Lexmark's DMCA-Abuse Case Coming To An End

Adama writes "Lexmark is dead in the water with their hopes to use the DMCA to force their customers to buy their over-priced toner. Their request for another hearing has been denied. Ars has an especially great write-up on this." (See this earlier story for more background on Lexmark's lock-in attempt.)

Comments

Common people: 1, Fritz Hollings: nill.

[t_allardyce]

They'll be back next year, this time with a patented cartridge that plays (copyrighted) music (or sound) as part of its printing process, try duplicating that legally?

The Razor Principle all over

[xiando]

Gillette has been doing what the whole printer industry is doing with Razors for YEARS: Give the tool away cheap or for free and charge high for the blades. Some printers are actually sold cheaper than the ink cartages who come with the printer. So the ink cartridges who come with printers now only contain one third of the volume, just to make you go buy a new one a week after purchase. This is just not fair. Boycott the whole printer industry AND save the environment at the same time: Print less. Encourage your friends to do the same. Trees are today being cut down ten times the rate they are being reproduced! This is a fact. Yes, if we keep this up then the planet will be free of trees by the end of the century. So teach the evil printer industry a lesion, print less. And No, switching brand will not help, they are all running the ink scam.

Gameboy

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean that Nintendo can't claim copyright on the bitmap logo that is needed for the Gameboy to accept a cartridge? Does this open the door for third parties to manufacture their own GB cartridges?

unfortunately....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

One would think that something like this will kill Lexmark. ie. If you screw over the customer, then the customers will shun you and you go out of business.

Unfortunately it seems that this thinking is flawed. Customers these days are so used to having their rights, privacy, whatever abused that they expect to be ripped off by the Lexmarks, Microsofts etc of the world.

What happened to the old days when the customer was king and great customer service was the way to do business.

Re:unfortunately....

[joeljkp]

The solution from a consumer perspective, of course, is a PPP (price per page) index. I haven't seen any manufacturers advertising this, though. Are reviewers doing it?

Re:now, to try and get tech favor again

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to know which has cost Lexmark more:

1. Loss of potential future revenue because competitors will now be able to sell replacement cartridges
2. The cost of paying the lawyers for the case, or
3. Loss of revenue because of the many people recommending against Lexmark printers ever since the lawsuit began (regardless of outcome).

I'm betting #3, and that the effect will persist for years from now. I, like you, will not buy Lexmark printers anymore, and have not for several years. I recommend against them when ever people ask, and I explain to them why. Yes, other printer companies gouge you for printer supplies too, but Lexmark has achieved unusual lows by attempting to apply the DCMA to sustain their anti-competitive desires.

From the article...

[kenthorvath]

, the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals found that the Toner Loading Program was not a copyrightable work, as it was less a work of expression than of function. Copyright is not available merely to "any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery," but Lexmark's use falls exclusively on the idea side of the fence. "[I]nteroperable devices" may use proprietary security systems to lock out unauthorized interoperability, but a technology developed solely for this functional purpose is not copyrightable. Furthermore, the court noted that even if these programs were copyrightable, SCC's copying of protected portions of the work would likely still enjoy fair use protections, because the courts have ruled that "fair use doctrine preserves public access to the ideas and functional elements embedded in copyrighted computer software programs."

Does anyone know what the status of the DeCSS lawsuits are, and whether this applies? I would also love to see this applied to other things.

But wouldn't this have other implications as well? The notion that a work that is designed merely as a means to function is not copyrightable may have implications for the GPL, would it not? How much code is copyrighted and protected under the GPL that was designed only with function in mind, and nothing else?

What about the code that SCO claims ownership of? Even if it existed, could they in fact have copyright over it, given this ruling?

Buy a laser printer

[Apreche]

This is only a problem with inkjet crap printers. Its much more economical to buy a laser printer, even a color laser printer. Sure, the toner is like 100 bucks. But it lasts forever. Especially if its just your house. Plus, laser printers often have network cards making it much easier to network the whole house to use just the one printer. And its higher quality printing that makes copies faster.

Sure, it's expensive to start out, but you can find pretty good cheap used ones on ebay, especially if you only need black and white. And its cheaper than inkjet over the long run. More reliable too.

Personally I think apple needs to re-enter the printer market. They used to make great laser printers.

Just get a cheap laser printer

[ShatteredDream]

I got sick and tired of having to pay so much for cartridges because I am still a college student and printing out even 50 pages worth of lecture notes and slides can take out around 1/8 of many of those carts. So I paid $150 for a Brother laser printer and it took me 1.5 school years to go through 1 single toner cartridge. Amazing isn't it?

