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North Carolina Fights Back Against Lexmark
ngrier writes "Seems that at least some aren't sitting idly by, while printer manufacturers try to assert total control. The North Carolina legislature just approved a measure which guarantees the consumer's right to refill ink cartridges. For history of the Lexmark DMCA-related story, involving the company placing copyright-protected code in their printer cartridges in order to prevent competitors from producing compatible cartridges, there are previous Slashdot posts about it here(1), here(2), and here(3)."
I doubt it, although Lexmark would be a fool to push it.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I'm glad someone's deciding to finally act on this. Ink cartridges should not be costing 20,30,40 dollars. It's ink... the technology has been around for several hundred years. Now granted, printer technology has only been around 20 years, but still, it's not like it's rocket science (or rocket fuel, for that matter :)
hookers and grits.
Oh please....consumer choice doesn't have anything to do with this. A North Carolina company may get shut down, costing 1,200 jobs, which is why there is soon going to be a law protecting it.
I half expect Kentucky's government to jump in and ban the sale of replacement ink cartridges to protect Kentucky jobs or some other nonsense.
Why not fix the whole DMCA? Or at least codify something stating that DMCA doesn't cover cases where the intent was clearly only anticompetitive?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Quite simple, when your Lexmark printer runs out of Ink, throw it in the bin.
Never ever buy from Lexmark again, and encourage others to follow suit.
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
The DMCA is federal. No matter how much we wish otherwise, we need to make the change at a federal level.
Even though California or Oregon voters may be in favor of medical marijuana, the federal prohibition on marijuana trumps that.
Repeal DMCA on a federal level, or otherwise the efforts are meaningless.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If you have a G4 or whatever you DO have a choice of OS. Either an Apple OS or Linux or Darwin.
w are. htmlo ftware .htmls _softwa re.html
If you buy a computer from SGI what OS choice do you have when you order it? For the workstation, it don't look like it
http://www.sgi.com/workstations/fuel/sys_soft
http://www.sgi.com/workstations/tezro/sys_s
http://www.sgi.com/workstations/octane2/sy
What Lexmark is doing and what Apple/Sun/SGI are doing is like comparing Apples and Oranges.
Yea, when you buy a G4 you get stuck with OS X and Classic. But Apple doesn't use the DMCA to keep you from installing Linux on the box.
Is it really the job of government to pass such narrow, precise laws like this? Or, instead, should they be passing higher-level laws which a) most of us can even keep in our heads to start with and b) cover a whole lot of smaller, more specific cases?
Normally in the computer market, high end features trickle down into comsumer product features, I was hoping for a home printer that could hold a ream of paper and have separate trays for labels and envelopes and plug and play networking. Instead we have the mess that is the printer market today.
That only works until every vendor does the same thing, which they are well on the way to doing.
That free market stuff is only good in a carefully regulated environment. Laissez faire capitalism was successfully debunked in 1929, and many times since then - think Microsoft.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Since when is take it or leave it the only option in a free market? What is so wrong with wanting to be able to buy something and do whatever the hell you want with it? Absent corporate welfare laws like the DMCA, Lexmark will spend money developing more and more complicated technological lockouts while companies like Static Control will profit by selling workarounds. Eventually Lexmark will realize that it is wasting its time and put the effort into making higher quality products that people are willing to pay a little extra for. That is a free market.
Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death.
Sometimes the public doesnt know about the dangers or mistakes of buying a product. The state needs from time to time, step in and regulate the market place. For the people and all that jazz..
-
Corporations steal its copyright infringment, people steal its called piracy.
There are some Lexmark printers currently on the market that can be obtained for less than the ink cartridges can. Thus, it is cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy replacement ink. There HAS to be something wrong with that.
What?
"Apple must leave the choice of OS to customers - right now you still have to pay for OSX when you are buying Mac even if you plan to use Mac with Linux or BeOS or BSD."
Apple doesn't prevent you from using a different OS, though. That's like saying Lexmark shouldn't include an ink cartridge with the printer when you buy it -- if nothing prevents you from changing it, I don't see why it would be a problem.
The market is deciding! It decided that it wants Lexmarks at an unbelievably cheap price and it wants others to supply the ink at a fair rate. Lexmark is USING legislation (dmca) to make generic refills die a quick death.
