FTC and DOJ want to free McDonald's ice cream machines from DMCA repair rules

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/ftc-and-doj-want-to-free-mcdonalds-ice-cream-machines-from-dmca-repair-rules/

by rbanffy • 2 years ago

286 177 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

jimbob45• 2 years ago

Revoke patents for machines that aren’t demonstrably reparable. For that matter, suspend copyright for works that aren’t purchasable.

mattashii2• 2 years ago

For that matter, suspend copyright for works that aren’t purchasable.

When do you start (or stop) counting something as "purchasable"? Does it mean I can copy the tapes of movies the day before their first screenings, but not the day after? Or if my local shop doesn't have a show on disk?

fkyoureadthedoc• 2 years ago

You do realize that the proposal would work much the same as any other law? First a little more rigor would go into it than an off the cuff HN comment. Second, if you find something ambiguous then go to court and find out.

glenstein2• 2 years ago

I understand individual actors following incentives wherever they lead. I wouldn't say condone, but understand. What I don't understand is how it came to pass that McDonalds, whom I would assume are canny and cutthroat in their own right, would find themselves maneuvered into a position like this.

Is there no equivalent phenomenon when it comes to their grills, deep fryers, drive-thru comms systems, self-order kiosks, etc?

jerf• 2 years ago

This isn't an answer, so much as a sketch of my guess at answer, but check out "path dependence": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

If they go down the right path right at the beginning, a bit of payoff in the right places in McDonalds (which, remember, can be just taking the right people out to a really nice dinner every so often), and it could be that one equipment supplier managed to go down a path that no other current supplier could ever hope to replicate because it really depends on some early decisions, and those suppliers no longer have any opportunity to make "early" decisions.

glenstein2• 2 years ago

I've heard of path dependence but had not considered it in this context. Thanks for the link!

mherkender• 2 years ago

Given the poor technical choices made regularly in old corporations, I'm guessing they had no idea what they got themselves into.

That or it's their franchisee's problem and they don't have any incentive to fix it.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

That or it's their franchisee's problem and they don't have any incentive to fix it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29326999

karaterobot• 2 years ago

I think of McDonald's as being pretty savvy, having dominated for decades in a competitive domain with large volume and low margins. In violation of Hanlon's Razor, I'd bet the reason is more malice rather than stupidity. Or rather, the specific form of malice more precisely called short-sighted greed.

LinuxBender• 2 years ago

Here [1] is a video on this topic by Johnny Harris from a couple years ago. It's been a while since I watched it but IIRC there is a conflicting relationship between specifically McDonalds the corporation and Taylor which benefits both of them but screws over the individual franchise owners. Here is an interactive map [2] that shows where all the broken machines are.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 [video][30 mins]

There is a sponsor ad from 06:49 to 08:47

[2] https://mcbroken.com/

lotsofpulp3• 2 years ago

All franchise brands do this once they have sufficient power relative to the franchisees.

Hotel brands force hotel owners to use only certain vendors, taking a kickback from the vendor. Same with restaurants/etc.

I can give a specific example. Roughly 8 years ago, IHG hotels required all of their branded hotels to only sell Coca Cola products. The only reason this would happen is if Coke paid IHG.

It has nothing to do with a person’s hotel stay. It just restricts hotel owners and hotel guests from being able to sell and buy their preferred products, such as Red Bull or Starbucks or Pepsi/Tropicana, for the benefit of Coke and IHG.

ehutch79• 2 years ago

Short answer; the franchisee pays for the repairs, and allegedly McD's corporate gets a kickback.

Supposedly, wendy's, burgerking, etc, have a model that is identical except for the opaque error system.

Info from the internet at large, so big grain of salt.

Someone1234• 2 years ago

McDonald's are the bad actor here.

There is two "McDonald's" the corporation, that requires a specific machine and by extension a specific company to repair it exclusively, and then there is a ton of "McDonald's" franchises who are the victims (paying the literal price).

So McDonald's corporate didn't get out-maneuvered, they just found a new way to extract money from their franchises, who tried to fight back (and kind of lost the first battle).

Sounds like the FTC/DOJ are stepping in to give the franchises more ammo to fight back with.

autoexec3• 2 years ago

and then there is a ton of "McDonald's" franchises who are the victims (paying the literal price).

