Technology

59436 readers

3358 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

649

iFixit tears down a McDonald’s ice cream machine, demands DMCA exemption for it (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by DannyMac@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

48 comments fedilink hide all child comments

McDonald’s soft-serve ice cream machines are regularly broken, and it’s not just your perception. When repair vendor and advocate iFixit was filming a video about the topic, it checked tracking map McBroken and found that 34 percent of the machines in the state of New York were reported inoperable. As I write this, the nationwide number of broken machines is just above 14 percent.

To improve the nation’s semi-frozen milk fat infrastructure, iFixit has done two things. One, as first reported by 404 Media, is to join with interest group Public Knowledge to petition the Copyright Office for an exemption allowing people to fix commercial equipment, such as McDonald’s ice cream machines and other industrial kitchen equipment, without fear of reprisal under Section 1201 of the DMCA.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 21 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

When repair vendor and advocate iFixit was filming a video about the topic, it checked tracking map McBroken and found that 34 percent of the machines in the state of New York were reported inoperable.

One tiny company had previously attempted to address the glut of broken, indecipherable Taylor machines and was duly ostracized for its efforts.

Taylor, which reportedly has an exclusive contract with McDonald’s for maintenance of its machines, moved quickly to make the use of a Kytch a contract-voiding, franchise-ending issue.

The saga, as reported by Wired, has taken a few intriguing turns, including Taylor’s creation of a competing product, revealing discovery emails, and a $900 million Kytch lawsuit.

Public Knowledge and iFixit have submitted a petition to the Copyright Office to argue that bypassing the digital security measures on commercial equipment such as Taylor’s machines should not be illegal.

“The fact that this principle is not already embedded permanently into law demonstrates that our copyright system is as McBroken as the average McDonald’s ice cream machine.” (Link added by Public Knowledge.)

The original article contains 716 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!