--Joey
As far as I can tell from reading the description of the law (IANAL), they made it illegal to enforce the ban on cartridge refills, and it probably does conflict with federal law. What they should have done, with no conflict with the federal statute, was to ban the sale of printers with that sort of restriction. AFAIK a state can ban the sale of various items on whatever grounds it feels are correct, and the feds have nothing to say about it.
Yeah, free markets are nice. The US has killed a lot of people for their free market ideology.
But when it comes to steel, there shall be no fucking free market.
Hypocrites.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
They don't have to try to force Lexmark to allow others to use their copyrights (which would be an attempt to supersede federal copyright law) -- instead they can simply say that it is illegal for printer manufacturers to make their cartridges such that copyrighted material is necessary for their operation. Then nobody could copy Lexmark's cartridges, but they couldn't legally sell them in the state either. But their copyright would still be protected.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I understand why these companies want to prevent others from stealing this cash cow. You're talking about huge amounts of money just for ink. I can't remember where I read it but there was a story about ink being 3 times more expensive than a fine wine or something like that. Maybe it was here? It's fucking ink so I don't know why it's so expensive.
It could be all of the companies in collusion with one another to keep the prices high.
We should boycott Lexmark and while we're at it boycott Epson for being busted by joint tests by several European consumer groups indicating that Epson ink cartridges prematurely block printers from churning out more pages even when there is enough ink to keep going.
Here's the story on that con
I think it'd be less painful to my pocket book if they could figure out how to turn my blood into ink from a simple IV...
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
This gets floated as a "solution" to the problem frequently. Unfortunately, the cartridges in these new printers contain less and less ink. They're almost getting to be as useless as the sample packs of paper they come with too.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
The whole idea in the current market is to sell cheap printers that become mechanisms to sell expensive ink jet cartridges. The goal is to sell as many expensive cartridges as possible; so you find marketers playing stupid games like not filling the cartridges to capacity, etc..
The result of this is simply a great deal of garbage that consumers have to pay to haul away.
I doubt that toner and ink cartridges are really the most environmentally friendly things in the landfills. I suspect the fewer we toss out the better.
My brain fart du jour is that it would be great if industries had to pick up the tab for the garbage they create. Lenmark and other competitors in the industry would have to pay a disposal fee that could be distributed to landfills to cover costs.
If industry had to pay for the waste up front, there would be a hope that they would design products that create less waste product.
As you point out, the industry is really about putting ink (which is relatively inexpensive) on paper. All the extra packaging, cartridge parts, etc., that get produced and sold in this game are waste.
I would like to point out, for the benefit of those who didn't notice, that Apple's firmware is an open standard.
This whole industry is based upon one thing. Everyone knows that these companys literally give you the printer only to make the money back on the refill cartridges. If they were to market the printers differntly, go back to making quality machines rather than things that print for a few years then die, and aren't fixing cause it's cheaper to replace we and the enviornment would win. We would get cheaper ink cartridges, and higher quality ink jet printers, thus lasting us a lot longer and saving our landfills and being green in the same process. If the companys were even smarter, they would have a exchange policy for old cartridges, or offer refill kits themselves.
"How will this benefit Apple?"
How will preventing Lexmark from only allowing Lexmark ink to be used benefit Lexmark?
"How will it benefit consumers?"
The same way as allowing competition for ink; cheaper prices, more variety.
Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death.
I would agree with you except for one thing. Lexmark is using the DMCA to stop people from refilling ink cartridges. There's a crypto widget in cartridge that contains copyrighted info. Can't duplicate it. Can't reset it. Do so and it's "legislated to death time". The best outcome would be taking the DMCA behind the barn and having either the Supreme Court or Congress shoot it through the head. Since the media conglomerates and electronics monopolists won't permit the death of their dream come true, I'll take what North Carolina is doing as a consolation prize.
I've never seen these cartridges, but I tend to doubt that Lexmark has gone to any effort to educate consumers that they are entering into any sort of contract.
Consumers can pick cars that are safe, and if they want to get one that isn't, that's their choice.
You've obviously never bought a car.
