just try to draw the attention of someone who does.
-- MarkusQ
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.
This is what the label on the box says:
The same cartridge is used for both the E320 and E322 printers. Lexmark calls the one with the ToA listed above a "High Yield Prebate(TM) Print Cartridge", part no. 08A0478.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Best Slashdot Co
Please note that Lexmark alleges both DMCA violation and traditional copyright violation. I.e. the aftermarket chips contain identical unauthorised copies of Lexmark copyrighted code. If this is true then at least this part of the suit is bound to succeed.
Many years ago I worked at a company that did large format inkjet printers/plotters. The ink bags (yes bags) had little Dallas Semi chips that we could identify and keep a count of ink usage.
... hmmm $100, $150, $1000, $1500. Which would you pick?
I suggested that we burn in "Copyright xxxxx corp" into the chips, and make the software look for it. If you weren't xxxxx corp and you made a copy chip, then you would have to copy a copyright notice that wasn't yours.
As has been said by others, the printer companies don't make money on printers at $150 (or less) per unit. If you wan't to pay $1500 for the same printer (think of all those cartridges) and buy your ink just anywhere, that's a possibility. I wouldn't take bets on that as a viable business model, though. Can you imagine walking down the aisles at Comp USA,
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.
So in the end, I begin to wonder if the printer industry has a business model similar to that of the console gaming industry. (Although I would find it odd if they sold the printers at a loss as consoles often do initially)
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
You get a little box, detach the wiring harness from the ECU, attach this thing to the ECU, and attach the wiring harness to it.
It simply remaps the engine control signals, giving you the performance, but without having to mess with the ECU itself.
It's also easier to unplug around inspection time.
3rd party cartridges cost us about $3,000 in repairs on a Roland wide format printer (cracked the lines and ruined the heads) and messed up an Epson 3000 so bad it never worked right again.
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
That one is easy - malpractice suits. I'm going to be lazy and not look up the stats, but the majority of our health care costs in the US come from malpractice and insurance fraud. A family doctor who does no surgery and has no incidents that would cause him to be considered a risk for malpractice pays around $50,000/year for insurance. Surgeons will pay many hundreds of thousands.
Another difference is that we end up paying for medical research out of our health care costs, whereas in much of Europe, medical research is subsidized separately from the socialized health care system.
-Alison
If you read my message, I would still sue Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark for violating the Magnuson-Mass Act for the illegal business practice of tying (essentially being forced to buy replacement supplies or services from only one manufacturer after initial sale, I think).
After the successful lawsuit, the Federal government will force the printer manufacturers to allow approved third parties to manufacture printer consumables that will not violate the printer warranty.
I bought my Optra E310 because their tech support has no problem dealing with Linux, and because it uses standard memory (so you can add 64MB for a pittance).
Sorry to see that Lexmark has decided it no longer wants geeks' goodwill.
My current employer, GCC Printers (No relation to the compiler), does not key the cartridges sold with printers. Keying is typically done physically or electronically. GCC does neither.
Right, which was the point I was trying to make without beating anyone's head over it. Our "health care" costs are higher because their "taxes" are higher. Well, not entirely because of that, but it's one contributing factor.
-Alison
I have always thought fondly of my Z43, but now, I can see that there is a traitor in my home.
Excuse me, but I must go review the paperwork that came with my bandsaw now.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
see this story
Automakers and Crash Data Recorders
TechnologyPosted by michael on 29/12/02 23:08
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Coke made the bottle, so it's already covered by cokes IP. If I happen to use it to store water it's none of their business
A large part of the profits for printer compaines is in the point of sale printers. These things cost several times what a office printer will cost but the consumables are very low cost. At least three compaines are about to intorduce injets to replace the old ribbion impact printers just as soon as some one else does. The interesting thing about these devices is that their consumables cost very little and print on standard paper. Most of the devices will go though a fraction of the ink that a typical printer will and they can all be refilled using generic inks. Every printer knows that as soon as the ink jets hit the POS market, their secrets are out and so is the markup on their office printer along with their stock price.
Paraphrasing Animal Farm, all legislators are stupid but some legislators (ie, US ones) are more stupid than others.
/. readers jump at every opportunity to bash anything that isn't covered in stars and stripes? Why? The civilised world doesn't end at your borders.)
The European DCMA-alike is being pushed for by the same organisations that lobbied for the DCMA in the US - ie, large multinational corporations.
