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Lexmark DMCA Case Winds On
The EFF filed a brief (brief, press release) in the ongoing case over Lexmark incorporating copyright-protected code in their printer cartridges in order to prevent competitors from producing compatible cartridges for their printers. The BBC notes some of the harmful effects of lack of competition in the industry.
...don't buy Lexmark printers? I mean, seriously, as long as Canon and HP et al aren't pulling these type of stunts, won't the market take care of this itself?
Do not read this sig.
Surely even the lawmakers realize that this law is being exploited so that the rich get richer, the poor go out of business.
"Colour HP Cartridge costs £29
This works out at £1.70 per millilitre
1985 Dom Perignon costs 23p per millilitre "
-"We will have 1 bottle of HP Blue 2003 please"
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I used to work for a Printer supplies wholesaler and we had a supplier called MultiLaser that would Chip the Lexmark cartridges to be able to recycle them. Lexmark also had this prebate program where you would get a rebate if you agreed not to sell to recyclers.
Last time I checked there was no monopoly in the printer market. If Lexmark wants to keep it's design proprietary so be it. If Joe Consumer doesn't like it, buy another brand.
Well there is competition between printer manufacturers, and I imagine that if ink was priced at the cost of production tomorrow (considering perfect competition) then their printer prices would go up. Sure it's expensive, but look at the printers...you can buy a printer that would have cost $1000 ten years ago for $80 now. Anyway, since when has the law cared anything about competition? I mean, if it did, then the lawsuits against file sharers would be tossed out instantly. File sharing is the only other means of distribution for most of these songs...
Copyright doesn't protect against reverse-engineering. It's really not meant to protect any kind of engineering in the first place. Why can't would-be competitors just make workalike cartridges without stealing the code? Or is it patented as well?
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
... or do I mean Magenta handed?
Remember Nintendo vs. Namco? Nintendo sued Namco for putting their copyrighted data sequence into their games so that they would work in the NES. Nintendo won the lawsuit, and this was years before the DMCA came out.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Whilst I don't see a problem with forcing consumers to use your ink cartridges I think the Printers should be well labeled so that consumers know what they are buying into.
----
The height of absurdity to me is the infamous HP example. On more than one occasion, I've walked into a store and learned that replacing my HP printer altogether was cheaper than buying ink cartridge refills. Compare, $25 for a B&W cartridge + $35 for a color cartridge = $60 total. Cost of that HP DeskJet on sale at Office Depot? $50, and you get an entirely new printer!
No, this is completely wrong. Standards must be developed. Good, compatible knock-offs must be designed. While there is competition for printers themselves, there is no competition for the ink cartridges. Once a company ropes a customer into their printer, they'll milk them for all its worth.
They should be required to label these printers. Otherwise people will continue to buy them without realizing that they will never be able to buy a third party cartrige.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWI view this as a type of after the sale quality control. Some of that 3rd party ink is total crap and can actually damage your printer. I say play it safe and buy the factory recommended ink. Remember, sometimes you do get what you pay for. If you want the lowest cost per page as well as best quality print, buy a high end Canon printer. If you want to throw away money on ink, buy anything HP as they cost more per page than Lexmark.
If only Bill Gates had a penny for every time Windows crashed... oh wait.. he does!
The people who say 'don't buy one' aren't taking bundled units into account.
I don't see why Lexmark doesn't give up the chip BS and just make the carts so small as to print one page, no matter what. :P
Any suggestions for good color laser printers with Ethernet that don't break the bank, and will last as long as my Oki 1200ps? Emphasis on correct color.
There are so many players in the inkjet printer space that they are sometimes shooting themselves in the foot by going with this model. No manufacturer can offer printers at cost now because nobody would pay $250 for an inkjet. But at the same time, they lose money like crazy on certain types of buyers. Business travelers often buy a cheap printer at their destination rather than pack one. Consumers often get a new printer with each new computer they buy because the added cost in negligible. There are so many used printers out there, that they often cannot be given away.
The industry itself would benifit from reform in this area. However, to make it happen, all manufacturers will have to charge more for printers and less for cartridges. If even one player sticks with the old model, that player will see all the gains.
I have avoided owning an inkjet because of the unreasonable consumables costs. I am glad that the EU will be investigating the cartel of printer manufacturers for illegal price fixing.
If I were to purchase an inkjet, which model can be easily and cheaply refilled, and carries a durable printhead?
I'd like to buy the ink by the liter, and I'd like the color match of the ink to be reasonably close to the OEM cartriges.
Also, wasn't Dell going to enter this market and cut the price of the consumables?
Surely even the lawmakers realize that this law is being exploited so that the rich get richer, the poor go out of business
What did you think the point of the law was?