Lemon laws serve as a check on dealer shenanigans. Especially with used cars, the threat of the state forcing the dealer to pay for the car's repairs is sometimes the only thing keeping the dealer from selling cars that really shouldn't be on the road.
However, your theory of removing all laws that protect consumers from corporations sounds like a great one. I can't wait to live in a world where I must sign a contract to even look at a car, I have to take the dealer's word on how efficient it is for gas mileage, and I just have to rely on a consumer group that can't summon cars for review to tell me if a car has serious safety hazards or not.
The free market is amazingly efficient at resource allocation--and that's about it. It's horrible at keeping a reasonable balance of weath, atrocious at preserving accuracy, and simply impotent when it comes to protecting participants in the market from the worst scams therin.
Capitalism without some government oversight is mob rule--and I think I'd be better served by a tyranny than the unthinking mob.
I have seen printers damaged from using 3rd Party Ink. Because they were using the cheap stuff and the fact that their printer broke. They decided that because their printer keeps on having trouble that they wont buy that printer again. While if they used the real ink the printer could have used for many more years. While there are good 3rd party Ink out their. But there are a bunch of Rip Offs that hurt the printer and this is like slander towards the printer maker.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The DMCA does contain such a provision, codified as 17 USC 1201(f), but the courts have in effect nullified it in Universal v. Reimerdes by refusing to recognize DeCSS as having been "reverse engineered for purposes of interoperability".
Will I retire or break 10K?
A personal laser printer.
You can get a good b&w one for about $300, and the toner lasts damn near forever.
If the capitalists believed in laissez-faire, they would not have gone shopping in Washington for the DMCA.
As long as corporations are given preferential tax and liability treatment, they should be subject to oversight and scrutiny. This is just and right.
I just wish it happened sometimes.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death."
The big problem with this argument is that corps are getting bigger and bigger. There's gotta be restraints on them here and there to prevent them from stifling progress in any given area of development.
I do half-agree with you, though. Here's the thing: If everybody does what Lexmark's been doing, what's to stop people from just buying laser printers? If something desperately needs to be in color, either ppl will use digital means (e-mail, pocket/tabletPCs, etc) or they'll run down to Kinko's. I personally have already decided on the Kinko's bit. Sure, per page the color copies/prints might be expensive, but I'd have to buy a lot of them to equal one cartridge of ink.
If the market goes to one extreme, somebody'll come along and create equlibrium. So long as the mega-corps can't squash them, then things should work out. Problem is, keeping the mega-corps under control. In this case, legislation could potentially be the answer.
"Derp de derp."
"3. Legislation like the DMCA gives DRM protected ink a ridiculous amount of legislative protections. In other words the law is part of the problem and claiming "dont change the laws" is silly when a law like the DMCA exists."
The fact that a state, especially one of the most important IT states (North Carolina and RTP) is legislating local exceptions to the DMCA, would suggest great FLAWS in that law... Ones that a true DEMOCRATIC process (process not party) would not allow.
North Carolina has a LOT of influence. It's the eastern US's Silicon Valley. But not as high tax or as stupid as California.
Corporatism != Free Market
Chee, if you did that, you'd have ... a PEE CEE!!!!
So if you want a PEE CEE, why not just buy one? You can get one CHEAPER! Go for it, man!
Dell operators are waiting for your call!
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who forget the past are doomed
You really shouldn't have to do this. How many little laws have to be created to sidestep 'unintended' consequences of the one law to rule them all before it can be declared a Bad Law?
This law only applies IN North Carolina, there's no interstate commerce involved. Hence, no conflict with the DMCA or any other federal law because it's not in their jurisdiction. The law doesn't say anything about what goes on in other states, and doesn't affect federal courts. So, what this means is that a local company - one with offices/plants/etc ONLY in North Carolina can make these refill cartridges and sell them like mad. They can't be tried in federal court because there's no interstate commerce, and thus no jurisdiction. Now, a national company couldn't do this, they could still be subject to DMCA suits in federal court - but there's nothing preventing them from spinning off a unit to pursue this market. And of course the company can't sell them across state lines without coming into federal jurisdiction again, so this is no benefit to the rest of us except as a motivator to write our legislatures. If similar laws were enacted in the majority of states (and what voter wouldn't be in favor of this?) then Lexmark's victory in federal court would be largely void.