Canon can't get enough toner chips, so it's telling customers how to defeat its DRM:
For years, printers have been encumbered with digital rights management systems that prevent users from buying third-party ink and toner cartridges. Printer companies have claimed that their chip-enabled cartridges can "enhance the quality and performance" of their equipment, provide the "best consumer experience," and "protect [the printers] from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges."
[...] Lexmark, HP, Canon, Brother, and others all effectively require users to purchase first-party ink and toner.
[...] "Due to the worldwide continuing shortage of semiconductor components, Canon is currently facing challenges in procuring certain electronic components that are used in our consumables for our multifunction printers (MFP)," a Canon support website says in German. "In order to ensure a continuous and reliable supply of consumables, we have decided to supply consumables without a semiconductor component until the normal supply takes place again."
[...] But Canon has been having a hard time getting chips amid the shortage, so the company is telling owners of its imageRUNNER large-office printers how to defeat its own protections against cartridges that don't have chips.
The software on these printers comes with a relatively simple way to defeat the chip checks. Depending on the model, when an error message occurs after inserting toner, users can press either "I Agree," "Close," or "OK." When users press that button, the world does not end. Rather, Canon says users may find that their toner cartridge doesn't give them a low-toner warning before running empty.
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Settlement sees HP compensating some customers in Europe with $1.35 million fund:
HP continues to pay for abruptly blocking third-party ink from its printers. The company has agreed to pay compensation to additional customers impacted by HPs use of DRM to prevent third-party ink and toner from working in its printers. The settlement pertaining to customers in Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal comes after the company already agreed to a settlement in the US and was fined in Italy.
HP printer owners were annoyed, to say the least, in 2016 when HP introduced Dynamic Security, a firmware update that prevented ink and toner cartridges lacking an HP chip from working in HP printers. Customers who already owned these printers suddenly faced error messages preventing them from printing with cartridges that were fully functioning before. At the time, HP claimed that the move was about helping customers avoid counterfeit and subpar ink and protecting HP's IP. However, it largely felt like a business tactic aimed at protecting one of HP's biggest profit drivers at the time, which was tied to a declining industry.
[...] Euroconsumers noted that while it alleged that "consumers were not properly informed that Dynamic Security would cause printers to reject certain non-HP replacement ink cartridges," the settlement isn't "an acknowledgment of any fault or wrongdoing by HP nor as an acknowledgment by Euroconsumers of the groundlessness of its claims."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Mockingbird on Tuesday January 11 2022, @06:26AM
"Nobody could have predicted the levees would fail!" GW Bush, CEO of PrintersAreUsa.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:33PM (9 children)
Are you kidding me? And they built up a story around this piece of super secret information?
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Tuesday January 11 2022, @01:44PM (8 children)
Can you be to surprised tho? What did you expect for a printer? A biometrics solution? Super-elite-haxxor-skillz?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 11 2022, @02:51PM
One would expect to need to install a patch or something. Not do what normal people do. Which is read what it shows when you put a 3rd party cartridge in the device. 'cause I'm not paying their prices for a cartridge.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @02:57PM (5 children)
My surprise is that this is a story. "If you press 'Ok' your printer will still work" sounds like a support forum answer. I suppose it is interesting that the chip shortage has this much of a trickle down.
I'd actually be much more interested in some sort of in-depth analysis of the chip shortage. What chips. What industries. What are the real cause and effects? I have a hard time believing we were riding the bleeding edge of the Just In Time distribution all this time that this didn't happen before just due to random fluctuations. Or maybe it did. It's just when you hear these piecemeal stories you wonder if "chip shortage" is the default excuse to cover up other problems, much like if you ordered something and it didn't ship on time, the default answer is "global supply chain issues." Is that the real reason? I don't know, but it is a nice plausible excuse to cover up many other problems. In this case if Canon is selling toner without the chips, that would suggest they don't have the chips, but I'm wondering why these chips really aren't available. And don't just say 'supply chain issues'!!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 11 2022, @03:42PM (1 child)
One does wonder what kind of bleeding edge chips (massive overstatement hopefully) goes into a printer cartridge "DRM" circuit. I guess the upside to this is that they really should just be doing away with that shit all together. It didn't use to be a thing, the cartridge then clearly works without so what the fuck is the point of it? Perhaps it's just better to go back to dot-matrix for the most part, cause you can't fit a DRM chip into a ribbon dipped in ink (that is not a challenge!). I guess you can put on to measure the level of ink in the tray or how moist the band is or something equally stupid.