It's a way to sue others into obilvion. Whoever has the most lawyers wins. End of story. That was the whole point of the law!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
which printer uses the cheapist ink cos im going to get one soon?
infact lets get a poll running to find out which make of printer does the cheepist cartrages im sick of been done up the ass everytime i need a refill
Roses are Red Violates are Blue im not very good a poetry but i have many other redeming qualitys
slightly off topic, but what the hell, I've got karma to burn.
I'd recommend against purchasing Epson inkjet printers. The last one we had, a 740i, had its jets clog up beyond repair. no matter how many times I'd run the cleaning function it wouldn't print, and even taking the think apart and trying to soak the print head in alcohol would help.
Apparently there's posts I found on some newsgroup that recommend at least cleaning/printing from that printer once a week or more...we would only use the printer occasionally.
So watch out and read those user reviews before you purchase a printer!
The Minolta Magicolor 2300 is a nice little color laser for $800ish and is one of the few to have built in Ethernet. Plus the toner won't break the bank. (HP makes good color laser printers but none come with built in networking and the color toner costs a lot).
Every day I receive at least a dozen of offers for cut rate ink cartridges in my email...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
My guess is that the average user is lazy, and would rather spend twice as much on the ink instead of being bothered to educate themselves.
Thank you very much. You just revealed the deep, dark secret of the Western Economy. All the work "they" have done to keep it secret and you went and blew the cover.
Most people are dumb, and want to stay dumb. If you make it easy for them to stay dumb, they will pay you money for it.
This has the benefit of making sure they never have enough money to move out of the middle class.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
It would seem that the market would *love* a printer that would use generic commodity ink. Make a few bucks on the printer and let the rest of the industry battle out the ink pricing.
A while ago, I modified an Epson to use large generic ink from a bottle (500mL each color). The printer dies before the ink ever ran out. Perhaps someone could manufacture a disposable printer? Just fill it with a crazy supply of ink and lock that bad boy up.
This $50/cartridge thing has to stop sooner or later. Some manufacturer will realize that consumers will *pay* for a quality piece that doesn't institute the Gillete sales model.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
All printer companies seem to use the same business model for consumer printers- sell the printer for practically nothing, and make the money on the cartridges.
Is it just me, or does it seem like there has to be some meeting of the minds among the manufacturers to keep it that way? I mean, why isn't there some rebel manufacturer making printers that cost 3 or 4 times as much, but take bulk ink/toner that would cost practically nothing?
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Just because the printer market is not monopolized does not mean that this is not unfair competition. Think about it.
The PRINTER market is not monopolized. However printers and printer INK are two different things. By denying other ink makers the right to compete at all, Lexmark is creating a situation in which only they can sell a product. They are creating a little ink monopoly. This is illegal.
Now, whether or not the courts will see it that way or not, who the hell knows?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
- Test Page
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Watch out for full color pages or dark backgrounds.So many off-topic comments about inkjets. This case is all about TONER cartridges. Toner is used in laser printers--the kind at your office. Ink is used in inkjets--the kind that came with your Walmart PC. There are no chips in Lexmark's inkjet cartridges. What is at issue here are $200 toner cartridges for $3000 printers, not $40 inkjet cartridges for $40 printers. RTFA.
So the ink tastes better than champagne? Or can we start reloading the cartridges with champagne? Would the readability be affected?
These are questions I would like answered but I can't find anywhere in the article...
This space for rent.
I informed a coworker about Firebird (the browser) and how I haven't seen a popup, popunder, or the like for a year. She didn't even know what a browser was.
Why question? It's just the way things are. Ugh. Four more years... ;)
If this lawsuit is won by Lexmark, does that mean that Ford can sue to stop 3rd party parts manufacturers?
That this would just make people buy those blasted ink-refill kits a lot more often than buying a generic cart...
What's next, prosecuting with the DMCA for sticking a needle into the cart.. "Circumvention"
Lexmark Exec: We need titanium casings
Manufacturer: No problem, anything else?
Lexmark Exec: How about special paper with DRM on it that the printer recognizes and only prints to?
