FTC and DOJ Think McDonald's Ice Cream Machines Should Be Legal To Fix (theverge.com) 66
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have urged the US Copyright Office to broaden exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's Section 1201. Specifically, the two agencies are advocating for the extension of the right to repair to include "commercial and industrial equipment," which includes McDonald's ice cream machines that are notorious for breaking down. The Verge reports: Exemptions to DMCA Section 1201 are issued every three years, as per the Register of Copyrights' recommendation. Prior exemptions have been issued for jailbreaking cellphones and repairing certain parts of video game consoles. The FTC and DOJ are asking the Copyright Office to go a step further, extending the right to repair to "commercial and industrial equipment." The comment (PDF) singles out four distinct categories that would benefit from DMCA exemptions: commercial soft serve machines; proprietary diagnostic kits; programmable logic controllers; and enterprise IT. 'In the Agencies' view, renewing and expanding repair-related exemptions would promote competition in markets for replacement parts, repair, and maintenance services, as well as facilitate competition in markets for repairable products," the comment reads.
The inability to do third-party repairs on these products not only limits competition, the agencies say, but also makes repairs more costly and can lead to hundreds or thousands of dollars in lost sales. Certain logic controllers have to be discarded and replaced if they break or if the passwords for them get lost. The average estimated cost of "unplanned manufacturing downtime" was $260,000 per hour, the comment notes, citing research from Public Knowledge and iFixit. As for soft serve machines, breakdowns can lead to $625 in lost sales each day. Business owners can't legally fix them on their own or hire an independent technician to do so, meaning they have to wait around for an authorized technician -- which, the comment says, usually takes around 90 days.
The inability to do third-party repairs on these products not only limits competition, the agencies say, but also makes repairs more costly and can lead to hundreds or thousands of dollars in lost sales. Certain logic controllers have to be discarded and replaced if they break or if the passwords for them get lost. The average estimated cost of "unplanned manufacturing downtime" was $260,000 per hour, the comment notes, citing research from Public Knowledge and iFixit. As for soft serve machines, breakdowns can lead to $625 in lost sales each day. Business owners can't legally fix them on their own or hire an independent technician to do so, meaning they have to wait around for an authorized technician -- which, the comment says, usually takes around 90 days.
Nobody (Score:4, Funny)
Fucks with the clown.
Exemption after exemption... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's only 3 sentences in the GP's post. Surely it's not too hard to link them together and understand their point.
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Re:Exemption after exemption... (Score:5, Insightful)
What does the Right to Repair laws have to do with Health Care laws?
The GOP hates both.
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Re:Exemption after exemption... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright laws are for the benefit of the vast corporations that pay for them.
What I remember about Obama's healthcare laws was how he tried to make healthcare better and cheaper for Americans and the republicans hated it, so he decided to negotiate something they could live with, which is how you wound up with the mess you have now.
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Re:Exemption after exemption... (Score:5, Insightful)
I absolutely will blame Republicans. They could have worked with Democrats to build something worthwhile. They didn't hate the law, they hated Obama. They were hell bent on opposing Obama at every turn to "make him a one term President" by getting nothing done.
A lot of the mess is due to Dems attempting to get GOP support, which was never going to happen due to the GOP's obstruction plan. Sure, there were a few Blue Dog Democrats making demands but the lion's share of the problem was GOP obstruction.
Had the Democrats ignored the GOP and passed this during their short (60 days) Senate supermajority it would be a lot better.
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> They were hell bent on opposing Obama at every turn to "make him a one term President" by getting nothing done.
That's why I respect Democrats. They may have opposed Trump on a few one offs but in general almost all Democrats worked well with Trump, encouraged him and spoke highly of him as both a politician and a person.
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Had the Democrats ignored the GOP and passed this during their short (60 days) Senate supermajority it would be a lot better.
The fact that they didn't tells you all you need to know about the Democratic Party. They are different than the Republican Party, but they are not any better overall. The Republicans just make it easier to hate them is all.
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Those laws are not there for your benefit. Copyright laws are for the benefit of the vast corporations that pay for them.
What I remember about Obama's healthcare laws was how he tried to make healthcare better and cheaper for Americans and the republicans hated it, so he decided to negotiate something they could live with, which is how you wound up with the mess you have now.
He didn't negotiate. He threw up his hands in surrender and adopted Romneycare. It did nothing for affordability, but did give a blank check tot he insurance industry. The only positive was the pre-existing condition clause. The rest was a runaway train of profit-engineering for the worst profit-from-misery hucksters outside the war-machine industry. Suck up money, deny coverage to keep the profits, let people suffer and die for that profit. What an absolute racket.