Everybody loses in this situation. the biggest victims here are the consumers who can't get the products that they want, and have had to resort to developing/using apps to track down working machines, followed by the employees who have to deal with the constantly angry/frustrated customers, followed by the franchise owners who are losing money and disappointing their customers. The franchise owners are acting in self-defense by working around the vendor which means the vendor is losing money on service calls, and the corporation loses because (quite rightly) their image suffers for causing this mess in the first place and allowing it to continue.

cogman103• 2 years ago

grills, deep fryers, drive-thru comms systems, self-order kiosks, etc?

The key difference between all those things is there's almost no moving parts involved.

Grills are simply resistive heaters and a thermostat that will outlast everyone.

Deep fryers are exactly the same, but with a tub to put in oil.

Drive through comms systems are simply speakers/telephone systems with the only moving part being the speaker itself. (The rest is software).

And The kiosks are basically just giant touch screens with a small computer running everything.

Ice cream is different. It's a thick highly spoil-able product being pushed through tubes which need to be clean. It involves a refrigerant and often a mixing device to keep the ice cream from freezing solid. Mcdonalds isn't the only one with icecream machines that constantly break down. If you notice, everyone has this problem. It's simply a hard product to serve in a sanitary way using machinery.

7thaccount3• 2 years ago

Negative. Yes, others break down, but at a MUCH lower rate. It's a scam.

jdietrich• 2 years ago

Deep fryers are exactly the same, but with a tub to put in oil.

Not really true. The fryers used by McDonalds and the vast majority of QSRs are digitally controlled have a fairly sophisticated recirculating filter system to keep the shortening in good condition. The state of this system is much less critical from a food safety standpoint, but it can be extremely hazardous to employees for obvious reasons. The pressure fryers used by fried chicken restaurants are potentially even more hazardous. To my knowledge, none of these systems have weird DMCA-protected firmware to prevent unauthorised maintenance.

NotYourLawyer• 2 years ago

All of the things you just mentioned break down regularly. A restaurant is a hot, dirty, greasy environment.

Anon_451• 2 years ago

The grills used by McDonalds are a bit more complex than a flat hot surface. They cook both sides of the burger simultaneously using "clamshells" lined with a heat reflective material, which automatically raise using hydraulics on a timer. Perhaps not as complex as an ice cream machine, but definitely not your griddle at home.

Edit: likewise, the fry machine has a self-propelled hopper which splits the raw fries up into batches.

shuntress3• 2 years ago

Is there some reason I'm not understanding why McDonald's can't or won't just change vendors? Why is there no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream machine market?

bogwog• 2 years ago

Why is there no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream machine market?

Maybe patents? That's what they're for, after all.

AaronM• 2 years ago

Mcdonalds the corporation benefits from the argeement while the Mcdonalds franchises suffer from the same agreement.

shuntress3• 2 years ago

Ah, so this is just a backdoor fee in the franchise agreement?

You (the franchisee) must use this specific machine that breaks all the time and for repairs to that machine you must use this specific vendor with whom we (the franchisor) have a "special" deal.

avs733• 2 years ago

Why is there no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream machine market?

There is plenty of competition in the commercial-grade ice cream machine market. There is no competition in the commercial-grade ice cream machine for mcdonalds franchisee market

ncr100• 2 years ago

Is the DMCA worth keeping? There have been many anti-consumer news stories citing the DMCA as the linch pin.

LordKeren2• 2 years ago

It could definitely use a strong revision / overhaul. But it is also the reason many sites can exist without being sued in to the ground over hosting copyright infringing material.

DRM itself seems like the most pointed issue with the DMCA, but any change that reduces the efficacy or DRM is going to be fought by every large company in America

kube-system13• 2 years ago

Most websites with user submitted content would not be able to exist without DMCA safe harbor provisions. The status quo before the whole "DMCA takedown request" process became a thing was that websites were liable for any user submitted content that was in violation. If the DMCA was repealed today, and tomorrow someone posted copyright content here on HN, then HN would be liable for copyright infringement. A repeal of the DMCA would essentially be a death sentence for social media.

zer00eyz4• 2 years ago

> A repeal of the DMCA would essentially be a death sentence for social media.

