North Carolina Fights Back Against Lexmark

ngrier writes "Seems that at least some aren't sitting idly by, while printer manufacturers try to assert total control. The North Carolina legislature just approved a measure which guarantees the consumer's right to refill ink cartridges. For history of the Lexmark DMCA-related story, involving the company placing copyright-protected code in their printer cartridges in order to prevent competitors from producing compatible cartridges, there are previous Slashdot posts about it here(1), here(2), and here(3)."

competition is good for the consumer...

[ravenousbugblatter]

For anyone wanting cheap ink cartridges here's a weird place you can check out, called lasermonks [lasermonks.com].

More on topic, if this bill get's signed it'll be interesting to see if similar legislation is passed in other states.

Toner vs. ink

[My name isn't Tim]

The big money is in toner not inkjet ink. Toner cartridges are the cartridges that Lexmark put anti-refill technology on. Things like counting the amount of times the drum roles restricting the cartridge to so many pages printed (even if there's still toner left in the cartridge!) there are companies out there that can circumvent this. check out Multilaser [multilaser.com]

Re:I wonder...

[RollingThunder]

I wonder how long before you see "intro" ink cartridges (with only like 25% filled) being supplied with the original printer?
I think three or four years ago?

Bill Doesn't Address DMCA Problem

[David Hume]

It appears the bill doesn't address the DMCA problem. As the article states:

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state House agreed Tuesday to Senate changes to a bill that would give printer owners the right to refill any printer ink cartridge, voiding

purchase agreements that ban the practice.

(emphasis added) http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-371743.html

It appears the North Carolina law simply declares void contractual agreements not to refill printer ink cartridges as being against the public policy of the state. While this might be necessary for such refilling to be legal, it does not appear that this law is by itself sufficient to make it legal.

The law does not address the DMCA problem. That is, even if in North Carolina a contractual provision cannot prevent someone from refilling ink cartridges because said provision is void under this North Carolina law, this doesn't prevent a printer manufacturer from filing a DMCA claim against a company that makes the refilling kits.

Under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI of the Constitution), the State of North Carolina may have been unable to address the DMCA issue, and indeed may have recognized that fact. Article VI provides:

Article VI

All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

See:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitu ti on.articlevi.html

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/ article06/

As FindLaw explains:

The Operation of the Supremacy Clause

When Congress legislates pursuant to its delegated powers, conflicting state law and policy must yield.7 Although the preemptive effect of federal legislation is best known in areas governed by the commerce clause, the same effect is present, of course, whenever Congress legislates constitutionally. And the operation of the supremacy clause may be seen as well when the authority of Congress is not express but implied.

[Footnote 7] Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 210 -211 (1824). See, e.g., Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 112 S.Ct. 2608 (1992); Morales v. TWA, 112 S.Ct. 2031 (1992); Maryland v. Lousiana, 451 U.S. 725, 746 (1981); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. 519, 525 (1977).

See http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/article 06/02.html#4

I have to wonder if this legislation will accomplish anything. I also have to wonder if the legislature knew that it might not accomplish anything when they passed it.

Still a silly fight

[unicorn]

The thing that continues to be overlooked by the editors here:

The chipped cartridges, are NOT the only option for these printers.

There are 2 sets of cartridges that Lexmark sells. One set, is chipped for single use, and then you're obligated to return the cartridge back to Lexmark for them to refurbish, etc. They call it a "pre-bate" basically they are rebating you for returning the empty, at the time of purchase.

If you want to reuse/refill, etc yourself, then you can buy the non-prebated inks. And then you can just go hog wild.

Caveat Emptor.

Re:Open Letter to Inkjet Printer Manufacturers

[nolife]

I'm glad to hear about your Stylus 800. I have noticed the same thing with the older printers. I still use my Stylus Color (circa 1995). Cartridges are huge and cheap, normally one cleaning cycle after sitting for a while is adequate. Ink last hundreds of sheets.

I also have an Epson C60. Not bad quality but unless I use it at least once every two weeks, I have to run the clean cycle over and over. I could not find a way to clean just the color or just the black if needed and if I take one of them out I can't run the cycle to clean the other one. A complete waste of ink everytime. Last time this happened, it was not used for about 4 months. I had to clean the heads at least 10 times to get the megenta to work and I used almost 1/2 the black in the process.

YMMV

Re:Let's do it with Apple!

[Wyatt Earp]

Actually, Apple used DMCA to keep Other World Computing from patching iDVD so it'd work with other external and internal DVD-RWs

That's all I found from looking for Apple DMCA and Apple DMCA ROM

Re:Let's do it with Apple!

[sharkman67]

This is where you are wrong. Apple is a hardware company that writes their own OS and software.

Apple makes their money on hardware sales. Period. Remeber the clone wars? Power Computing, Umax and the others qucikly developed better and more powerful machines than Apple. This almost killed them. They spent more time and money updating the OS (no profit here) while everyone purchased everyone elses hardware. if Steve Jobs had not come back in the fold and killed the clones Apple wouldn't be here today. Don't get me wrong, I was as pissed off as everyone else when the clones were killed but in the long run I now see it was the right thing to do. This same reasoning goes to why you will never see OSX on x86.

Item you missed...

[rmdyer]

Somewhere you've glossed over the fact that companies that create disposable junk increase the wear and tear on our natural environment.

Consider printer ink which you "could" buy by the liter. Instead, now we've got to buy the box, the plastic sealing, and the heavy plastic ink cartridge.

Waste, pure waste. Lexmark should be held accountable!

+100

WRONG!

[putaro]

The Mac ROMs were reverse-engineered long ago using a white-box approach - the publicly available API descriptions from Inside Macintosh were used to get a start and then they just messed with it until it worked. There was a Mac-on-Unix emulator, damn, I've forgotten the name, but it came out around 1990. Apple killed it the old-fashioned way - they bought it, circa 1996. I think portions of it made their way into the Blue Box.

Apple doesn't license MacOS to OEMs. That's how they keep people from making Mac clones. Most people want to buy a machine with an OS, not a bare box and then have to schlep over to the Apple Store to buy OS X.

Apple does not have a monopoly on the desktop market. MS does. It's a whole different ball game.

Re:I like this

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

think if Ford Motor Company tried to completely control the aftermarket by trying to control the tire you put on your car by some device, I think this Legislature would act.

Actually, I think this started to happen in the past. Ever heard of the Magnuson/Moss Warranty Act?

Neither did I, until I started putting aftermarket stuff on my truck and the Dodge dealer started getting pissy. In a nutshell, it says that no manufacturer can deny and warranty claim or make any warrany dependont on the use of any aftermarket parts, UNLESS that part can be proven to have caused the damage.

The same should apply to any other sane industry, of which computers does seem [sane] anymore.

We don't tolerate those practices anywhere else, except for computers/software. Nice to see someone pitching an official bitch about it.