Many devices have been made difficult or financially nonviable to repair, whether by design or because of a lack of parts, manuals, or specialty tools. Machines that make ice cream, however, seem to have a special place in the hearts of lawmakers. Those machines are often broken and locked down for only the most profitable repairs.
The Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice have asked the US Copyright Office (PDF) to exempt "commercial soft serve machines" from the anti-circumvention rules of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The governing bodies also submitted proprietary diagnostic kits, programmable logic controllers, and enterprise IT devices for DMCA exemptions.
"In each case, an exemption would give users more choices for third-party and self-repair and would likely lead to cost savings and a better return on investment in commercial and industrial equipment," the joint comment states. Those markets would also see greater competition in the repair market, and companies would be prevented from using DMCA laws to enforce monopolies on repair, according to the comment.
[...] Every three years, the Copyright Office allows for petitions to exempt certain exceptions to DMCA violations (and renew prior exemptions). Repair advocates have won exemptions for farm equipment repair, video game consoles, cars, and certain medical gear. The exemption is often granted for device fixing if a repair person can work past its locks, but not for the distribution of tools that would make such a repair far easier. The esoteric nature of such "release valve" offerings has led groups like the EFF to push for the DMCA's abolishment.
(Score: 3, Funny) by EJ on Monday March 18, @11:07AM (12 children)
Named The MCDONALDS Act
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday March 18, @11:17AM (11 children)
Are they the new Disney?
That said the ice cream machine at McD have a worrying amount of breakdowns. So much so it's a basic joke among the masses. It's almost as if it's engineered to fail, or the people operating it are idiots. They must be loosing a fortune on it, after all it's broken all the time.
(Score: 2) by Ingar on Monday March 18, @12:22PM (9 children)
From what I've read, they're not almost engineered to fail, they are engineered to fail.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @02:29PM (8 children)
So, what's stopping McDs from hiring an engineering consultant company to design, manufacture and maintain their own line of ice cream machines? They could even sell them to other franchises for a profit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by Deep Blue on Monday March 18, @03:17PM (4 children)
Don't McD already own (atleat partially) the ice cream machine maker they use?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @03:57PM (3 children)
One would assume, if they did own the company providing the ice cream machines and maintenance, that McDs could then dictate the terms of that service, reap the profits, etc. In other words: if McDs does have corporate control of the ice cream machine company, then this is Congress attempting to settle an internal corporate dysfunction within McDs. Which is just a higher level of tragic comedy than writing exception cases into the DMCA.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Monday March 18, @11:23PM (2 children)
The problem is that McDs corporate does not make food. They sell franchises to and extract recurring revenue from people who serve food to the public.
If the franchisees have to pay more to get the damned ice-cream machine fixed, all the better as far as corporate is concerned, as long as corporate has an interest in the machine manufacturer (they do).
The "dysfunction" is functioning as designed to transfer franchise profits to corporate profits.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 19, @03:32AM (1 child)
I will admit, in the last 20 years we have patronized various McDs around the SouthEast US a total of 3 times, and every time we bought caramel sundaes, and amazingly enough every time the ice cream machine was working...
All in all, this seems like a really silly thing for Congress to get involved with, unless it's for them to realize how the DMCA acts to harm their constituency rather than help them, and repeal some or all of it. Instead, they'll just make it more complex with exception patches, because lawyers gotta eat too, right?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday March 22, @12:24AM
Unfortunately true. I would much rather them realize the problem is generalized rather than patching it piecemeal. We can only hope this patch is the camel's nose under the tent. I'll just be over here not holding my breath.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 18, @04:24PM
Something tells me the likely answers to that question are why the government is getting involved.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Informative) by tekk on Monday March 18, @04:47PM (1 child)
My recollection is this:
Remember that McDonald's is not a restaurant. McDonald's the business is in the business of real estate and logistics. Franchisees are required to buy the McDonalds approved ice cream machine which requires expensive maintenance. If I recall correctly either McDonald's itself or the higher ups in McDonald's have heavy investments in the company which makes those machines and is the only authorized repairer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @05:12PM
Yeah, I suspect as much: a structural problem within the McDs franchise between the overlords and their franchisees... so we need a Federal Legislative session to protect the rights of the franchisees? The chain is too big to fail? One part of why I never considered going down the road of purchasing a franchise license was the lack of control... Not that I had the money to purchase / run a Rax location, but here's what happened to them 5 years after I was working there: https://weirdmarketingtales.com/the-incredible-downfall-of-rax-roast-beef-in-1991-a-ghost-story/ [weirdmarketingtales.com]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, @01:11PM
Thing is in many other countries the McD ice cream machines don't have that many breakdowns.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday March 18, @01:07PM (23 children)
Gee Congress, how about you actually look into the issue and solve the root problem. I'm pretty sure Mickey Dee's ice cream machines are just the squeakiest wheel in a piss poor wheel mounting system.