How is this a bad thing? If we leave an exemption for search I would consider this a positive.

anonymousab2• 2 years ago

There have been initiatives and proposals from various legislators and interested parties to revamp the DMCA. Without fail, they all seem to universally make things worse for the rights of the consumer and small creators while vastly increasing corporate power. A few token concessions to normal people that inevitably have large loopholes or wording that make them actually meaningless.

So it may be the case that, while it is really shitty in a lot of ways, there is currently no way to open up that Pandora's box and change the DMCA without things getting much worse. The incentives and influences in place for legislators today are simply too perverse.

thrtythreeforty• 2 years ago

Parts of the DMCA are alright, but I think section 1201 should be outright repealed. Everything it intends to cover, can already be covered under either "copyright infringement" or "theft of service."

On top of that, I'd like to see certain forms copyright infringement for the sake of repairing/maintaining equipment, be made legal (so you can legally hack a tractor to get it to run, without relying on a fair use defense). Of course this is a much more complex discussion than just repealing 1201.

pierat3• 2 years ago

The real answer here is REMOVING the DMCA on criminalizing reverse engineering and DRM.

If its your property, you should legally speaking tell any OTHER company to rightly fuck off about restrictions on your property.

Intellectual property rights (copyright, patent, trademark) should NOT have any ground in restricting property rights of things directly owned. Instead, we see shit like Iphones where they use the term "SELL", and then continual and ongoing restrictions by the FORMER OWNER.

If a company wants to maintain control, they should RENT it, with an explicit, simple to read rental agreement.

kstrauser4• 2 years ago

As the owner of an iPhone, I can legally do whatever I want with it. The restrictions are on developers who sign agreements with Apple. Nothing stops me legally from jailbreaking my own phone.

pierat3• 2 years ago

Which legally speaking, hogwash.

This link covers 15 years of DMCA abuse, which you say doesn't apply to you.

https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-ye...

Your ignorance of this terrible law is not immunity of this law. Apple could as easily destroy your device with no recourse, or sue YOU personally for "defeat of technical prevention".

notherhacker2• 2 years ago

No this is false. If this law wasn't in place you could pay a professional service to jailbreak and modify your iphone for you.

jmyeet2• 2 years ago

I see the expected comments about addressing symptoms here. Yes, intellectual property lock-in is bad. Confusion over why McDonald's put up with this (as in, in an idealized view of a free market, that problem would resolve itself).

The problem is capitalism. And it's working as intended.

IP, by definition, is just an enclosure [1]. McDonald's the corporation has an adversarial relationship with its franchisees and you see this in every franchise. The head corporation will simply try to extract the maximum possible wealth from their franchisees, even to their detriment.

Profits tend to decrease over time. To keep profits growing, it inevitably leads to cutting quality to lower costs and predating on your customers, franchisees and employees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

LordKeren2• 2 years ago

I’m not sure changing capitalism is a very viable solution to malfunctioning ice cream machines

shuntress3• 2 years ago

Ok so, this is good for McDonalds actually?

jmyeet2• 2 years ago

In the short-term financial sense, yes.

McDonald's gave an exclusive contract for a particular ice cream machine. They then locked down those machines so only first-party repairers can fix them. It's a means of extracting wealth from the franchisees. The ice creame machine maker makes money on these service call outs so they have no incentive to make them reliable (the opposite, actually). And I'm sure McDonald's gets a piece of those service call outs.

Now does this do long-term damage to the McDonald's brand? Maybe. But nobody actually cares about that.

criddell• 2 years ago

They may have an adversarial relationship with franchisees, but the McDonald's corporation owns and runs 2800 restaurants themselves. You would think that's enough self-inflicted pain that they would do something.

matheusmoreira• 2 years ago

The problem is not capitalism, it's a very specific part of it: intellectual property. The notion that you can own ideas is fundamentally broken and nonsensical, it's logically reducible to attempting to claim ownership over numbers. The economies and laws that arose out of it are fundamentally exploitative. Corporations put a little software on a machine and suddenly they have complete control over what you can and can't do with it, any attempt to resist is felony contempt of business model.

bell-cot4• 2 years ago

Better Idea: A Lemon Law for commercial equipment. Doesn't matter if Taylor uses copyright, DMCA, patents, contract law, replace-every-10-hours proprietary filters, brittle plastic gears, or what - companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap on the economy need to suffer sustained fiscal agony.

kube-system13• 2 years ago

That doesn't really make any sense in the context of a franchise. AFAIK McDonalds franchises are required to buy those specific Taylor machines.

bell-cot4• 2 years ago

Why doesn't it make sense? Taylor makes crap, Taylor sells crap to "Smallville Burgers, LLC", Taylor pays agonizing penalties & fines. Doesn't matter if the victim bought the Taylor equipment because McD's contract required it, or because their daughter is a Swiftie.