The scary part is that I tell people about this, how all they have to do is sacrifice color and they can go at least 1 school year without paying $20-$30 per cartridge. For my HL-1440, not exactly a high end piece of equipment, a new toner cart costs only $70.00. Even if it were $100.00 it would still be worth the cost. What does it say about America that these college kids, many of whom do in fact have to pay for their own supplies can't be bothered to put down $140-$200 now for a new laser printer so that they can save 3-5x that in at least 1 fulltime school year of printing?

Having had this now for going on 2 years and it still works well, I just don't understand why people who don't NEED color printers opt for the much more expensive inkjet. Most printing is black and white and you can save hundreds of dollars, enough to buy your laser printer several times over, if you get the right model because the toner cartridge it comes with can do at least a few thousand pages. I know I got at around 4,000-5,000 pages out of my first toner cartridge.

Lxmrk printers are ridiculously cheap and shoddy

[empraptor]

I would know, having worked as a sales rep at an electronics retailer.

There are so many nightmarish stories customers walk into the stores with. Dried up ink, cartridges that run out in a few weeks, broken printers, etc. I never recommended a Lexmark once. Many computer packages were bundled with Lexmark by default, maybe because they're so cheap and there are rebates, but you're better off with other brands.

Oh, and the cartridges. Just as shoddy as the printers. Customers complained of ink drying up after not using the printer for a week. A week. Wee small things too, the ink compartments are. I doubt the ink would last long.

Lexmark will be dead soon even if they had won this lawsuit. Just as well that they lost. People won't have the stupid choice available to them that much sooner.

tree farms

[TiggertheMad]

I think that is cruel and inhumane. Trees were not made to be cooped up in little farms, just waiting to die!

I for one, only use paper from free-range rainforests.

You can thank the EFF for this one

[KarmaOverDogma]

The EFF was a part of preveting yet another case of the DMCA being used to quash innovation.

This is a perfect example of what the EFF has been trying to do on our behalf: and by "our" I especially mean the /. crowd: http://www.eff.org/endangered/list.php#toner

The relevent text from the page:

Species: Static Control Components remanufactured Lexmark toner cartridge
Genus: Printer toner cartridge
Threat averted: Overreaching claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

What it is: A printer toner cartridge refurbished by Static Control Components, sold more cheaply than new Lexmark-branded cartridges.
What it lets you do: Toner cartridges are among the most expensive consumables of a laser printer. Lexmark's cartridges include chips with little bits of code that report back to the printer about toner-fill level -- but they also reveal whether or not the cartridge is "Lexmark authorized." The printer will refuse to print if the cartridge isn't "authorized," so Static Control replaced the chips so its refilled cartridges would work in Lexmark printers and report themselves "full of ink."
Why it was endangered: Lexmark wasn't very happy about competing with Static Control for cartridge sales. It sued, claiming that the cartridge-printer "handshake" was a mechanism protecting a copyrighted work, so circumventing the mechanism violated the DMCA. The copyrighted work in question? The "toner loader program" in the cartridge chip.

How EFF helped save it: EFF filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Static Control Components. We argued that the software was no more than a lock-out code, and that the DMCA explicitly permits the creation of interoperable software. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

Have *you* joined yet?
.

Clearly Lexmark didn't realize...

[brilliant-mistake]

that the DMCA is the RIAA/MPAA's law. If they want the government to protect their market share, they're going to have to buy their own law.

Better than Lexmark

[mazariyn]

The Lexmark decision was a nice victory, but the Federal Circuit decided a DMCA case that may well have a bigger impact on the interpretation of the DMCA - The Chamberlain Group v. Skylink Technologies, 381 F.3d 1178 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Opinion on Findlaw

The Federal Circuit basically read into the DMCA an "intent to pirate" requirement - simple circumvention isn't enough to violate the DMCA unless you intend to pirate or facilitate piracy of copyrighted works. What effect the ruling will have isn't clear, but it goes MUCH farther than the Lexmark decision. Lexmark basically said (a) that the code contained in the Lexmark printer cartridges wasn't copyrightable and therefore the DMCA couldn't apply, and (b) that in any event, the code was only protected from one form of access, but was completely unprotected via another - i.e. it was not effectively protected. Meaning the 6th circuit didn't really address the big issue - can the DMCA be used to stifle competition?

To get a quick idea of where the Chamberlain Group decision went, read the relatively short (2 page) concurring opinion in Lexmark by Judge Merritt (cite: 387 F.3d 522) Lexmark Opinion on Findlaw.