See also TicTok vs Meta, Google, et all.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @02:27PM (22 children)
I feel like a "root cause analysis" of the problem is in order. In other words: what actual good is DMCA doing in the economy? Here we have an obvious example of direct harm.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 18, @03:00PM (20 children)
The DMCA protects property rights. Without such a mechanism, there would be a huge disincentive to innovate. Why would a business invest in developing a new piece of hardware or software if there is no way to protect it from use by a competitor who invested nothing to develop it?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by weirsbaski on Monday March 18, @03:41PM (12 children)
The DMCA protects intellectual-property rights, ostensibly to prevent digital media from being copied. An ice-cream maker is device to do mechanical work.
Would Ford be in the right to use the DCMA to prevent independent shops from changing brake-pads on Ford-brand vehicles? And would they have a valid claim that the shops "invested nothing to develop the vehicle"?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 18, @05:55PM (5 children)
"device to do mechanical work"
You are conveniently leaving out the fact that mechanical things like ice cream makers, braking systems and John Deer tractors are all run by computers that run software. If companies are compelled to give the software away without compensation, there is little incentive to produce it in the first place.
(Score: 3, Informative) by owl on Monday March 18, @06:51PM (2 children)
Your comment is making the assumption that all three of those do actually need software inside to do their work.
An ice cream machine? Software is unlikely not at all necessary. Consider that McD's has offered ice cream since, IIRC, sometime in the 70's, well before the "add software to everything, even things that don't need it" trend. Does the software add any advantage, beyond a large touch screen to emblazon advertising upon? Unlikely for an ice cream machine.
Brakes - the actual brake components do not need software at all. The classic mechanical hydraulic brake system with fully mechanical power boost is more than good enough, and more than reliable enough. The one part that might benefit from software (and even then it is questionable) is the ABS system, and that can be designed (and has been) in such a way that if it fails, the brakes still function, you just no longer have ABS protection from wheel lockup. So software is, mostly, unnecessary here as well.
Tractors? Beyond software control of the fuel system for increased efficiency, little else in a farm tractor would much benefit from software, so shoving a Deere full of it, so Deere can use the DMCA to block all but their own repair centers, is simply a profit grabbing motive.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 18, @10:37PM (1 child)
"Your comment is making the assumption that all three of those do actually need software inside to do their work."
I can absolutely assure you, in the case of brakes and tractors they do. Cars and tractors wouldn't be legal for sale in the US or EU without the computers required to comply with government mandated safety and emission standards.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Mykl on Tuesday March 19, @12:23AM
The issue at hand is not the software that makes the device work - it's the software that locks everyone else out from maintaining the device. This is true of John Deere Tractors, McD's Ice Cream Machines, HP Printers, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Unfortunately, the law is unable to separate 'functionality' from 'lock everyone out' when it comes to software, so everything gets hit with the same stick. Given how abusive manufacturers are to their customers with respect to the lockouts, my opinion is that they deserve to lose DMCA protection for the other stuff.
Having said that, any innovative designs for hardware will be protected by Patent Law, so an ice cream machine that actually does improve the experience will be protected even without the DMCA.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday March 19, @12:09AM
No need to give away the software, not that it's worth much without the hardware anyway. Just don't lock it down so it can't be changed or so that it it refuses to inter-operate with replacement parts.
(Score: 2) by weirsbaski on Tuesday March 19, @02:22AM
They may contain computers but I left that out because none of those things have intellectual-property as their user-visible purpose: ice cream makers don't show movies they make ice cream, braking systems don't create documents they slow vehicles down, etc. Using DMCA or similar to lock these down is a bastardization of what the law was (theoretically) intended to protect.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday March 18, @05:59PM (4 children)
that is pretty much the business model that everyone has been implementing on everything they can. Anything with some kind of removable part, place a TPM chip or such bullshit in it, and *poof* using any non-authorized non-overpriced part is magically a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (Then add some phone-home tracking abilities with it and sell it to consumertards by putting the word "smart" in the name).