7thaccount3• 2 years ago

It does because McDonald's isn't the one that suffers. It's the franchise owners having revenue extracted by them from the ice cream company and McDonald's corporate.

Taylor makes perfectly good machines for other restaurants iirc.

HeyLaughingBoy• 2 years ago

The problem exists outside the arena of franchisor/franchisee relationships. The downthread idea of a DMCA exemption for repair reasons is a very good one.

Reason077• 2 years ago

”McDonalds franchises are required to buy those specific Taylor machines.”

This is the weird part. Why doesn’t McDonald’s step in and certify an additional equipment supplier so that franchisees have a choice?

This would put competitive pressure on Taylor to improve their machines, since franchisees are likely to avoid equipment that is unreliable or has high maintenance costs.

McDonald’s customers would be happier too. It reflects poorly on the McDonald’s brand that there is this constant guessing game (or having to check in the app) of whether shakes and flurries etc are available at any given time/location.

mattmaroon3• 2 years ago

They used to be, but have not been for like four years. But most of them still choose it anyway, because it is a perfectly good machine, and even with their ridiculous repair restrictions, the economic case is still better than the competitor.

pwg• 2 years ago

Better Idea: A Lemon Law for commercial equipment.

Even better idea:

Amend the DMCA to permanently add an exemption for bypassing DRM for repair purposes.

Of course it likely won't happen because those most impacted by the adjustment of the statute would buy a sufficient number of congress critters to block passage of the amendment.

Simulacra• 2 years ago

Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy.

madeofpalk• 2 years ago

That is actually what the FTC and DOJ is proposing here, when reading their actual ask rather than blogspam poorly rehashing it.

This proceeding concerns possible temporary exemptions to the DMCA’s prohibition against circumvention of technological protection measures (“TPMs”) that control access to copyrighted works, including functional software that facilitates the repair and monitoring of consumer and industrial product

McDonalds soft serve are mentioned only as an example of what would benefit

As described by Public Knowledge and iFixit, four “index” examples of commercial and industrial device categories would benefit from the proposed expansion: commercial soft serve machines, proprietary diagnostic kits, programmable logic controllers, and enterprise IT
The proposed expansion would benefit competition in areas beyond those outlined by Public Knowledge and iFixit. For example, increasingly sophisticated agricultural equipment often employs onboard computers that control error identification and repair, limiting options for farmers in need of quick repairs.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ATR-FTC-JointCo...

bsza2• 2 years ago

It will probably cost you a lot of money to figure out how to bypass the DRM though, assuming that’s even possible at all. That’s money you should never have to pay in the first place.

extraduder_ire• 2 years ago

To what extent though? If you remove the blu-ray drive from a ps3, it will not play any games, even digital ones. The only way to fix it is to install a noBD custom firmware or use custom firmware and recovery tools to "remarry" another drive to the console.

I don't think either of those things should be illegal, but they currently are. Having an exception may result in designs changing to make such repairs easier, however.

dimitrios14• 2 years ago

Best Idea: companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap on the market naturally go out of business because people freely choose to no longer purchase their unreliable and high-maintenance crap.

Y_Y• 2 years ago

So you're proposing to change the people. I can't imagine that's easier than changing the law, even if I agree with you that the free market should solve the problem.

robocat• 2 years ago

Perfectly spherical economic thinking.

How many times do you see friends buying unreliable rubbish? I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and they were predictably complaining about the high maintenance costs of their VW. Another friend was spending huge amounts every year on their very good looking Jeep.

Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good.

Even specialists can't be expected to judge correctly.

Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help.

Plenty of the "solutions" suggested here cause other harms or are gameable or otherwise unworkable.

xkcd-sucks• 2 years ago

For every "free market" there is an equal and opposite "can remain irrational longer than you can wait" it seems

mattmaroon3• 2 years ago

Taylor isn’t selling lemons. Their machines are among the best. They simply (like any soft serve machine) can’t withstand improper use and they’re being run mainly by teenagers who don’t give a shit. The lack of serviceability is the problem here.

