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Toner Cartridges new DMCA victim 120

Posted by CmdrTaco from the and-it-continues dept.
anarkhos writes "Lexmark leads the curve by being the first to invoke the DMCA to prevent 3rd parties from making Lexmark-compatible toner cartridges." It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Update: 01/12 14:13 GMT by J : Yep, it's a dupe; see here and here for more info; for more on the DMCA, see our next story ;)
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Toner Cartridges new DMCA victim More

Toner Cartridges new DMCA victim

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  • Duplicate story (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zmcgrew ( 265718 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @08:51AM (#5066311) Homepage
    Morning CT, this is a duplicate story. =)

  • more info (Score:4, Informative)

    by martyn s ( 444964 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @08:53AM (#5066323)
    other story here: lexmark sues [slashdot.org]
    • I have thought it over and decided that this is not a stupid strategy on the part of Lexmark.

      Now remove your tinfoil propellor beanies so I can give you the straight story

      You see, at Lexmark they realy don't like the DMCA any more than your average card carrying member of the EFF. But they are a public corporation, so the board and oficers can't (fiduciary responsibility and all) take a public stand againt it. That would cause them to lose business as every company that did like and desire the DMCA to write software that would corrupt the Lexmark printer drivers. So, Lexius Loopner (CEO at Lexmark) took a long term view back in 1998.

      They began work on a new geneation of printer where they could prevent unauthorized consumables from being used via a smart chip. See, if they REALLY wanted to prevent third party consumables they would have patented the physical connection between the printer and the cartridge - like Nintndo did on the old SNES. But Lexius demanded an approach which could be circumvented.

      Now why would they do this you ask? Well, duh! I already told you that! They don't like the DMCA either, so they went to all his trouble knowing that anyone or his kid brother would be able to put together a replacement cartridge and sll it for a tenth the price they charge. All they had to do was wait till someone took the bait. Then they waited till they could track (via warranty registrations) the placement of their printers in the offices of **AA officers.

      Now that all the pieces have fallen into place, Lexmark has launched it;s lawsuit. One of two things will happen:

      A> The anti-circumevention provisions of the DMCA will be ruled unconstitutional or

      B> The Hammurabi Ninja clause of the DMCA (a little know addendum to the Act, added after midnight by a Congresional aide tasked with correcting speling errors in the DMCA) will be activated. This is the clause which strips all entertainment lawyers of all human and civil rights. In addition it legally defines any person who brings a complaint under the anti-circumvention clause as nonhuman vermin and authorizes a bounty of ten thousand dollars for each such vermin's head. Said bounty will be paid by the Librarian of Congress.

      Thank you, please replace your tinfoil beanies before the orbiting mind control lasers make you think this scenario is crazy.

  • Heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @08:53AM (#5066326)
    The next thing you know, you won't be able to use non-Ford and non-Toyota gas with Ford and Toyota cars respectively.

    • Re:Heh (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rc27 ( 601744 )
      Scary, but that looks like where we're headed. If the court rules in favor of Lexmark, what's to stop HP from allowing only HP printers to be used with their computers? Where does it stop?

    • "Legal", but Smart?? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JZ_Tonka ( 570336 )
      "The next thing you know, you won't be able to use non-Ford and non-Toyota gas with Ford and Toyota cars respectively."

      Maybe they could do that, but why would they want to? Would anyone really buy a car that required you purchase their (higher-priced) gasoline?

      Maybe from a technical/legal viewpoint, Lexmark has the right to do this. But personally I believe it's a poor business decision. It's not like they're knocking anyone dead with the quality of their printers as it is.

      • Blockquoth the poster:

        But personally I believe it's a poor business decision. It's not like they're knocking anyone dead with the quality of their printers as it is.

        Indeed. But then, they don't make their money on the printer. They make it on selling toner cartridges ... hence the impulse to block a competitor offering toner for less. I agree it's a stupid move but it makes a certain amount of perverse sense, under the current mode of thinking in Corporatania.
        • "They make it on selling toner cartridges"

          And now that someone else is trying to take this market away from them, they run crying to the courts.

          Seems like more and more companies/industries believe it is the responsibility of the courts to ensure their business models remain effective, and profits guaranteed. A shame, really.

          • Re:"Legal", but Smart?? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Jeremi ( 14640 )
            Seems like more and more companies/industries believe it is the responsibility of the courts to ensure their
            business models remain effective, and profits guaranteed.


            They paid good money to get their self-serving laws (e.g. the DMCA) passed, so of course they expect a return on their investment. This is the sort of thing that should be expected when money becomes more important than votes in politics.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:already happening (Score:5, Informative)

      by anticypher ( 48312 ) <anticypherNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:30AM (#5066422) Homepage
      Ford is offering up to two years worth of petrol (gas) when you buy a new car here. I think its 1200 maximum over 24 months.

