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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
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
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.
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
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
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?
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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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,
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.
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.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
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.
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
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
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
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.