(Capitalism does have an ugly side, and sometimes the victims aren't the overworked, underpaid sweatshop workers somewhere in the third world but the the overworked, underpaid sweatshop workers somewhere in the first world. The DCMA is just one example of a law that places the rights of the corporation above the rights of the individual.)
Where corporations abuse their monopoly positions, the EU at least tries to do the right thing by protecting the rights of the individual. Toner cartridge refills are one just one such case.
Bottom line is this: It's likely that, in the long-run, a Lexmark/HP/Canon/whoever-owning individual will pay less for his/her printer consumables if they live in the EU than if they live in the US. So why get down on the EU for that?
(Is it me, or do a small minority of American
(Yeah, yeah. Moderate this as flamebait, off-topic or trolling. See if I care. You're only proving my point.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Wonder if this will be included in the 3D Printer cartridges....
Can't we just print the chips???
Cracking smart cards means one gets axcess to pay TV without paying for it.
These people are still paying for their ink
The fact is there's no law stating one must use 'original manufacturer' parts when reparing a car, using generic ink cartridges is no different than using Thaiwanese reproduction parts on your car (which are very popular with panel beaters).
Even if Static Control's Smartek chips are compatible with Lexmark printers, it means nothing, as it's possible to conform to protocals without infringing on copyrights. No one's yet suggested that the SC's Smartek chips have copyrighted Lexmark code in them. Plus the chips do not circumvent a copy protection system either
Gillette was also a pioneer in lock-in. Once the patent expired on the disposible razorblade, the only way to keep competitors from selling blades was to continually change the interconnection between the handle and the blade, a practice which continues in the modern razor business.
Gillette also was one of the first pioneers of the now time-honored technique of achieving marketing dominance by selling to the U.S military. He got a contract to supply the entire U.S. Army with Gillette razors in WWI, thereby cementing the sales after the war.
So, it's an old, old game. I guess the difficulty is in determining what sorts of lock-in are ok, and what aren't. Is razorblade lockin ok, but car dealership lockin not ok? I'm not sure exactly what the difference is.
HP doesn't like these vendors, but as they build crappy printers these days, by the time the cartridges come out, the printer is not only obselete, but has quietly self destructed. Lexmarks were better and they lasted a little longer, perhaps that is why they are worried.
You don't want me putting 3P ink through your printer, sorry you sold it to me. You have no control what ink I put through it. If you dress the thing up as a disguised rental, then sorry, I have no piece of paper obliging me to use your expensive parts.
The simple fact is reproduction parts are legal, even ones with trademark badging like Taiwanese reproduction Ford grills with the Ford oval in the middle (as long as there's no intention to decieve & claim the part is a 'original equipment manufacturer' part).
So reproduction filled ink cartridges are legal, meaning that Lexmark's profit model's at fault.
'Fair' has nothing to do with it.
well, that's not strictly correct. Lexmark has one type of toner cartridge, and two types of toner PRICING. The one you purchased is priced with a "pre-bate" which is an upfront discount based on your agreement to return the cartridge, so that they can recycle the housing or refill the cart with toner and sell it again in some 3rd world country.
And as far as auditing your compliance with your shrink-wrap contract, maybe you're not a big enough fish to fry. But imagine that you're say Wal-Mart and you buy, say, a million toner cartridges a year for various Lexmark printers, and you pay the pre-bate price rather than the list price, thus "saving" your company tens of millions of dollars. You can bet your sweet ass that Lexmark will make sure that they're getting at least 80% of those pre-bate cartridges back, or they're going to send you a bill for the balance you owe them as a result of breach of contract.
Oh and FYI, that first toner cart is ususally light, i.e. not as full as the one you will buy when it runs out. It's like crack- the first taste is free. You may be replacing it sooner than you think
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
If generic ink cartridges eat into their profits, fuck em, that's life. Reproduction parts are quite legal (see the auto-repair industry).
If the supply & demand curves match up where printer makers can't sell printers at a profit (fact is businesses charge as much as they can get away with, if Lexmark could sell printers at a profit they would) & they must base their profit on selling ink cartridges, then in the world of generic cartridges they'll go under. When enough printer manufacturers go under, the remaining ones will have less competition & could therefore charge more, while increased market share would mean greater economies of scale, meaning less costs, this translate to potential profits.