      The catch? They give you a card you can use like a credit card at only one type of gas stations (total-fina-elf associates), and each time you fill your car, you have to enter the odometer reading on the keypad. If you put another brand of petrol in, then you lose the remainder of your free petrol because they can detect you suddenly got a large increase in kilometrage between fillups.

      Its the same as a rebate, but tied into making you a habitual customer of their partner gasoline company.

      When you sign up for the free petrol offer, you agree they can share the data with their "business partners". They are approaching other companies offering detailed marketing data on buyers, on things like geographic usage (people who drove to the south of spain 3 times this year, etc). They can also track the consumption of petrol quite accurately over a large sampling of their vehicles, which probably gives their engineers more data on fuel efficiency as motors wear over the first two years.

      the AC
      • you have to enter the odometer reading on the keypad. If you put another brand of petrol in, then you lose the remainder of your free petrol because they can detect you suddenly got a large increase in kilometrage between fillups.


        No problem... if they are relying on you to enter a number into their keypad, just enter the number they expect to see.

    • Pretty easy to add chips to tires..

      " ..sorry your tires are not authorized to be used on this model due to 'safety reasons', please replace with authorized ford tires for this model.. "

      • " ..sorry your tires are not authorized to be used on this model due to 'safety reasons', please replace with authorized ford tires for this model.. "

        Yeah right. Remeber the "exploding" Ford Explorer tires?

        Talk about "safety reasons"....
      • Tires are in fact speed rated. I.e. you're supposed to use tires on your Jaguar (pronounced Jag-wire in ordinary trailer parks across America) that are speed rated for them. Put tires that are underrated, and you take not only a safety risk but break the law.
      • Here [afeindustries.com] is one link to a company promoting this tech - I know there are others out there discussing this technology.

        The tech consists of a reader and an RFID chip cured into the rubber of the tire. They say it is for tracking tires and life-use reasons, etc. But who is to say what you propose couldn't happen? All it would take would be a similar reader sensor connected up to a lovely ODB-III (read up on that if you want more lovely car news) system - and there you go: computer reads the tire, won't let you start the car after you turn it off (ie, the tire is read as it turns, sensor in wheel well, but unless they are real a$$hats they will wait until the car is shut off before giving you the message - heh, probably after getting the car home from having the tires replaced)...

        I know others have posted about car companies teaming with fuel companies to sell gas for a car (free gas, supposedly), using odometer readings, and a special card. But think about this:

        What if a sensor could be made that could "read" the gas in the tank (or as it flows through the gas line) and it reads a marker in the gas (pehaps encoded in the fuel chemical chains or something - kinda like a DNA encoding), and unless it is a certain gas, refuses to start the car (locks out pump, electrical, etc in the car)? Sure, you and I would take the sensor and put it in a sealed container of the special fuel, but most people wouldn't know how to do that, or wouldn't want to try - so what about them? Instant "closed" car fuel system, with the auto manufacturer getting kickbacks or something from the fuel companies (well, almost)...

        • _something_ along these lines has been in effect in here(finland) for hmm, 30(?)years? 40? i don't know since i'm just 21 and it's been that way all the time i remember..

          there is 2 kiends of diesel oil, one with tracer chem and one without, the one with the tracer chem is cheaper(less tax, for running appliances/work machines/heating.. whatever), but is only allowed to be used in selected few engines(app/work/etc/prof.trucks..).

          both oils are (about)exactly same otherwise.

          if you get caught by running the cheaper non-that-much taxed oil on your regular diesel car.. then you are going to pay a hefty sum of money when they catch you(yearly inspections&random on-the-road inspections for this..). supposedly the chem lasts in the tank quite a while.

  • Does Slashdot simply like to remind us of what's going on at least once a week? :)

    • Re:Reminder? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tony-A ( 29931 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:01AM (#5066347)
      I *assume* there are readers who don't check out Slashdot at least daily.
      If so, it makes sense to repost stories of major significance.

      Think of Slashdot like a soap opera. Major plot twists need to be repeated for the benefit of sporadic listeners.
      • Wait until the major news networks catch onto this one. Tomorrow on Today: The World Trade Center falls as terrorists attack.
      • I *assume* there are readers who don't check out Slashdot at least daily.
        If so, it makes sense to repost stories of major significance.

        You mean... the Slashdot editors? ;->
  • that the US are probably the only country in the world where something like this is currently possible.

  • Damn... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gyan ( 6853 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @08:58AM (#5066337)
    Now I can't legally print the memo on my Lexmark to warn employees to not use 3rd-party cartridges.

  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12, 2003 @08:59AM (#5066340)
    Micheal sues Taco under the dmca for dupilicating his stories.

  • Yo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Scalli0n ( 631648 )
    Seriously, this is stupid. This is like people not being allowed to make 7.62mm bullets anymore because they might fit in an AK-47.