Manufacturer: Done
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I recently replaced an Epson 800 with a Canon i850, and have been very pleased with it. Unlike Epson et all, which use chips or drivers to tell you/guess where the ink level is, Canon printers (possibly uniquely? i don't know) actually have a prism in the bottom of each cartridge, and shine a light through this. depending on whether this is covered with ink or not, from the refraction changes it can deduce how much ink is in there. thus it's actially *looking*, which seems to be the right way to do things... Anyway, i bought a big pack of ink and when they run out i'll be squirting more in with a syringe.. i've done it on someone else's printer and they never complained so i guess it worked :)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
why when you clean you print heads can't you specify only to clean the heads of one colour - i.e. the one that's blocked. My f'in Canon S900 cost me a small fortune to keep fed with ink as the heads kept on blocking. The whole head now is completely shot (and this happened on the day my warranty ran out). I phoned them up from work to tell them this, they said I had to run a print test, told them I had (obviously) but that wasn't good enough. They wanted me to do it while I was on the phone to them. After a bit of a 'discussion' I agreed to phone back that evening from home. I did - and their office was closed. Shame, it was a lovely printer when it worked... Surely there's room in the market for a 'quality' printer company to emerge? I don't mind paying quite a bit more for a printer that works, has decent sized ink tanks etc. I wouldn't even mind paying a small premium for manufacturer carts, I don't want to put crap in my machine, but the price difference currently is just too ridiculous to ignore.
If you're thinking of buying a new printer because it's cheaper than replacing your cartidges, consider this:
Forget for a moment what you're doing to the environment (just for a moment, then go sit in the corner and be ashamed of yourself for 5 minutes), those cartidges that come with that cheap printer are "starter" cartridges - even if you can't find the fine print where it says that. So if the ones that came with your printer lasted you 6 months, crack open your wallet and spend the $25-$75 for a new set of cartridges that will probably last you a year or two. It'll save you money in the long run, and you'll be putting a lot less plastic in a landfill somewhere.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
I'm sure if I could continue I could get a good 100 pages more of printing. It sucks how these printer companies won't let us squeeze every last drop from our toner and want us to purchase more supplies.
According to ThisIsLondon, Ink for home printers are 7 times more expensive than vintage champagne.
They also claim that ignoring low ink warnings can double the life of ink cartridges. I wish I could ignore the warnings, as my Lexmark printer forbids me to print once 75% of ink is gone!
Those greedy pigs!
/usr/bin/complain >
If this lawsuit is won by Lexmark, does that mean that Ford can sue to stop 3rd party parts manufacturers?
Only if those 3rd party manufactured parts contain copyrighted material, such as computer code, and Ford has not authorized 3rd party use of that material.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Dell's inkjets are just rebadged Lexmarks.
I highly recommend ink4art as a source of printer ink.
For instance, it costs only $40 to get a six pack (3 color, 3 black) of ink cartridges for most kinds of epson printers. Or for under $20 you can get a snack pack (2 black, 1 color) of lexmark ink.
I've used ink4art several times, and they have excellent service. Also, they offer numerous discounts: check out deals on the web, you can often pick up at least 10% off.
For to end yet again.
Actually, the HP DesignJet 5500 does track ink usage and will not let you print when the cartrige goes empty. It does this to prevent air from getting into the lines that feed ink to the print heads. If air gets into those lines you're in for an expensive repair. There are companies that sell ink refill kits, but it stops the printers ability to track ink usage (because the ink level becomes unknown) and the printer can't tell when the cartriges should be replaced. I'd recommend sticking with genuine HP supplies.
.:diatonic:.
Joe Consumer gets everything he deserves if he isn't checking the literature on a product before purchase.
There are plenty of magazine reviews, product tests, "Which" and "What" type publications which go into detail on performance, costs limitations of all sorts of products, including printers...
It simply isn't true to say that he has no way of knowing. He's too f*cking lazy to get off his 400lb arse and find out.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
In other words:
Isn't there a web site to help consumers know which printers that you can't refill its cartridges because of a built-in "feature" and therefore avoid buying?
It's not like the government will force appropriate labelling...
Paper copies of stuff is such a crutch from the past. Computers are suppose to make us a paperless society!
ehh.. HP Color LaserJet 4600DN, 5500N, and 2500N all come with network connectivity... and the cost-per-page with the toner is less than ink costs.
.:diatonic:.
You're asking an for an awful lot to include the disclaimer 'don't break the bank'. A good money-saving tip if you like ethernet are D-Link pocket print servers that change the printer's parallel port to an ethernet port. You simply telnet to the print server's IP address to configure it, so it's OS neutral. I was pricing printers for work and this solution was MUCH cheaper than printers with built-in ethernet.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
are millionaires.
Look it up, it's true.
As Saint Skuta once said, "The only difference between republicans and democrats is which orifice they take corporate dick in."
I think Lexmark products are crap anyway. I would rather go with another brand any day.
I'm talking about the typical consumer-grade desktop kind that print to standard cut-sheet paper, not special ones like wide-format pro printers.
Anyone who buys a consumer-grade inkjet printer is a freakin' moron who deserves the buttroggering they received in the process.
Print in B&W on a cheap laser printer, and take your color work to Kinkos if you can't afford your own color laser printer. I've been doing just that for 2 years now and it costs me so much less money, for much greater quality print, and the occasional trips to Kinkos for the color laser print work is not all that inconvenient at all... besides there are 3 really cute chicks who work there.