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What I remember about Obama's healthcare laws was how he tried to make healthcare better and cheaper for Americans
We can debate "better' but requiring additional services, requiring the covering of pre-existing conditions, and requiring children to be allowed to remain on their parents plans long after they were "children" was not ever going to make healthcare cheaper.
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The exemption process is Also crappy in that these exemptions Have to be constantly Rejustified every few years and renewed, otherwise the exemption expires. At the very least exemptions ought to be permanent, And they really should change the law to exempt every Legitimate commercial purpose that doesn't involve facilitating piracy of New release entertainment content.
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Since we're doing analogies here, I've never seen a rollout of an extremely large system that didn't immediately need a slew of patches. Sometimes they include actual exceptions to a ruleset.
Re:Exemption after exemption... (Score:4, Interesting)
What number of exemptions to a law do we need before we all realize the law sucks?
This is working as intended.
Congress (both parties) does not want to be responsible for rules their supporters are against. So they pass a vague law, and leave it to the bureaucrats to piss off the donors instead. It is popular to hate bureaucrats for doing their jobs -and it gives congressmembers something to complain/campaign about. More re-election funds all around!
McDonald's ice cream machines (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding is that McDonald's, as a franchise company, earns bucks by fleecing franchisees. They're tied to the mother company's supplies and services.
McDonald's gets a cut of the action on equipment. The franchise owner is not allowed to use different equipment or repair services. McDonald's financial motivation here is to maximize the amount of money the franchise owner has to give them by keeping them on the franchise-supported hardware, even though it is constantly breaking and costing the franchises in lost sales.
McDonald's and Taylor (the machine supplier) coordinated to shut down Kytch, a company that made an accessory to make those machines more reliable, and stand accused of fabricating nonsensical safety concerns to scare off franchise owners from the Kytch product.
That's not about right to repair, in my opinion. That's about predatory franchise programs.
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Re:McDonald's ice cream machines (Score:4, Informative)
That's not about right to repair, in my opinion. That's about predatory franchise programs.
It's very obviously both, since the predatory franchise program we're discussing depends on a lack of right to repair. It literally can only exist because of the lack of that right, since contracts can't trump law.
Re:McDonald's ice cream machines (Score:4, Interesting)
You're not wrong. However, franchisees do it not because they want to be fleeced, but because it makes money.
McDonalds has a $1M franchise fee - that is, if you want to open a McDonalds, you must pay them $1M plus a percentage in sales (at least 10%). Plus, per the franchise agreement, McDonalds will tell you where you can put your restaurant, how much you will spend to renovate it, and how much to equip it. Plus how much you're going to spend buying food from authorized suppliers.
You can contrast it with other places - Subway has around a $50,000 franchise fee, and other than buying food from them, doesn't really dictate much else other than the looks and equipment. Other places like Chick-fil-a have no franchise fee, but you have to "fit in" - they restrict how many you can own as you're expected to work in them.
You might think McDonalds is fleecing people, others see it as a way to make guaranteed money. They charge that much because they know it too.
It's a contract you enter in freely as a sophisticated person - the kind of contract that lawyers have gone over everything on both sides and is basically bulletproof. You do it because hey, you know they make money.
And yes, it's legal to fix the machines yourself - it's always been legal. There is no law on the books that would limit you fixing the machine.
The only reason franchisees can't, is because they agreed to the contracts that state that they're to only used authorized service personnel to repair the machines, and unauthorized modifications may invalidate the equipment and your contracts.
And there are contracts - like I said there's the franchisee contract you signed to open it. There's also the lease contract you signed for your restaurant (the landlord is, well, McDonalds - you better believe the vast majority of money they make comes from real estate and not from franchise fees). So yes, there is no law stating you can't repair the machines yourself. Just like there is no law saying you can't use a better machine in its place. (Though some places may restrict where such big chain stores might be located).
The only thing keeping people from doing it is the contracts - because legally, McDonalds can also close your restaurant one day, then reopen it the next under new management. As the landlord, doing anything they don't like to the property can get you kicked out.
It's also something that the courts will be loathe to rule upon, because traditionally speaking, they are very reluctant to go against any contract signed by two sophisticated entities who both knew what they were getting into when it was signed. After all, both sides would have reviewed the contract and gotten advice from their own legal staff.
(This is in opposite with a contract made by an unsophisticated person - which may include employment contracts. This distinction is made due to the unequal power each party has in the decision - you are basically forced to sign your employment contract immediately without the chance for legal review or often without the time, energy, or knowled
Re:McDonald's ice cream machines (Score:4, Informative)
This is entirely the issue. I work with a couple different franchisors (the parent company). Franchisees are locked in as part of the agreement.