That said isn't the chips that goes into this something utterly trivial? There is apparently a shortage on all the chips then from the high tech to the very bottom of the barrel. I guess everyone does indeed do JIT delivery for all the crap. It's what made the world go around. Everyone drank that cool-aid.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday January 11 2022, @04:39PM
> One does wonder what kind of bleeding edge chips (massive overstatement hopefully)
If the car manufacturers are to be believed, it's the opposite problem. Canon is probably using a tiny $0.02 microcontroller that's been around for decades in there. When the IC manufacturers spun down they cut off supply from the last profitable commodity chips upwards.
It'd be pretty funny if their solution was to throw some super server-scale 16 core ARM chip with 32gb of ram into every printer cartridge though. Maybe that'd justify the expense.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday January 12 2022, @08:42AM (2 children)
So would I - that is the sort of story we look for when processing the submissions queue! I take it you are preparing a submission now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2022, @08:25PM (1 child)
Sorry, forgive my lack of clarity. I wasn't bitching about the choice of posting the story here. I am actually a big fan of this site and the people who run it, and I do submit stories myself. I was bitching that it was worth a story for Ars, or at least bitching about the content of the story not matching the more sensationalized headline (hitting the "Ok" button is how to "defeat its DRM"?). If you can close a window and it keeps working, albeit not providing some sort of performance information such as the amount of ink available (which apparently is the whole purpose of having the chip there), that isn't DRM! If the printer refused to work at all, that would be a DRM issue. I was at least unrealistically expecting some sort of cleverness, like using a paperclip as a jumper, or overwriting an install CD with a Sharpie, but it didn't even have that.
But I will take up the challenge tonight and see if I can find some sort of analysis of the chip shortage.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday January 12 2022, @09:46PM
And I wasn't being critical about your desire for such a story. Don't worry, we seem to be on the same page. But if none of the technical sources has written such a report then nobody can submit it as a story. However, if you DO find such a story then by all means push it onto the queue - because, like you, I would love to read it.
I wonder if that option was clearly explained in the manual for the printer? - it appears to have not been quite so 'obvious' to the owners. It might also be worth looking for the obvious way to circumvent the DRM on other brands of printer too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @03:53PM
Ok Canon
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @03:15PM (1 child)
As a graphics professional, I rely on my equipment to deliver the best consumer experience. I called HP today and learned that they were smart enough to secure a long-term supply of their DRM chips, so I'll be switching all my printers over to HP so I can continue to use chip-enabled cartridges that enhance quality and performance. My customers deserve no less.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @04:05PM
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=22/01/04/204227 [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/03/26/0934249 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Tuesday January 11 2022, @04:38PM
I bought the Artisan 1430 printer with the express intent of bypassing the proprietary cartridge requirement,. It works great and now I have gigantic external reservoirs of each of the 6 inks.
After being gouged for years for ink, it was a no brainer.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @06:51PM
I am not a lawyer, but doesn't the DMCA outlaw circumventing DRM? Can you legally press that button? Even if the manufacturer told you to?
They may just be setting you up ...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @08:10PM (1 child)
If you buy drm-enabled printers you are a stupid whore. If it weren't for dumb slaves like you, the first manufacturer who tried this shit would have had that whole line flop and the rest of the industry would have been put on notice. Instead, the walmart shopping morons just buy whatever these scum put on the shelves. When will you have some self respect, you shameless skanks?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2022, @02:57AM
Adjust your medication.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2022, @05:30AM (1 child)
Another useless application of silicon. I was reading the other day about chip shortage effecting vehicle manufacture. I drive a car made in 1991. The most complicated piece of electronics in it is the analogue quarts clock. It does everything a car does with no chips. So why all the chips?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2022, @11:27AM
Fuel efficiency.
On board diagnostics.
Antilock breaks(?)