What if there was a company that rented out printers? They ship you one with brand new ink/toner, you use it until it's out, and then ship the printer back. It gets cleaned, serviced and has the consumables replaced, and is then sent on to another customer. If you go for a long-term contract with them, they cross-ship you a replacement printer when you get a low-toner warning.
Sure, it seems kind of insane, but so does a printer that costs less money than the set of replacement ink cartridges it requires.
Too bad the bubble has burst-- if this were still the mid-90's, someone might have been crazy enough to work out any issues I haven't thought of here and taken a shot at actually doing it.
~Philly
Not entirely OT, but...
A friend of mine bought a cheapie Lexmark inkjet, with cartridges, for $45.
Replacements for both cartridges would cost $65.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Sure, this printer costs more, but it is built to last. The ink tanks are large, easily serviced and refilled, and can be filled with third party ink. (For best results use OEM ink)
You can find it here.
.
The 404 'Not Found' is telling, dontchathink?
How about special paper with DRM on it that the printer recognizes and only prints to?
I work for a different company who makes inkjet and laser printers. We're already working on a project that uses invisible, ultraviolet markings on the paper stock to tell the printer whether or not to allow printing to it. That's not the worst of it. Each sheet of paper will have a unique serial number encoded onto it so that it can be tracked back to a registered purchaser of that paper stock. This project is not only for "licensing" of intellectual property and DRM, but also for law enforcement tracking of who printed what, where, and when in the new police state.
Perhaps you might like to check out the price of cartridges from manufacturers other than HP before bitching about it.
The problem with the free market is that it kind of assumes that the people making purchasing decisions aren't fucking morons. Unfortunately it looks like that's a false assumption.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If I were to purchase an inkjet, which model can be easily and cheaply refilled, and carries a durable printhead?
Canon.
Canon was, AFAIK, the first inkjet company to have four seperate ink tanks and a seperate head. The prices are reasonable, the quality is good, and the consumeables are fairly priced. (A bit more per page than b&w laser, but still good.)
Computer & Communications Industry Association also filed an amicus brief in this case both at the district level and now at the appealate level arguing that this is the exact type of activity allowed under DMCA's exceptions and that SCC is not violating the DMCA. Press release can be found here.
I use my grandfather's old razor, with the "bombardier doors" on the top and double-edged generic razor blades from the supermarket. It's well over half a century old now.
A clean shave with no razor bumps. All these double- and triple-bladed razors give me razor bumps, and electric razors are too bulky and require a power source.
In a pinch, the blades can be resharpened on a drinking glass (unless you are clumsy, in which case you'll need the glass to contain your arterial bleeding).
The only thing better might be one of the old Thorens clockwork razors. Or a Stahly windup, maybe, but they don't look like much of an improvement over the unpowered gillette.
I Love EPSON, and you know why?
1 2&mode=thread&tid=117
-Because they support all the OS'es I use (Linux and OSX)
-They make the best printers (Quality and cost of ownership)
-They do have a chip for protection, but as they have, all the other non genuine brands for EPSON have it, and EPSON doesn't care!
This means, I bought a EPSON c80 and I can choose any brand I which to my printer, isn't that great?
EPSON already showed how good they to not line up in the sort of big corporation politics and this one is an example!
Also, for remembering a bit more of epson http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/11/22252
Well, maybe I got to enthusiastic but it's a fact I like them!
A toner cartridge for my Lexmark Optra R+ printer is $291.00!!!
d uc t?catalog=uspublic&sku=1382150
http://store.lexmark.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/Pro
I propose use #1: toilet paper Inspired by Subject Line Troll
I personally prefer a dot matrix printer, I just ordered new ribbons. 6 ribbons for $15.
I read that as "Lexmark DMCA case whines on ..."
and thus decided to not read the article.
I bet those chips have System V code.
Lexmark can SCO fuck themselves.
No, Darth, not penguins with frickin' laser beams. What low-end lasers do people use that are NOT Win32-GDI based? Any cheap lasers that use good old PS or PCL?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Excuse me if this is a stupid question. I couldn't find the answer anywhere...
How does Lexmark know that Static Control made its interoperable chip thru legal means? Static Control could have just cracked the chip open, stuck it under a microscope and ripped-off the entire design.
Obviously, a clean-room reverse engineer is legal. There is tons of precedent to that effect. Even the DMCA has exemptions for it.
Perhaps Lexmark has some reason to believe Static Control illegally copied their chip?
Half the comments here repeat this sentiment. However, it seems to me that, while the EFF's case isn't very progressive at all (judging by what I've read of the brief so far, any way), it could help to establish a longer line of precedent towards modifications for the sake of interoperability. (On a related note: Can anybody provide some more detailed info on the Nintendo/Namco case?) Anti-DMCA, anyone?
