There are days when nothing will change and the best thing you can do is learn to tolerate simplicity. Today is not one of those days. The US Copyright Office has announced that it has granted an exemption from nonprofit public interest group and DIY repair site iFixit to allow McDonald’s franchise owners to hire a third party to repair their McFlurry and soft serve ice cream machines.
Due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), franchise owners could not legally hire any outside business to operate the machine. Digital lock on McDonald’s soft ice cream machines and makes it illegal for anyone to unlock a copyrighted work, even if no copyright infringement has occurred. Only the original manufacturer of the machine can repair a copyrighted device with a digital lock. The last exception repeals the digital lock law.
If you’ve ever pulled up to a McDonald’s drive-thru and couldn’t get a McFlurry, it probably wasn’t an anomaly. Franchisees had to wait for McDonald’s Corporation to send an approved repairman to repair the machines. He drew attention to the problem in 2021 develop new rules that allow consumers to legally repair their own devices and hire third parties to repair them. The FTC contacted McDonald’s franchise owners to learn more about ice cream machines and the difficulties in repairing them.
last year took apart a McDonald’s ice cream dispenser and found it had “many parts that could easily be replaced,” but they couldn’t be repaired without incurring the wrath of federal copyright laws. It prompted the demolition company to work together Public Knowledge copyright exemption to repair them. The repair website also produced a video explaining the inner workings of the machine in more detail.