McDonald’s has for a few years been allowing franchisees to use Carpigiani (the other big brand in commercial ice cream machines) but they’re not better machines and while they are much more open in regards to servicing, parts must come from Italy and wait times are longer. Most of the franchisees are still opting for Taylor even though they have a choice.

ToucanLoucan3• 2 years ago

The average age of a McDonalds employee is 23. https://www.zippia.com/mcdonalds-crew-member-jobs/demographi...

I'd also like to add my own experience with jobs that tell me constantly to go faster and faster: that you have to do everything so fast requires a certain level of durability in your equipment and tools. If you are moving fast, you have less leeway to be careful with things.

nightfly• 2 years ago

brittle plastic gears

That fail protecting the rest of the mechanisms

stouset• 2 years ago

brittle plastic gears

FWIW, in most cases this is done intentionally not as a cost-saving measure but to improve repairability. It's cheaper and easier to have a 5¢ nylon gear fail when subjected to out-of-spec loads than to have catastrophic failure of multiple structural parts that happen to be the weakest link in the kinetic chain from the motor.

This does also cause them to fail through regular use, but having to do minor maintenance is a fundamental aspect of operating machines that are designed to be repaired and not simply thrown away.

Atotalnoob• 2 years ago

Do all of them need to be plastic, or can just one?

Typically what I have seen is one gear is plastic and the rest are metal

adolph• 2 years ago

when subjected to out-of-spec loads

A clutch similar to a drill could be used to protect a drive chain.

aow83u45oaw8u• 2 years ago

Why should McDonalds be individually saved from a shitty contract that they signed? How about we fix the crappy DMCA anti-circumvention clause that has been causing problems for tons of people since 1999? Oh, because this will provide press coverage and notoriety for somebody who's probably up for reelection soon.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

Sometimes a contract is a bad contract, but it's not known how bad at first reading. There should absolutely be a mechanism for nullifying in whole or in part contracts that are this way. Especially if the contract forces you to purchase equipment that does not work. After all, a contract is just a piece of paper than can easily be torn up. You're trying to make it some magical binding spell type of thing instead

LoganDark• 2 years ago

After all, a contract is just a piece of paper than can easily be torn up.

The piece of paper just represents the contract, other forms of contracts exist (such as digital, verbal). I agree there should be an easier way to get out of shitty ones. But make it too easy and you make contracts too weak. It's a balancing act.

treyd• 2 years ago

There is a mechanism, a judge can decide to unilaterally annul a contract and order the parties involve to form a new one that they mediate the negotiation and terms of.

connicpu• 2 years ago

McDonald's the corporation is not being hurt by this contract, in fact they are heavily profiting from it. Independently owned individual franchises are the ones suffering from this machine that corporate forces them to use.

s1artibartfast• 2 years ago

I don't understand what the public problem is here.

People are free not to operate a franchise. Why should I, John Q. Public, care if some restaurant owner enters into a shitty contract with McDonald corporation or a ice cream machine vendor.

Ice cream isn't exactly a human right.

ck2• 2 years ago

The final laws that eventually solidify for "right to repair" are going to be so corrupt for industry they will be useless for consumers.

Build an "open source" ice cream machine.

Not so easy for a tractor I guess but it sounds like China could make one that would last a year for a fraction of the price.

scarface_74• 2 years ago

Corporate likes the status quo since they get a kickback from the manufacturer for each repair

The more I read about franchises, the more I’m convinced that most people are just “buying a job” and not starting a business.

https://www.mashed.com/178309/how-much-mcdonalds-franchise-o...

The rate of return from starting a McDonald’s franchise is less than the average return of just throwing your money into an index fund and most owners work ungodly hours

20after42• 2 years ago

Just being a manager in the fast food industry is a really bad job, also. Overworked and underpaid. I wouldn't want anything to do with any of it.

bombcar6• 2 years ago

The key is they're buying a job they can buy more of later; if you get a McDs off the ground (you need about $500k in cash and assets - like land, you can borrow the rest) you will have a much easier time expanding.

Most McDs franchises run a few of them.

whartung• 2 years ago

The McDs ice cream experience is just flat out the worst.

It's like ice cream lottery. "Boy, a bit of ice cream might be nice!"

