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Copyright Office Rules Against Lexmark
SparkyTWP writes "'The United States Copyright Office has ruled in favour of Static Control Components, of Sanford, N.C., saying that its microchips do not contravene the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' This was in regard to SCC making microchips that imitated Lexmark's in remanufactured printer cartridges. It appears Lexmark won't be able to do anything about third-party cartridges."
only if generic cartridge manufacurers decide to stop putting the shittiest ink ever in their cartridges.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Exactly, most printer companies, especially in the low end area, depend on making $$$ off of people when they buy their uber-expensive cartridges. Personally I would like to see a company make an easy-to-refill inkjet cartridge and sell me the ink at a reasonable rate, and would be willing to spend more on the printer (though again, they make less in the long run).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Well, they have to redesign their buisness model, currently it's, sell lowend inkjet (probably at or below cost) printers really cheap and charge astronomical ammounts for the cartridges that everyone needs.
I'll say this is good because NO company should ever try to lock people into propietary accessories by selling the initial main product at, close to or below cost, hoping to make up their profits by selling the locked-in accessories for a larger portion of the profits.
Look at the Playstation 2. It's locked-in (you must have Sony approve of and produce your game in _most_ instances), yet they make their profits on the game system whether or not you buy any games.
Let's see how long before other companies discover ways to break the models of these lock-ins and force the main company to rethink their strategy of selling short and hoping for bigger profits as time goes on because no one else can sell the accessories at reasonable prices.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
But Lexmark lost...
evil adrian
When are you going to wake up and learn that people (at least all the ones in the state I'm in), in general, don't care about good. They care about cheap. No one that I've ever run into that uses refilled ink tanks cares how good the ink is. The first thing out of their mouth is "Look how much I saved!"
bork bork bork!
yeah, sometimes it's just cheaper to buy a new printer that comes with two ink carts. :(
That the retail chains had leverage over Lexmark, not the other way around!!
"Oh, we can't sell third party ink for your printers? Well then I guess we'll have to remove all your products and tell customers they should return the ones they bought recently which we'll ship back to you at your expense, as per our contract..."
But even though it seems like that's how things should be, I have to agree with your view being how things really are. I just can't understand where the leverage is coming from.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
when the ink runs off the paper (espeically photo paper), or clogs your print heads *cough*epson*cough*, or has to be replaced every 20 pages, people wont use generics. i learned my lesson with my 740.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
They can try that scheme. However automobile manufactures tried that stunt years ago, and it has been countered. When denying warentee covereage because of something the customer did they need to prove the modification caused the problem. Thus a non-OEM radio is not reason to refuse coverage for a blown engine, but would be reason to refuse coverage on a blown speaker.
Wouldn't surprize me to see them try to pull that stunt, and it would cause problems for a few years. Expect that it will eventially be knocked down in law/courts.
This issue had no business involving copyright law. This should have been settled with patents (i.e. If Lexmark doesn't have any covering it's cartridge design, it's SOL). This was a perfect example of the concept of "Intellectual Property" clouding the distinction between copyrights, patents and trademarks. The fact of the matter is that Lexmark's business model is perfectly valid, and well documented, but they didn't want the time limitations imposed by patent law and they thought they could get around it. They should fire the legal team that gave them the advice that led them down this path, and wise investors should have left long ago after seeing all this money wasted on developing "protection" technology that depended on an untested legal concept to work.
Well, there's nothing wrong with them _trying_.
The problem is that copyright -- which is what Lexmark was trying to use, and is a monopoly -- is not intended to protect them from this sort of competition.
It is after all entirely possible that the razor/razor blade approach is not feasible with regards to printers. Lexmark should not be protected from fucking up; if they made a mistake with their pricing, it's their own damn problem.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Anti-competetive, pretty much, yeah. I don't think that any lawyers would disagree with you there. Copyright is a monopoly, by definition.
The intent of copyright is to grant a monopoly to encourage people to create and innovate. Whether that's a good idea, and whether the implementation of that idea in US law is effective, I'll leave to the many other discussions already on slashdot.
Anti-capitalist I'd disagree with. Copyright favors those with capital. Again, that may be self-defeating, but the intent is certainly to reward those who create intellectual property (= capital).
It is an anti-competition tool, but is not an anti-capitalist tool. Stop confusing capitalism with the free market. Capitalism is system where capital is used to create more capital. The DMCA defends the capital of the megacorporations...so it is pro capitalism. Owning a political organization or a set of laws is like owning any other capital asset. You invest x amount in elected officials and you receive y amount in return. The DMCA is capitalism at its finest. Corporations invest in a law, then receive a return from that law.
Unfortunately, the debate between communism and capitalism was so loud, that we never really had the debate between capitalism and the free market.
It's not just lawyer bills... The injunction has halted the sale of SCC's smartek chips since feb 8... Nine months of lost sales for SCC and the cartridge remanufacturers who buy SCC's chips.
What kills me is that, in granting the preliminary injunction the judge had to consider the potential for damages (page 48)... he found that Lexmark would suffer "irreparable harm" in terms of lost sales and money. Excuse me, but I think those can be repaired with money. On the other hand, if SCC had been put out of business under a load of bogus legal bills it couldn't survive, I think it would have suffered irreparable harm.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
What? So if you go to someone selling "autos" and they say "I'll give you this 10k auto for 300/month over 5 years with the 5 year extended warranty" you can't say "hell no, I'll give you the 10k cash thank you" and go on down your bank and get a 10k loan for 300/month over 3 years instead and hence stop them getting the extra 4.5k?
Now if you really want to look at "autos" you can say that Ford have no right to produce a vehicle and insist that you can only refill it with Ford Fuel, or that the fuel tank will only open to a pump fitted with a ford radio unlocker. You know if they tried this that mechanics would either learn how make a key to open the tank or replace the tank opening.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
This was not a court ruling, and actually does not even put to bed the Advers ruling SCC has already received. This is not the ruling of an administrative agency either. It is the ruling of the Copyright Office, part of the Library of Congress, which is under the Legislative branch (Congress). As part of the DMCA, they are obligated to conduct these triennial rules to determine if there are any uses that should be permitted that are not under the 1201 excemptions, and they have the power to add these. What they ruled is that they believe that what SCC was asking for was unnecesary to spell out as the 1201 excemptions in the Copyright Office's opinion already cover SCC's use.
Practically speaking, this is powerful evidence of Congressional intent in the ongoing appeal, and SCC will likely prevail based on this ruling, but it is not a slam dunk.
Now where is the justified moaning about the Copyright Offices refusal to add an exception to decrypt DVDs to play on the Linux OS (which currently contains 0 licensed DVD player software that an average user can obtain and be in compliance with the DMCA). "The balancing of the incremental benefit of allowing circumvention for the purposes of watching a movie on a Linux-based computer is outweighted by the threat of increased piracy that undrlies Congress' motivation for enacting section 1201." SHEESH, oh well, didn't really expect to get that one!
Of course. That is why one should replace his cartdridge when the cartridge wears out, not when the ink runs out. I don't buy for one minute that they happen at the same time. You can probably refill a cartridge about 10-15 times depending on the paper you use.