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
I used to recommend Canon for precisely the reasons you stated until I learned that Canon does not make its printer hardware interfaces available to developers of printer drivers for Free operating systems.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The best thing you can do is buy a higher quality printer from a name you trust, and make sure the printer has multiple cartridges. That way, if you tend to print a lot of yellow, you can just replace the yellow cartridge, rather than having to replace a single multicolor cartridge that has 90% blue, 90% red, and 5% yellow ink remaining.
$8.95/mo web hosting
It isn't worth the effort. I have an Epson colour inkjet with a few blocked nozzles that defy all attempts with escputil to clean them, and a HP Laserjet 6L that I picked up for about £50. But most of the time, if I need to refer to something, I'll just display it on another console. I can usually remember enough to last the time it takes to flick between screens.
When someone makes a colour laser printer with decent hardware Postscript and 100MB Ethernet interface {no USB on my server's mobo} I'll buy one of them.
By the way, once the WEEE directive becomes law in all EU member states, Lexmark won't be allowed to sell their evil printers at all in Europe.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If you're going to be printing a lot, just pick up a used business-class printer. A decent laserjet isn't that expensive off of eBay.
What would you recommend for somebody who is going to be printing a lot of color? Last time I checked, color laser printers were priced well into four figures USD. Have they come down in price since then?
Will I retire or break 10K?
What percent of shared files are not available by paying for them ?
Ninety-eight percent of copyrighted works over x years old have fallen Out Of Print, if one is to believe the dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court phase of Eldred v. Ashcroft.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Things weren't always this way; before it died I had an Epson Stylus Colour (original Stylus Colour mode). This thing was gigantic, slow and expensive but the print heads never clogged up like the newer inkjet printers always do, and the manual actually SAYS you can refill the cartridges.
the folks at Tengen had a look at the patent, and figured out how to make a chip that would allow their games to work in the NES without paying for the license. Tengen lost the case because it was not a clean room reverse engineering with virgins and all that, but based on actual knowledge of the technical details of Nintendo's patent.
Wrong. The Atari Games v. Nintendo case was a fraud case. Tengen (Atari Games's console division) defrauded the Copyright Office to obtain information beyond what was published in the patent, namely the source code of the "10NES" program on the lockout chips. The court tossed out the fair use defense because of Tengen's dirty hands.
I can't find a Web source to back up the details.
Atari Games v. Nintendo opinion
Will I retire or break 10K?
Gotta love the free market.
I was in the mall here the other day and saw a new kind of business I'd never seen before. It was an ink refilling service. This guy operated out of little booth, not unlike a shoe repairman, and people could drop off their empty printer cartridges, and pick them up later refilled with generic ink. Pretty cool idea.
I'm not too worried about the whole print vs ink thing though. I think the HP/Lexmark/et. all business model is self-defeating in the long run especially when you can buy the printer for below cost and then take your empty cartridges to a refilling service while you shop for new pants. That, and I do all my printing on my employers printer. Shhhhhh.
Tetris was a seperate licensing issue. Two groups thought they had the license. Tengen made a version of Tetris that nintendo later got pulled from the shelves. It's a shame, as Tengen's version was better than Nintendo's.
The Tetris licensing issue popped up again later, but as The Tetris Company's claims of copyright were picked apart by armchair jurists, it was discovered that The Tetris Company had only the trademark on "TETRIS" to protect it. Tengen would probably have won the Tetris case (but not the lockout chip case) had it named its product something dissimilar to TETRIS®.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Over-rode the system? You mean, he disabled their protection mechanism. Well, IANAL but that sounds like a clear DMCA violation to me. Easy to win since they admitted it in a public forum.
Ca-Ching!
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I've always wondered where the environmentalists are when it comes to computer disposal issues.
Consider this? Surely they should be against anything that:
1. Encourages users to throw away printers or
2. Makes it difficult for cartridges to be refilled instead of replaced.
But then, they are probably using Apple computers with integrated monitors -- requiring unnecessary disposal of monitors whenever they replace their computers instead of using a PC and keeping the monitor during several PC replacements. Heck, I have a monitor in daily use that I bought in 1991!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It would seem that the market would *love* a printer that would use generic commodity ink. Make a few bucks on the printer and let the rest of the industry battle out the ink pricing.
Industrial printers use very cheap inks but are expensive to buy. Consumer printers typically use expensive ink and are cheap. Sounds fair to me ...