And it's a total crapshoot. Drive up with no idea whether it's going to happen or not. You want to just write it off, give up, "McDs doesn't sell ice cream".

But then you go another day, and there it is on the menu, teasing you!

Lies. Deception.

So aggravating.

DANmode2• 2 years ago

You know who doesn't lie about ice cream availability?

Ice cream parlours!

anonymousab2• 2 years ago

Since this is a case of McDonald's corporate and Taylor joining hands to exploit their franchisees, I'm not sure how this will help.

If they get it have the legal right to repair the machines, it's kinda pointless if McDonald's corporate merely needs to send down an order such that all franchises must not repair their own ice cream machines, as they would for any other kickback-driven franchise requirement.

bee_rider• 2 years ago

Wow, the apocryphal story I thought was just that the machines were a pain to clean, so they were always “broken.” I had no idea there was a whole corporate kickback scheme behind it all.

reilly3000• 2 years ago

I was a bit shocked to learn about a $900M lawsuit over a Raspberry Pi device. At first I thought it was Taylor suing them out of existence, but it’s actually Kytch suing McDonald’s

https://www.farm-equipment.com/blogs/6-opinions-columns/post...

lxe• 2 years ago

We should add more specific exceptions to 1201 of DMCA to prevent rampant abuse and this unrepairability nonsense.

dexwiz• 2 years ago

The whole Taylor repair scenario reeks of some sort of corporate kickback scheme. Taylor makes a deal with corporate that forces franchises to buy a subpar machine. Every time the machine goes down Taylor gets a repair order and corporate extracts power by potentially revoking the franchise if the owner seeks other means to repair it.

Talking to McDonalds workers one main complaint was that every item on the menu required a special machine. McDonald’s more closely resembles a factory than a kitchen.

gamepsys• 2 years ago

every item on the menu required a special machine

* One of McDonald's well known qualities is how consistent their products are. This is largely because every McDonald uses the same ingredients, the same equipment, and the same process.

* Assembly line production is a key part of how McDonald's maintains speed. Not surprised to see that the equipment resembles factory equipment.

* All of this is highly visible to the customer. You see inside the kitchen when you place an order inside the restaurant.

anonymouse0083• 2 years ago

That's curious - we use the Taylor machines with almost '0 downtime' besides maintenance (scheduled and rarely interferes with customers). The tech who installed our machines says it's all a skill issue with anyone who can't keep these machines up. According to him, the issues are rare / negligent maintenance and very old product left entirely too long in the machine. He will have one from our machines, but never from some other establishments.

rkagerer• 2 years ago

Out of curiosity, who's "we"?

sirspacey• 2 years ago

I suspect Taylor’s social media listening company. This looks pretty similar to the boilerplate response they put on Reddit, where they get torn to shreds by McD managers who are Reddit users and disagree. Doubt we’ll see that response here.

jolux• 2 years ago

The specific one used at McDonald's, the C602? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_ice_cream_machine

The C602 is supposedly exclusive to McDonald's, which if you watch the video posted elsewhere in this thread, explains why their machines are less reliable than those of other chains.

anonymouse0083• 2 years ago

You’re right there, we have different ones but same principles of milk and sugar beverages (ratio strongly matters in operation / performance)

notherhacker2• 2 years ago

They shouldn't get an exception, the law is painful as designed and consumers have to deal with it so should they.

The underlying laws should be removed. IP laws like this are unenforceable at a global level and don't help/protect the consumers. All they do is create artificial walled gardens. There is no reason that its illegal to jailbreak an iPhone, or repair a tractor, or hack your bmw seat warmer. This is going to continue to lead us to a corporate hellscape.

China has a more free market in this regard until the party shows up with a gun to tell you to do something for political reasons, but meanwhile they are able to leverage a more free market.

kevincox• 2 years ago

I completely agree. The DCMA Anti-Circumvention rules are just a hack to make it easier to enforce copyright protections. But why should we make that easier? Why do we have a law making it illegal to do something that may be used for illegal purposes?

It's a dumb law, let's get rid of it.

runlevel1• 2 years ago

In the US, IP law flows from this line of the Constitution:

[Congress shall have power] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Are laws like this really helping promote the progress of science and useful arts? Because it sure does seem like it's doing the opposite.

FTC and DOJ want to free McDonald's ice cream machines from DMCA repair rules

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