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.
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.)
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