Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

In today's Boston Globe, Hiawatha Bray reports on an example of why the DMCA needs to be thrown out. Lexmark printers look for a particular chip embedded in ink cartridges. Without that chip, the cartridge won't work, thus forcing owners to use only Lexmark brand cartridges. Static Control makes chips that enable third-party toner cartridges to work in Lexmark printers. Lexmark is suing Static Control contending that

"any attempt to circumvent its killer chip system violates the DMCA. The Static Control chip lets a user access Lexmark's printer software without Lexmark's permission, and is therefore illegal."

So a law designed to keep hackers from distributing stolen digital merchandise is now a law against using a different brand of toner cartridges."

Bray points to a future in which you can only replace Ford parts with Ford parts and you can't plug a Kenmore appliance into a Whirlpool-networked house. But that's ok, because by then we'll all be using Disney appliances anyway.