Just to give you an idea : HP ink costs something like $1000 litre whereas cheap ink costs $10 litre. Printheads that can use the cheap ink cost $400 - $2000 a piece while HP sells complete printers for HP make far, far more money on ink and media than they do on printers. Lexmark seem to have decided to take this one step further - they're giving the printers away for nearly free (especially to OEM's, Dell and the like) trying to capture market share .. while hoping to make money of the ink. It sounds like a perfectly sensible business plan to me.
Oh, if you really think, people can make money by selling printers for a more than the cost of manufacture and then providing cheap consumables for it, go ahead a get venture funding. I know a lot of product development companies that would gladly build you a reasonably low cost printer that uses cheap ink and cheap paper.
... and stay away from the keyboard until your hangover goes away.
And this doesn't make them go away. Earlier this year I bought a Lexmark printer. Not only did it work like ass, but it was very misleading by the box.
You see, the advertisement on the box showed this humongous Linux penguin. I thought to myself, "Finally! A company that embraces Linux!" I was excited, and I'm more than happy to support any company that supports my favorite operating system. But when I tried to install it on Linux, I discovered, much to my dismay, that the drivers were all binaries. Not open source at all. Not only that, but the binary drivers worked like shit. On top of all this, the printer itself was shitty, and Lexmark refused to provide any technical support for their crappy product.
Needless to say, it didn't take long until I brought that thing back to the store.
http://mediagoblin.org/
I've owned two HP inkjets (DJ500 and one of their "Professional Series" units that did a lot of the processing on the computer CPU) and most recently I've been using a Canon BJC-6000. The HP units had the print head in the cartridges, the Canon does not. Guess which ones clogged up consistently? Yup, you guessed it -- HP. Both of 'em. The Canon hasn't given one iota of trouble, and we only print occasionally. Change the individual ink cartridges when necessary, clean the print head if you must (it comes out). Very well designed.
Canon fixed the "if the print head gets clogged you're screwed" problem by making that a replacable item as well. You can buy a new one for not too much money with a new set of individual ink cartridges. It's a great system and I've not been disappointed in any way. In fact, I just ordered a new i950 for photo printing due to this experience.
I don't even look at HP printers any longer. Oh, and I agree with another person who wrote that the Epson 740 was junk; my dad's clogged up like no ones business and basically couldn't be fixed. No more Epson printers either, methinks.
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
The only difference between a cheap cell phone plan and a cheap Lexmark printer is; The phone will travel further when you through it away after you run out of air time.
The cell phone agreement tells you the cost in the small print of your plan. The printer is more devious it tries to hide the costs in a different department of the store, or in obscure places with very tiny price stickers. Never do you see a cost per page printed listed. That would be too competitive!
bah...shit
bah...shit
bah...shit
The lament of todays consumer/sheep.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Well, I have no problem getting out-of-ink printouts from my Canon S800. Simply turn off bi-directional printing. And the ink for a Canon is so much cheaper than other brands.
As for lexmark, I had a Z51 for 2 years, and it worked like a champ. My daughter had it for a year and a half. It broke when some stuff on a shelf above it fell on it. So, all in all, the Lexmark was pretty reliable - 3.5years. Of course, the ink was pricey.
I almost bought an epson, but the embedded microchip does nothing but raise the cost of ink.
As for HP, I don't understand how they are the dominant manufacturer - I had 3 HPs in a row around 5 years ago, and they all sucked. I guess that is a good example of how slowly I figure things out - it took 3 printers (and they were high end 820cse, around $350). I recently bought a HP D145 Multifunction, against my better instincts. It had problems matching colors for copies (e.g. cyan became lt. green), and it could not send a fax! That went back to the store - and i got screwed having to pay for the ink in a POS HP.
Recently I bought a refubished Canon Multipass f80, and it is way superior to the D145. Also about half the price.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Let the manufacturers know that when they rip you off as a *consumer* that you are actually also a *business*.
Some brands, like AT&T, never learned that lesson, and they would fuck over cell phone customers, and then wonder why their business accounts flew.
So, let them know, that personally you might only be in the market for a $200 home printer, but your business is buying much, much more.
Also, screw lexmark! Their printers suck anyway - the ink cartridges cost nearly as much as the whole printer.
I wouldn't buy a Lexmark printer, but I wouldn't buy one before this lawsuit either because when I hear the name Lexmark I think of cheaply made crap that'll fall apart in six months. My Panasonic printer is close to ten years old and although I never use it, I know I still could. I can even get new ribbons for the damn thing at Wal-Mart.
How many Lexmark inkjet printers will be around in a decade? How many ink cartridges could you go through in that time?
Did you factor in speed? I know that the bigger printers can print complex graphics faster than a standard parallel port can feed it, resulting in slower printing in your case. It doesn't matter if you're printing in Truetype fonts only, but for big graphics, I'm sure the extra speed would be noticable.