That's how business works. The best thing that could happen to the airline industry is for half the airlines to go bust, that would overnight make the rest profitable. Look at QANTAS after the Ansett bust up. I'd say this law suite suggests that Lexmark's worried they'l be one of the 1st to go under.
Go to their corporate site and check their numbers for last year. I posted once on ARS about this, but if you compare the hardware expenditures to the hardware profits lines (GC only) you can see where Nintendo is and has been making money on the hardware all along.
--- I do not moderate.
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.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
All those things do not exist where there is ONLY a state monopoly on health care: everyone is covered the same way, so you only have ONE coverage to "check" for, since the State pays through taxes, no need to check if someone paid his premiums, and furthermore, no public money is WASTED on private companies' profits.
The Canadian health-care system costs the SAME per-capita as the US one, yet 100% of the population has health insurance, as opposed to only 40% in the US.
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.
As far as I'm concerned, neither's true, and EULAs that require agreement after a purchase are invalid anyway.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Where I work, we have a lot of lexmark printers. The cartridges are very expensive - $150+ for a normal (non-industrial) laser printer. No wonder they want you to buy only their cartridges, because at this price you've exceeded the printer cost after 2-3 new cartridges.
It is worth noting that the lexmark cartridges did seem to last a significant time before needing replacement. I just replaced one and was told that it was running the same cartridge for over 2 years, with about 4000-5000 printouts! Other brand cartridges don't tend to last quite as long, and refills have this annoying problem with getting toner stuck on the roller which requires cleaning.
Of course, for those that prefer the cheaper alternative, Lexmark will probably take a loss of sales if they don't allow users to buy whichever toner they choose. Not to mention the ethics of such practice, as well as possible legality issues
News Flash: If Lexmark pulls this off, you can bet that $40 that HP will be in line next, doing the very same thing. You won't avoid getting screwed that easily.
Murphy was an optimist.
"For a PS1, don't you also have to be able to write one of those funky black CDROMs?"
Not sure if I totally understand your question, but I may have an interesting answer for you anyway. The black CD's on the Playstation are a way of telling if the game is pirated or not. If you got a silver PS game, then you had a burned game.
I'm curious if Sony had any real success here or not.
The difference is that there are no 3rd party manufacturers who want to build those parts. Other than lack of profitability, there is nothing stopping them from building compatible replacements.
Murphy was an optimist.
a good start....
Seriously though, This DMCA is a true land grab for the status quo. Innovate? You can't, I'm involking the DMCA. Improve an existing product? DMCA again. Mod kit? Same thing. As an example, let's take the auto industry. If we had am AMCA in force, we'd all still be driving Model T's, with AM radios in them because every time someone proposed an imrovement, the AMCA would be brought out to stop it.
How could OUR Congress allow such an anti-competitive law to pass?
For PS1 I had a box that connected to the parallel port on the back, and to a PCs parallel port.
:)
You could then interupt and upload code to the PS1's main memory and tell it to start it.
Actually now that I think of it, for booting, there WAS protection for the CDs.
There was a special pattern of bad blocks somewhere on the disc, that a cd burner would auto-correct for somehow, but the PS1 could tell wasnt the same pattern.
Eventually they found a way around this but I dont recal how. The point is it was there.
(Its been awhile)
I stand corrected
Since when was a statement "(c) 2001 ACME Ripoff Printer Company" itself copyright? If that was the string checked for, then sorry, you just read part of a rom string saying that this "Is not (c)....".
See my journal, I write things there
If I remember correctly, Sega used a similar system with bitmaps to enforce their ability to control who could make games for the Genesis. Accolade copied the bitmap, and was thusly sued by Sega.
The court ruled that since Sega had intentionally placed their mark in the way of Accolade's legally protected right to interface with Sega hardware, Sega couldn't turn around and sue Accolade for infringement on that trademark.
Sega played with fire -- and got rather burned.
Caveat: IANAL, and it's been a long time since I read about this case.
--Dan
Is this such a bad thing? After all, it might cut down on the amount of Spam I get that trying to sell me toner and ink! :)
It's a clear antitrust violation to try to prevent the use of aftermarket parts. Auto companies have lost on that one more than once. The problem is that Attorney General Ashcroft is soft on antitrust crime. The Department of Justice should have Lexmark in court over this.
I assumed that since it was unethical, it was not legally binding in Europe, and I have no intention whatever of abiding by it. I got the printer pretty cheap, I would guess because the dealer was having difficulty shipping them to large organisations who were scared by this "feature".