I'm honestly surprise they haven't locked down brake pads like that yet.
(Score: 2) by owl on Monday March 18, @07:02PM (3 children)
When you find one day on a new X car that there is a canbus connector on each caliper, and electrical contacts on the calipers to the pads, you will find they have added a TPM to the pads to prevent "substitution with aftermarket parts, for safety" reasons.
Granted, the real reason will be profit from selling all those OEM brake pads.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, @07:16PM
> ...on a new X car that there is a canbus connector on each caliper
News flash -- there are now high end cars with true brake-by-wire (electromechanical braking, EMB)-- software and electro-mechanical brake calipers, no hydraulic fluid. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-by-wire#Electro-mechanical_brakes [wikipedia.org] for a system description (which may be some years out of date).
I won't be having anything like this for many years (driving older cars), but if you buy new cars or rent them, you may be in a car with EMB soon.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @08:29PM
The one saving grace for brake pads is that the pads themselves get outrageously hot... maybe they would put something like a heat-resistant RFID tag in the pad and a reader in the caliper, but a wired connection would be hellishly expensive to make endure the lifetime of a normal pad.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 18, @11:04PM
"Granted, the real reason will be profit from selling all those OEM brake pads."
So I take it you bolded the word "profit" to emphasize how evil you consider making a profit to be. Those companies' shareholders, which likely include you indirectly, if you work for an organization with 401K or pension plan, would beg to differ.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 18, @10:30PM
At least my previous car's manufacturer (Toyota) did exactly that, though: They had specialized software for the ABS system, and only sold the devices needed to interact with the ABS system correctly to their dealers. You'd think you'd be able to change out the pads just fine without it, but in order to bleed the brakes correctly you need to interact with the ABS system, so you needed those devices. And the dealers wanting to protect their monopoly would of course not sell those devices on to independent shops.
And as long as there isn't a regulator stopping them doing exactly this sort of thing, that's exactly what they'll do.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @04:01PM
>protect it from use
Are you including protections from the owner of said hardware (or software) from being to repair their owned property?
I believe that kind of thinking is why right to repair legislation is becoming ever more necessary.
I also believe that instead of writing patches and band-aids to broken legislation, we should be reducing the quantity of legal verbiage on the active books and making it better by making it simpler.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 18, @04:29PM (3 children)
Why do the customers have to bear the burden of those protections? DRM is the reason I'm a console gamer and not a PC gamer anymore.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday March 18, @06:39PM (2 children)
What burden? There isn't one, unless you are trying to make illegal copies or otherwise circumvent the terms of the license you probably didn't read, but nonetheless legally accepted by using the product.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 18, @07:07PM
That is the sales pitch that came from those pushing that shit on you.
Destruction of fair use. Software that requires the company to be alive to unlock, meaning effectively no more permanent licenses. (digital movie purchasers have been getting boned recently, not sure if SN covered it.) DRM that actually breaks your computer. DRM that prevents you from selling the software you purchased in good faith, killing the used-games market. Playstation 4's marketing including: "you can loan your games to other people!" because Microsoft said "we need to approve it, first..." Needing a fucking right-to-repair bill. Etc.
This is a con, not a pro. 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @08:44PM
>circumvent the terms of the license you probably didn't read, but nonetheless legally accepted by using the product.
Let me introduce you to the future you are defending:
You have a choice of grocery stores, but all of them require you to agree to a TOS before purchasing anything from them. Upon eating the food, you are obliged to scan your stomach to identify the food you have consumed and activate the release of the nutrients, as specified in the TOS - the vendors wouldn't want "escape" food to make its way into pirates' digestive systems, and neither would you, would you? After all, the vendors invested a lot in the development of the soil they grow that food in...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, @05:53PM
No, that's not what DMCA is for. There's other protections for actual (innovative) stuff. DMCA came from the MAFIAA and game industries' need to keep making their faux (out of spec) CDs with copy protections and shit like that.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 19, @12:11AM
They would do it for the same reason they did it before the DMCA existed, because they like making things and selling them for a reasonable profit.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday March 18, @07:41PM
The DMCA as used vendor lock franchises lets the US market defend itself from foreign imports by having American manufacturers cartel without appearing as such. Of course, the economist would tell you this is a market failure as it only enriches the top while shifting costs down to consumers and franchise owners while making the country poorer as a whole... But that's the magic of publically owned corporation making sure everyone is invested in them through their pensions plans: Even the most trivial ice cream maker can become too-big-to-fail.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 18, @02:15PM (4 children)
Unfair and wasteful though the ice cream machine regime is, maybe it's a good thing because it pushes people away from unhealthy food?