I don't read AC A human right
AFAIK the DMCA doesn't apply to UK companies like Which? magazine, but then again, I've been hearing grumblings that they're looking at making their own version of the DMCA.
:P
I'm just glad I live in Canada.
-- sudo.ca
My old printer just spit the bit. I'm looking into buying a new one. Guess whose products are not on my list.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
All inkjet printers seem to have the same problems with the price of brand name cardtridges. That is also why there are so many companies making refillables that can "solve" the issue. The problem is the cost of toner cartridges in laser printers. I know roughly how much they go for, and it is expensive. My company has literally thousands of the Optra T series, and folks, it is a good printer for the money. Even with the expense of toner, it is still just as good or better than pricing on comparable HP printers. The lexmark will run you about $3000 for the decked out Optra T, the comparable HP will be around $10,000. Forget about the disposable printer argument and look at the real picture here. The cartridges from Lexmark are about 1/3 more expensive than the remanufactured ones. However, the quality of remanufactured cartridges is not supposed to be as good as the Lexmark cartridges. I have seen both and it does seem that the Lexmark ones are a little better. The whole point is that if you want to buy a office printer and not a home printer, do your research and try a few different ones before making the selection. Otherwise, buy a cheap on sale printer when you need a refill. speaking of which, I need to find cheap cartridges for my HP G48xi...
root 10956 5164 0 Oct 22 - 0:23 sendmail: rejecting connections: load average: 70 (isn't sendmail just too kind)
the black head's well 'n truelly fucked
and I've sent a fax to Lexmark Germany that I don't tolerate companies, that don't grow because of leading products and fair competition. Well, I haven't found any printer with a CUPS-Logo on it. Some need the windows printing system, the others need CUPS (Linux, BSD, Mac, AIX; Solaris, HP-UX.......) I wonder why vendors still use a Mac only driver instead of one for all iXs
And neither do rich people.
The people who actually create wealth are the ones who turn raw materials into useful, valuable finished products.
For an actual, rational value of the word 'wealth', of course.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
...but I thought that was lumberjacks.
:-)
I must admit I'm curious what these people do when/if they shave their pubic hair.
(Is there a -1 Tasteless karma option?
-fred
My lover was a logger
There's none like him today
If you poured whiskey on it
He would eat a bale of hay
He never shaved his whiskers
off of his horny hide
He'd drive them in with a hammer
And bite them off inside.
From 'The Logger', anonymous
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Perhaps somebody can clear up my ignorance.
I've had several name brand printers, and for all of them, the replacement carts were the exact same as the type that came with the unit. I've never heard of "starter carts"
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Again, forget about the environment (I think you already did), but you may want to weigh those cartridges that came with your printer and then weigh a retail cartridge. Using a 'warehouse' site's specs and prices, the cheapest Lexmark Inkjet comes with a color cartridge with a duty cycle of 205 pages. The retail cartridge for that printer has a duty cycle of 275 pages. Let's just assume they aren't playing with the figures and use the mail order price of 32.95 for the cartridge. That puts a color page at about $0.12 each for the ink. Which puts the value of the cartridge that comes with the printer at $24.60. So they've screwed you for $8.35 on that included cartridge that is the "exact same type" as the replacement cartridge, which, by the way is enough to make it cheaper to buy replacement cartridges.
Now assuming you mail ordered it, think about shipping charges. How much more do you think it'll cost to ship a printer and cartridges instead of just the cartridges? Add it all up, and you're paying about double for your ink.
Now let's talk about the true costs of your disposable printer. How much oil do you think it takes to power the machinery to make that printer? Fuel the ships, planes and trucks to deliver it? Process the trees into packaging and paper? Burn the CD with the drivers and instructions? How long do you think the plastic components will take to decompose? What about the fumes from the manufacturing process?
Now sure, you'll get a nice shiny new printer that may outlast the perfectly good one you threw out with the garbage (I hope you covered it up with some regular trash so you don't get in trouble for trying to put electronics out with your household waste). But even if your old printer doesn't outlive the new cartridges you bought, you can always swap them into the new printer that you buy because you have to, not because you've been suckered into paying double for your ink just to get a free printer you didn't need. And in the extra 6 months to 3 years that you get out of your printer, prices will drop, specs will improve, and the REAL money you saved will more than pay for a better printer. And maybe by then the energy it took to make it won't be paid for in lives.
2 SUV's, 0 Kids?
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
You extended my statements beyond a rational conclusion.
I know a couple of "Trust Fund Babies" who are dumb as rocks, but are riding on Mommy and Daddy's legacy regardless.
The bottom line is, you usually have to be smart in one way or another to become wealthy.