    What Lexmark doesn't realize is that if there's lots of cheap toner cartridges for their printer, the educated buyer will buy their printer over others with the realization that it's upkeep costs will be lower.

    STUPID LEXMARK! GO JOIN MICROSOFT!

    Nyeh, so anyway...

    • Re:Yo (Score:2)

      by Gyan ( 6853 )
      Seriously, this is stupid.

      Let me speculate here. I suppose Lexmark probably doesn't derive as much of its profit from the printers themselves as from the sales of cartridges, since depending on usage, you'll have to replace catridge more often than the printer. Consequently, the ability to use 3rd-party cartridges cuts into that revenue stream.

      Best thing would be to work out an agreement where Lexmark allows anyone's cartridge to be used and Lexmark gets some licensing fees or whatever.

      • Gyan suggested:

        Best thing would be to work out an agreement where Lexmark allows anyone's cartridge to be used and Lexmark gets some licensing fees or whatever.

        Why ? Just because Lexmark chose a bad business model, everyone is supposed to support them ? I think not. . .

        • Re:Yo (Score:2)

          by Gyan ( 6853 )
          Just because Lexmark chose a bad business model

          And how exactly did they "choose" this model ?
          Oh, and BTW what 'model' ?

          Are you suggesting they raise their prices on printers ? or lower their prices on cartridges ?

          I don't think any company would want to do the former. As for the latter, they probably have overheads (like research) that the cheap 3rd-party manufacturers don't have.
          • Lexmark chose to do things simlar to the old Gillete/Kodak methods: By practically giving away razors/cameras you can make more money on highly priced blades/films.

            It works well, so long as there's no-one doing things cheaper than you. Lexmark sells fairly cheap printers (free in fact, if you go to freecolourprinters.co.uk [freecolourprinters.co.uk], but their consumables are more pricey than most other companies. Just gotta find the right balance...

            Before you critisise a man, walk a mile in his shoes. Then he's a mile away and barefoot.
      • Lexmark sells printers below their cost so they can sell horriblely expensive ink cartridges. How else do they sell an $89.00 printer that takes a $79.00 cartridge. HP sold the Deskjet 610 series that uses a black cartridge that was almost identical to the other 600 series carts, but had half the ink at the same price. The list goes on.

        I would be leary of using third party ink in any unit that has a fixed or expensive print head. I've seen quite a few Epson and Canon printers written off because of inappropriate ink.

        However, if the unit has the head built into the cartridge, take a chance. If the print quality is not to your liking you've only lost the price of the cartridge.

    • Re:Yo (Score:1)

      by Nemus ( 639101 )
      Yeah, but they make the money of the ink, not the printer. Printers have insanely crappy profit margins, thats why real cheap printers are inkhogs. Theres only like 5 bucks worth of difference in the hardware between an intermediate inkjet and the El Cheapo Grande, but theres about $150 in ink catridges a year difference, so thats the reason lexmark is so gung ho about this

  • How about reprogramming? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jridley ( 9305 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:03AM (#5066353)
    I have an Epson inkjet printer, which has chipped cartridges. I have a little white box which I press up against the chip, and it changes it back to "full".
    I wonder if this would also be considered "circumventing a media protection technology"?
    • I suppose you would be circumventing a copyrighted work, if the binary equivalent of "empty" could be copyrighted. Somehow, that kind of copyright protection does not live up to the spirit of copyright law, which is to promote publishing and the useful arts.
      • It's trivial to turn such a process into a copyright violation. Some developers at a place I worked did so by setting up a particular instrument they were developing to use a copyright notice and trademark as part of the handshake string to communicate with it.

        You say your 'white thing' doesn't just implement an algorhythm? It also contains one of our trademarks?

  • Crappy products but inovative lawyers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is a simple solution to it. Don't buy Lexmark or any other company that pulls this crap. There's another good reason to avoid Lexmark anyway, they make low end products that don't work well. Vote with your $$'s and it's not an issue. These companies will get the message when they start losing market share.
    • But what do you do when ALL of the printer companies start doing this?
      • Then I guess you'll be handwriting and drawing everything from now on.
        • IOW, they've got you by the short-and-curlies.

          Of course, in the electronic paperless utopia we were all promised, printers would be irrelevant. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that might finally get things like this going, as cash strapped corporations and budget cut government agencies no longer have to money to buy proprietary printer cartidges.

          Currently, the electronic utopia produces something like three times as much paper waste as the old typewriter run offices ever could. Manager types demand absolute perfection, even for the most insignificant of documents. As an example, I had to fill out a form to apply for something, and I filled in the date as year-month-day. My shithead of a supervisor demanded that I redo it because he thought it should be month-day-year. The form would not have been seen by anybody but the two, maybe three, people what would have processed it, but this asshole insisted that I waste more paper correcting it, typical for him.