I wouldn't call it fleecing (at least, not across the board). The idea is that in exchange for a business-in-a-box, you agree to follow certain guidelines, and we all make money because the system as a whole is proven to work. But the business itself is still yours, and the franchise agreement contract is only as strict as the franchisor wants to make it.
I've seen them deal with both sides of this issue. On the one hand, they've had to get after franchisees for swapping out approved products for cheaper stuff that messes with the brand. On the other, I've seen them explicitly approve the use of third party solutions for stuff that either 1) Doesn't matter in the long run, or 2) just makes the lives of the franchisees better.
At least with the ones I've dealt with, the goal is to make a great experience for the end client. But then again, I'm only talking about franchises with ~200 franchise locations. At that level, a lot of the people in the system are still essentially human.
Lawsuits are needed (Score:4, Insightful)
The inability to do third-party repairs on these products not only limits competition, the agencies say, but also makes repairs more costly and can lead to hundreds or thousands of dollars in lost sales
Like I said before [slashdot.org], McD's needs to get sued over the resulting price gouging of their "contract" with their "supplier" of known defective machines.
Why McD's is worse than others (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently Wendy's uses the same make and model of machine as McDonalds, and there are no memes about Wendy's machines being broken. As I understand it, McDonald's and Taylor, the maker of the ice cream machines, are colluding to screw over franchisees when it comes to repairs. The franchise contract specifies the one and only specific model which must be purchased, and also forbids franchisees from calling anybody but Taylor for the repairs. Given that Taylor charges $315 per quarter hour for onsite repairs, franchisees are understandably reluctant to make the call.
Also, it seems that McDonald's machines get software upgrades which are in fact purposeful downgrades - the close relationship between McD's and Taylor is being used to milk - no pun intended - franchise owners. Other fast-food chains' machines get different software. The whole story can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] It's quite a piece of investigative journalism - even if you can't afford a half-hour to watch it, I recommend at least skimming.
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Are more people really getting ill from consuming McD ice creams in those places?
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Because other countries don't allow adhesion contracts like that.
programable logic controlers and enterprise IT? (Score:2)
So i've been following the icecream machine story for years, but for the slashdot crowd this buries the lede:
wtf is "right to repair" for "programmable logic controllers" and "enterprise IT"? Is everything going to require published APIs? everything going to be open source?
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Um, they kind of do. Every hear of SCADA?
Specialized application of PLC tech. Whatdya expect?
and enterprise IT (Score:2)
Do it!
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Why should any business equipment be locked down to predatory repair pricing or lack of repair altogether?
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The future of machine repair when IT is not included... They now require a new machine. The new machine is computer controlled. You are free to repair the mechanical part, but the computer requires an expensive visit from a specialist when something goes wrong. The software is twitchy and shuts the machine down every other day like clockwork.
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Many cars are also as you've described.
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This site needs a "whoosh" mod. You'd win.
The correct answer (Score:2)
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Fuck the employees.
Wait for it... (Score:1)
Completely mentally regarded SCOTUS judgement incoming.
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Completely mentally regarded SCOTUS judgement incoming.
2 questions: (1) What are you smokin to make such strange comments? (2) Where can I get some? Amazon Prime? GrubHub?
Prelude to big case against John Deere? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the DoJ and FTC are using this case as a test of sorts to determine how to proceed against John Deere, another company notorious for their antagonism towards right to repair. If we see such a case it could hit Deere with multiple billions in fines.
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Then find another softcreammachinevendor (Score:3)
Why is McDonalds holding on to this 1 softcream machien vendor so eagerly?
There is more than 1 company which makes such machines.
Or was this the only manufacturer that they could squeeze every last penny out of and got their machines for a bargain?
Re:Then find another softcreammachinevendor (Score:5, Informative)
Because they are colluding with the machine vendor to screw over the franchisees.
McDonalds don't want to fix the problem, because the problem is McDonalds.
Re:Then find another softcreammachinevendor (Score:4, Informative)
Why is McDonalds holding on to this 1 softcream machien vendor so eagerly?
Because McDonalds do not pay the costs. The franchise owner does, and they have no choice but to do what McDonalds tells them to.
It's good to be the king.
Doesn't matter what the law says... (Score:1)
Doesn't matter what the law says about repairing the equipment, the contract between McDonalds and the franchisees says that they must only use these specific Taylor ice-cream machines and that they must only get them fixed and maintained by Taylor.
Unless you somehow force McDonalds to remove the requirements from the contracts, any other changes to the law don't matter.
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Unless you somehow force McDonalds to remove the requirements from the contracts, any other changes to the law don't matter.
Tell us you don't know that contracts aren't enforceable when they conflict with the law without telling us.
Taylor vigorously object$! (Score:2)