Slashdot Mirror
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.
Tell me about it. We've upgraded one of the printers we have at work from one HP to another HP (2500 Banner printer to the 5500). This is a printer that can handle 42" wide rolls of paper, and prints amazingly fast, and at good quality. So, you'd expect that it would run out of ink fairly quickly, right?
Wrong. The ink cartridges, IIRC, hold 680 mL of ink (one of six colours for this model), and I believe that we've changed out only 2 of the individual cartridges in the 7+ weeks we've had the printer. And we've been using it a lot.
Now, to be completely fair, we cannot use any other type of ink in this, as it will only take the HP inks. But when I replaced one of the cartridges last week, the old one was practically bone dry. It will print until it runs out of one of the inks, but it will only warn you about low ink, not stop printing altogether.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Here's the article he's getting his info from in case anyone is interested.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
But if Joe consumer is completely unaware of it, then it is misleading. That would be like only being able to use Canon film in your Canon camera, and to a further extent only GM windshield washer fluid in your buick.
Last time I checked, there were no statements on the boxes that declared that the printer could not be used with third party cartridges.
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).
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.
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
As I recall, the details of that case were that Nintendo had patented a chip that would allow licensed game cartridges to work in the NES. On the claim that they were going to sue Nintendo, 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.
My source for this is, of course, Game Over by David Scheff. I don't have the book in front of me so some detail may be wrong, and I can't find a Web source to back up the details.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
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
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.)
Don't ever buy one from their home line of printers. I had one and it was broke after my first year of college.
Better yet - buy it from Best Buy and get the service plan. I do this for most everything and I put it in my calendar to "break it" just prior to the expiration. Since most new electronics are CRAP, I usually don't have to worry about this. I just did this with my cell phone (that legitmately failed after 2.5 years). Because they don't repair things anymore and because they don't carry the phone still, they just issued me a full credit on a replacement phone.
Digital camera is coming up and I replaced my scanner a few months ago. It is nice to be able to get an updated product every couple years. And it doesn't say anything in the contract about breaking it yourself...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Only one problem with HP. they quietly added chips to the business printers'carts to add expiration dates to them. If the cartrige gets x months beyond the mfr date, even if its full, it reads empty. Supposedly to prevent print defects from old ink... yeah right.
You've just described the typical business lease of a decent (high quality / high capacity) printer.
The print heads and ink cartriges are seperate... It is a 6 color system which is either 42 or 60 inches wide. There are ink tubes that deliver ink from the cartriges to the print heads. These are really big printers in the $12,000 to $20,000 range.
.:diatonic:.
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've worked in an office supplies retail environment before, and I've seen a lot of people who think it really is cheaper just to buy a new printer. Unfortunatly, the cartridges that come preinstalled in printers do not have the same volume of ink as the retail packages. Depending on the manufacturer, it was anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of the retail ink cartridge's volume.
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.
What Lexmark is doing is preventing anyone else from making a replacement ink cartridge for their inkjet printers. They put a smart ship in their inkjet cartridges that can commuicate with the printer (things like ink level, etc) Lexmark then copyrighted the embedded code in their printers. Lexmark would not give a darn if someone made a printer that could use Lexmark ink cartridges.
But, Brand X decided to sell their own replacement cartridges for Lexmark printers. They had to make cartridges that could talk with the Lexmark printers. If they can do this, it might gut Lexmark's business plan (sell printer at cost, reap huge profits on ink cartridges). So, Lexmark has to make sure that people will want to use only genuine Lexmark cartridges in their Lexmark printers. Now they could try and do this with a big marketing campaign (convince consumers to pay more for their ink), or they could try to litigate their competition out of business (leaving the consumer with no choice of what cartridge to put in their Lexmark printer).
Lexmark claims this violates the "anti-cirumvention" clause in the DMCA. 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 (Brand X is not copying it after all). All that matters is that they are gaining access to it.
As other posters have pointed out, the automotive analogy would be for auto manufacturers to build cars that have the engine refuse to start if car detected any part (tires, oil filter, etc) that did not come from the only approved source. Of course in th US, there are specific laws preventing the auto industry from doing anything like that (because once upon a time the auto industry tried to shut down third party replacement parts by voiding warranties whenever they were used)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
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.
Lexmark's business class printers suck just as bad as thier home printers. We have about 500 Lexmarks where I work, ranging from Optra S's to T612's and they don't live up to thier specs at all. Most of these printers are swapped for repair on a monthly basis. We have logged a ton of tickets with our local Lexmark dealer about the T610's dropping thier IP address everytime you look at it wrong. Our Lexmark dealer brought a rep from Lexmark itself, denied ever having the problem and told us we needed to upgrade our printers. By the way the T6XX's are only a year or so old. After that meeting, we decided we are going phase out ALL Lexmarks and replace them with HP.
Buy a Canon, the ink tanks that ship with the printer are full. They are transparent plastic and you see exactly how much ink is in them.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
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
Canon doesn't do this. In fact, I bought my printer (S750) because of this. They use four inks, CYK and seperate black, all in individual cartridges for easy replacement. Their ink tanks are also dead simple plastic boxes with a sponge, so you can either buy cheap 3rd-party ones, or refills.
I priced out third-party ink when buying my printer, and made sure I got one that had a seperate black tank. And in the end, Canon's own ink is so cheap (to compete with the third-party ink) that I usually buy the official stuff...
The deal worked really well for Canon, I liked their honest deal with the ink so much that I bought a scanner and camera from them, as well as some refill ink.