McDonald's shakes are crappy anyway. Too thin and the chocolate flavor is weak. I remember their wood-pulp shakes of the 1970s. Yuck. And their horrible chicken nuggets that school cafeterias everywhere latched onto and made even worse. Super Size Me! They finally improved their menu, but there still isn't anything on it that I care to eat. Rather go to Taco Bell.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 18, @02:26PM (3 children)
A major component of soft serve ice cream is agar, derived from seaweed and algae:
When I worked fast food at "Rax Roast Beef Restaurant" in the mid 80s, they were proud that their shakes contained more actual dairy than any other fast food restaurant "milkshakes". I'm pretty sure Rax had 5% dairy content "more than Twice the dairy of McDonald's milkshakes!", the other competition ran 3% and less.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, @04:02PM (2 children)
> shakes contained more actual dairy
My engineering college dorm had kitchens in the suites and I happened to be the one with a blender--so lots of engineers came around to make milkshakes. We frequently used, iirc, Breyer's ice cream (very few ingredients back then), some extra milk so it would blend and a raw egg (before those were on bad lists).
I don't buy any sort of fast food milkshake, there's no comparison.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 19, @01:10PM (1 child)
Bryers still makes their "All Natural Vanilla" out of the same traditional ingredients (milk, cream, cane sugar, vanilla). The 57 other flavors are corn syrup based garbage.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 19, @05:04PM
Yep. Up until a few(?) years ago Breyer's Chocolate had a similar short list of ingredients but now as you say it's just the Vanilla--which we still buy from time to time. We're eating a lot less ice cream now than when younger...
(Score: 3, Touché) by rpnx on Monday March 18, @04:34PM (3 children)
Instead of, hey, look another problem caused by tivoization, lets make tivoization illegal, nah, instead lets make the narrowest rule to placate the protests while doing nothing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rpnx on Monday March 18, @04:37PM (2 children)
Tivoization is the root of all evil in the tech space.
Apple's app store? Tivoization of iOS prevents competition.
John Deere? Tivoization.
Cars spying on you? Tivoization.
Ban tivoization and go a step further, require hardware manufacturers to document interfaces and not produce software for their own hardware so software vendors can compete with hardware vendors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, @07:24PM (1 child)
> Ban tivoization and go a step further, require hardware manufacturers to document interfaces and not produce software for their own hardware so software vendors can compete with hardware vendors.
While I applaud your ideological stance, there may be some cases where hardware-software integration by one vendor makes sense. See for example the relatively new electromechanical braking on some high end cars (discussed elsewhere in this thread). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-by-wire#Electro-mechanical_brakes [wikipedia.org] I don't think I'm interested in 3rd party software controlling the brakes/ABS/ESC (stability control) on my car, even if that software was somehow tested/validated/certified safe by DOT/NHTSA.
(Score: 2) by rpnx on Tuesday March 19, @06:32PM
Simple. One company produces the brakes/computer system, another produces the cars. Even if we prevent the brake manufacturer from writing software, the cars manufacturer still can?
I would also posit that there's nothing stopping us from requiring regulatory verification of systems. If a company wants to sell improved software e.g. to do better self driving than what tesla provides, they should be allowed to compete, assuming they get regulatory approvals.
I'm not convinced there's a genuine safety risk though. Few if any people would want to mess with the braking system. But people might want to change the Car's UI and add integrations with Linux/Nextcloud etc. to the on screen display. Tivoization prevents that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tekk on Monday March 18, @04:49PM (1 child)
It's no longer il*legal* to fix your ice cream machine, yeah.
My bet is that it'll still violate your franchise agreement, meaning if you go 3rd party and corporate finds out about it you're done.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday March 18, @11:51PM
You nailed it. Any procedure not done to the letter of the instructions causes the machine to fault. Someone adds mix too quickly? Error. Only one vendor is allowed to service the machines. They'll show up in a few weeks, connect a laptop, clear the error, and bill you. Someone did reverse engineer the machines and The Clown threatened to pull their franchise agreement.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Monday March 18, @05:32PM
Of course we need easily fixable ice cream machines! We can't afford anything that could possibly cause our president to run out of ice cream, it would be a great national security threat!
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.