If Lexmark sue me, I bet their sales will be badly damaged by the publicity.
I used to work for Xerox, implementing a similar scam, and its well known within the company that this type of tie-in has a major negative impact on sales. See how Xerox shares are doing these days.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
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
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Just a quick note - Manual Refils of inkjets work. I used them several years back with a pair of HP printers to disasterous results. Recently, I tried again with a cheap (OnTel, 19.95) and available (every CVS has them) brand in an Epson printer with quite satisfactory results. The blacks aren't *quite* as dark as they used to be, and the colors aren't *exactly* the same, but they are similar enough to be unnoticeable for printing mapquest directions and christmas party invitations. They also break down to about $3 per cartridge of ink, a more realistic total.
If you haven't used them in a long time, and you are cost aware, give the needles a chance. They are much better for the environment than replacements, and are much cheaper too.
-C
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
To: CorpComm@lexmark.com, webmaster@lexmark.com
Cc: info@scc-inc.com
Subject: Attn: Legal and Consumer Relations
To whom it may concern:
I just read that you have tried to crush competition by using a poorly written law for a manner in which it is blatantly obvious that it was not created. Only a cheap company fears competition so much that it would sink to such depravity. Your actions and behavior show that you are duplicitous and unscrupulous and will do anything to keep us, the consumers, from having a choice. Speaking as a consumer, I can say with all honesty that we like choices, and that any company that tries to eliminate choice is an enemy of all consumers.
I run the IS department at my office building. I decide what gets bought. As is often the case, I am also approached to do computer work on the side for friends and associates. I have just purchased a computer for my parents this past Christmas, and have not yet purchased a printer. I was considering a Lexmark because they are inexpensive, even if they are often fragile. CONSIDER this message as notice that I will never again purchase a Lexmark product. Never again will I recommend a Lexmark product. If I hear of a friend or associate purchasing a Lexmark product, I will talk them out of it. If the price difference between a Lexmark product and a competitor is under $25, and I need to foot the difference to convince said persons to choose a competitor, I will do so. We the consumers are not cattle for you to lead by force. You stand for all that is wrong with "Corporate America" and must be shown that the consumers control the businesses, not the other way around.
Consider how many people feel like I do. What have you done?
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.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Do I want to buy a $300 printer that takes $100 carts which do 1000 pages? If you cant do the maths, don't do the @$£#
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I got a free Mach-3 in the mail just before my 18th birthday.
Supposedly some company was told recently, and I think it was Sony, that you can't use this trademarked requried string protection.
The theory is that trademarks aren't descriptive or functional. You can't trademark "camera", or "press play". If you make your trademark either descriptive (let people use it for the generic class of product like kleenex or escalator) you will lose it, if you make it functional, you lose it as well.
Doing anything that requires use of your trademark makes it functional, so requiring it in the boot code of a CD or ROM means you'll lose it as a trademark.
So the company was told by the judge how the same would come out... "If you continue to push this, you'll succeed in making your trademark a functional part of the spec. And _Sony_ and _Playstation_ won't be trademarks anymore. You choose."
And supposedly companies now rely on trade secrets they can sue over having released, or cryptography, because of this trial and the fairly obvious outcome, if you think about it.
it's all totally legal over here as region coding has no actual basis in law. ...until UK makes the EUCD into law. Didn't you read the big fuzz over how Danish companies no longer can import non-region 2 discs? Need to have them shipped from a non-EU country directly to you. I'm pretty sure the right to make, sell and trade in zone-free players went *poof* too.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
the printer should work for: 5 years
average color usage in %: 10
average pages you want to print a day: 23
Lexmark Model X: $$$
HP Model Y: $$$
[now someone wants to do it ?]
if the consumer would get a chance to estimate the REAL PRICE of a product EASILY than the companies would gain nothing by making unnecessary complicated and more expensive buisness models (like chips in cartridges)...
This model is also used in the healthcare products industry. A company like Ivac, who makes digital thermometers, provides the hospital with a large number of top of the line thermometers, no charge, and the hospital buys the probe covers from Ivac.
The difference here is that there is a contract involved. Ivac's distributers and the hospital sign a contract. If the hospital finds a cheaper solution, they tell the supplier, who comes to round up their equipment.
