[US] McDonald’s busted ice cream machines can now be fixed — legally
[US] McDonald’s busted ice cream machines can now be fixed — legally
For the next three years, anyways.
US Copyright Office granted an exemption allowing third parties to diagnose and repair commercial equipment — including the ones that make your McFlurries.
The decision is part of the Copyright Office’s final rule granting exemptions to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This exemption-making process happens every three years and is supposed to ensure that the DMCA doesn’t negatively impact people trying to use copyrighted material.
Worth nothing that DMCA exceptions are reviewed on the same 3 year cycle and are frequently revoked. So if you're a McD ice cream fan, enjoy it while you can.
Absolutely deranged headline in a whacky world.
Great to hear though.
Another small win for Right to Repair. While this specific instance isn't far-reaching, it is part of an overall trend that is increasingly favoring the consumer and small businesses.
Yeah, as an electrician it's nice to see. Means more work for us and happier customers for them.
There's a great video about this whole stupid ordeal. If you haven't seen it, check it out.
Wasn't there a guy with a tool to diagnose and fix before this? Is this win only going through because ifixit is another corpo wanting some of the money?
The machines were exposed as designed to break specifically so they had to be paid to fix them all.
Then someone sued someone ten years ago And now they can legally fix them in house.
I'm just hoping the original guy gets somerjing from all this.
That's cool
Still boycotting due to their support of Israel
https://www.bdsmovement.net/act-now-against-these-companies-profiting-from-genocide
It won't make any difference as it is unlikely any manager would allow their people to touch machines like this. No sane insurance company would allow other than trained techs to work on such machines.
Managers were already doing it until the company that makes the machine invoked the DMCA to stop them.
It's not their workers who'll be fixing it, it'll be their regional handyman or a subcontractor like me.
McDonald's in particular has a well-established maintenance infrastructure
Doesn't this open up the number of techs that they can get in which makes them cheaper? Then you are more likely to get a tech who tells you exactly what is being done wrong that causes it to stop working. If I recall correctly, it is often something done incorrectly during the cleaning process.