Outside of Hollywood and modeling, dumb people rarely become millionaires.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Well, lets put it this way: I bought a lexmark printer a year ago. The ink ran out, so I went to best buy and bought replacement color and black. With tax, the two replacement inks carts came out to $75. The next day I went to walmart. Guess what? Brand new lexmark printer for sale -- comes with color and black (same cartrages that I paid $75 for the day before), and the whole package was $55. Guess what? I am screwed for buying replacement carts. I should have bought another throw away printer.
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[...] replacing my HP printer altogether was cheaper than buying ink cartridge refills. Compare, $25 for a B&W cartridge + $35 for a color cartridge = $60 total. Cost of that HP DeskJet on sale at Office Depot? $50, and you get an entirely new printer!
But WAIT! There's MORE!
You see, HP only HALF-FILLS the cartridges that come in a new printer. So that $50 printer only has $30, rather than $60, worth of ink. (Yes, there have been other consumer actions about that...)
Also: Some printers only come with a color cartridge. It will print B&W without it, but it will do it by mixing the three colors of ink from the color cartridge, emptying it very quickly. So if you don't add a black ink cartirdge you are back at the store in a week or two.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You should have bought your cartridges at Wal Mart :-)
But seriously, Lexmark hasn't included full cartridges since they started making inkjets. They look the same, smell the same, and probably taste the same, but the actual milliliters are not the same.
If you really want to save money, refills are the way to go. The electronics and printheads on cartridges will last at least 3 or 4 times what they'll physically hold in ink. It can be messy, but it's both the cheapest and most environmentally conscience way to go.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
I refill carts, but after about 5 times, the heads no longer function. Thats why I went out and bought replacements :/
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The upside I guess is that a ten year old inkjet - if it's still working - is at least worth using. I wouldn't suffer the noise to use the old dot matrix for code listings. Maybe I should make a robot...
Ok, I take back everything I said - refilling them 5 times before buying a whole new printer isn't too bad - I thought you meant you should just buy the printer, use it until the cart.s ran out once and through the whole thing away and start over. My Bad :-)
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
I think the EFF's laywer, Wendy Seltzer, did an amazing service by writing that arguement. She seems to have done an excellent job in my non-lawyer opinion. I hope the arguement prevails and the EFF continues their noble quest!
(Not so)funny thing, I don't remember any dramatic changes in any similar cases in prices after these invetigations, court orders and fines. Seems like nothing changes, businesses pay fines and maybe even say they're sorry but prices stay the same. Strange, very strange...
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
I got an HP JetDirect EX external print server from a local seller on eBay for $10.50. Then I discovered that you can still get them new for $99. I saved a lot of money, there.
The printer it's attached to is a Laserjet 4MP that is only on its second toner cartridge and is working fantastically well.
It will also work with any OS, as I'm using Mac OS X to print to it via AppleTalk, and a Windows XP Corporate (no registration crud) box to print to it via LPR. HP's site also gives instructions for configuring it for OS 8-9 and Linux -- the thing is very platform-neutral.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Configuring a print server over telnet? Urk! Couldn't they use OpenSSH or something like that instead so that the use of a fascist firewall isn't mandated?
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
.... but have to be willing to invest some time to find one.
Same about computers. People buying based only in the "opinion" of the shop selling them stuff are just opening themelves to be abused.
Consumers have the power of choice, this carries the responsibility of educate yourself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you are one of those that is rising needlessly the prices of service plans.
Thank you for nothing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Get crossover ethernet cable.
Connect printserver to one machine (thus both are isolated form the network).
Telnet and configure.
Connect both to the network and forget about them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You will have to invade such fscking godless country harbouring such terrorists.
....
Let me check the article:
BBC.... British Broadcatsing Corporation
Oooopsie!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Hawking printserver line also works great. They come both as a parallel and USB versions. It's a great way to share a laser printer for the cost of a color HP cartridge. (the full HP78)
The truth shall set you free!
There were a couple very disturbing typographical errors in the brief PDF... but the one on page 16 of this document is especially troublesome.
A remanufactured cartridge does not extract programs from the printer - no software is never copied outside the printer - the remanufactured cartridge simply interoperates with the printer indistinguishably from the Lexmark cartridge.
I imagine a nice confusing double-negavtive during a key point of the brief will negatively effet the EFF's standing with the authorities involved.
Maybe I should offer my time to do some proof reading for the EFF?
Scott.
I own a minolta magicolor 2200, which is wonderful, except it contains the same sort of thing. The other day it said "I won't print till you give me a new expensive oil roller". So I take the old one out, but it looks fine. Although there are no electronics at all in this part, there is a hidden 80 mA fuse with contacts to connect to whatever else in the printer, and it is blown. I replace the hidden (and obviously not designed to be replaced at all) fuse and it works again. Go figure. They are all doing it.