I am pretty sure I never signed a contract with HP when I bought their printer, locking me into using only HP consumables. I would just about bet the hair on my head that Lexmark purchasers don't remember signing such a contract, either.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
That is truely strange, as I have burnt software to eeprom and have it run just fine on an NES with no special hardware other than a memory mapper.
From the NES txt file I linked to:
How the Lockout System Works
This is a very brief description. Consult Nintendo's patent for detailed information.
Identical chips are fitted to the console and inside every game cartridge. Depending on whether a certain pin (pin 4) of the chip is grounded or at +5V, the chip functions as either a lock or as a key. Inside the console, pin 4 of the lockout chip is at +5V (lock), and inside the game cartridge pin 4 is at 0V (key).
This was a hardware key, so the hardware you're using that has an EEPROM might be emulating/faking the key, or it might actually contain a real key. Who knows.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
I've used 8 different printers over the past 4 years. I've printed about 1/2 million sheets over the past two years.
When I buy a new printer, I check the total cost and so far, HP has come out ahead. The Lexmarks always get dropped from consideration when it comes to the toner cart costs - they're typically twice as high as HP's carts.
The funny thing is I used to buy remanufactured HP cartridges but gave them up as a lost cause. Two out of three would be fine but the third one would give me enough problems to make them not worth the extra labor costs. So I buy new HP carts simply because they're trouble free and HP hasn't had to resort to any strong arm measures to get me to do it.
The fact that Lexmark feels it's necessary to force their customers to buy toner from Lexmark says that Lexmark isn't offering a value proposition. Otherwise, they wouldn't have to resort to this nonsense.
When I bought my S900 photo printer, I was quite impressed to note that it came with all six (!) full ink cartridges. No cheesy half-full cartridges for Canon.
Of course mainstream printers are now so cheap that they really have to rely on the cartridges for most of their revenue. This is probably why this issue is rearing its ugly head now.
D
This is why I bought a Canon. Not only did the model I got (and all their $100+ models) have seperate cartridges for each color, but third-party ink was less than half the price of refills for other brands, and they had the simplest refill procedure. Just peel off a sticker, dump in ink, and tape it back up.
I bought it because I want to freedom of choice. Now, if I buy Canon ink it's because I think it's better, or just worth the ease, not because I have to.
What I don't understand is why there isn't a company making [more] expensive printers, and cheap ink.
That's the printer I want. Who'll sell me it? Gotta be someone out there, surely?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I mean... in order for something to violate the DMCA, don't you need to have something, you know, copied?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The thing is they're using the smartcards for axcessing pay TV without paying for it your analogy doesn't make sense.
Your analogy would only make sense if Lexmark had a free refill program, say 10 free refills per printer purchase, where one takes their cartridge to their local official dealer & he scans the chip to see how many refills have already taken place; & SC brought out widget that reset the cartridge chip so it appear that no re-fills have occured
This reminds of a quote I read by Henry Ford one time that something to the effect of "I would give my cars away if I could have a monopoly on the replacement parts. This was in consumer reports, and then they did a break down of a Ford Explorer and showed how it would cost $70,000 to buy it part by part. Interesting stuff, as I see it Lexmark is trying to do the same thing. The problem is these printer companies aren't really slashing the prices deeply, the keep them high and just take extra profit. It's a pretty established business tactic. Video game companies do it all the time, and cell phone companies do it with their contracts.
It's not the ink that is the centre of Lexmark's case, but the software that authenticates the refills. Lexmark claim that the fake chips "access" the software, therefore break the DMCA. However, "access" in copyright law means acquiring a copy of the protected work. They're abusing the wording of the law.
Apparently, the Atari Jaguar's magic encryption code was, in hex, the phrase "3DO Dead" :^)
The folks who created BattleSphere had to do a lot of brute-force work to determine this code.
Eventually, Hasbro made Jaguar an 'open' system, allowing continued development on the system (like the new titles and now-finished titles coming out of Songbird Productions).
"close but no cookie.
Black CDRs are available [cdrplanet.com].
The purpose of that color was to mask the amount of data that was on the CD, as previous reply pointed."
Correction, black CDRs are available... today. They were not when the PS was originally released and not for quite a while after that.
I have absolutely no doubt that you're right about the data masking. However, it has been mentioned, more than once in publications (probably EGM) that they liked the ability to make the CD's distinct to avoid piracy.
Sounds like they had all kinds of reasons to use those and few to not use them. Heh.
Cheers.