    • I was thinking the same thing, but who DO we buy from? I was just thinking about buying a new printer recently. I didn't want to buy from HP or Lexmark anyway because of the poor quality, and this gives me one more reason. But who can I buy from? Cannon and Epson do the same thing it sounds like. So who is there that doesn't do this, and that makes good printers?

  • For God's Sake, Taco! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Rob, this is your JOB, you get PAID to do this! No one's asking you to *live* on Slashdot, but come on! All it would take to stop this nonsense, is for each editor -- before they start posting articles in the morning -- to look at the "Older Stuff" headlines. And when they're thinking of posting a story, if it sounds familiar, use the /. search to make sure it hasn't been posted already.

    This is nothing short of incompetence. You and the other editors have easy, cushy jobs, you could (at the very least) take them seriously, and do them well. Michael seems to have just that. He's probably the only real journalist amongst you. He never posts dupes.

    Get your act together.

  • ...but there's a follow up (Score:3, Informative)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <spamNO@SPAMpbp.net> on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:14AM (#5066379)
    "Static Control Components" buckled under the threat, and agreed to stop making the chips.

    Story here [theinquirer.net]

    Looks like Lexmark won round one. I hope they don't get too much further.

    At any rate, this is just *another* example of how stupid the DMCA is and how it's being used way out of its scope.
    How many more examples do we need? Geez..
    • > At any rate, this is just *another* example of how stupid the DMCA is and how it's being used way out of its scope.

      Solution: sue someone with standing to show that this law is constitutionally vague. Lexmark looks like a good target.

      IIRC, the whole point of the DMCA was to prevent piracy -- so lots of lawmakers claimed, & so the lobbyists who shovelled them lots of money claimed.

      As we have seen in this article -- & others -- this law is being abused to prevent competition, & thus labelling people who have a legitimate reason to reverse engineer devices as ``criminals" or ``pirates". Which is clearly not the intent of the law.

      (Someone with a law degree could probably hone this to a far more serviceable point. But I Am Not A Lawyer.)

      Then, there is the problem of raising the money to make this suit work. And hoping that it lands before enough judges who have a clue to agree that this thing is unconstitutional. I'm under no illusion that it would be far cheaper & easier to simply repeal the law.

      Geoff

  • No hope (Score:2, Funny)

    by fleener ( 140714 )
    "It's gonna get worse before it gets better."

    On what basis do you make the claim that it will get better? You seem to forget that corporate puppets made this law. Only in the fires of Mount Doom can it be unmade.

  • Okay, we're talking about duping a story about duping toner cartridges...

    you better run this one past the legal department just in case.

  • Glad to see you're enjoying time w/ your wife, Rob (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kiwi ( 5214 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:25AM (#5066407) Homepage Journal
    Glad to see you are enjoying time with your wife, Rob.

    I, on the other hand, was bored enough to read this article [slashdot.org] here a few days back. Perhaps I should aspire to have a life the way you seem to.

    While I have you attention, I wish there was some way to encourage people to post smart things to older articles. There was an article [slashdot.org] about DNS a day ago; alas, I did not have time when the article was posted to post anything more than a single rant; I now have finally gotten enough time together to write a number of actually useful postings [slashdot.org]; which, because of my timing, will not get read.

    This is what I prefer about Usenet; if someone has something worth saying, but it takes them a week to say it, what they say will have an audience. Slashdot, on the other hand, has a 1-2 hour time frame for someone to post an comment on a given topic before it goes off the front page.

    - Sam

    • Many have been the times when I wished that /. had another way to organize their "older stuff". Would it be possible to organize the older articles in a section according to continued postings? This way, those things that readiers wanted to keep ranting about would stay near the top, and topics that have gone quiet would disappear to the archives. Just a thought..
      • I think such an organization would best be done by "number of unique IDs which posted to a given article". Then again, our back of the envelope idea here may not work; I have no idea how Slashdot stores stories and articles. I just recently pointed out some problems [slashdot.org] with the details of a similiar back of the envelope brainstorming session which Slashdot recently had. I had the same idea myself, but the fact someone else had it made me really think about how to go about doing it.

        My gut instinct is that Slashdot stores comments to articles in such a way that sorting artcles based on activity is non-trivial. Personally, I prefer the scoop engine, which has less editor control and more encourages people to post to older artcles.

        - Sam

  • in Europe, 3rd party cartridges will be the norm. (Score:3, Informative)

    by stiller ( 451878 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:35AM (#5066429) Homepage Journal
    The European Union is making guidelines which will force manufacturers like HP and Epson to make their cartridges refillable and adjustable by 3rd parties, for anti-monopoly reasons.
    I don't know anything about European copyright acts, but it would seem, this doesn't go well with a, above mentioned, DMCA like law. Anybody got any insights on this?

    • The European Parliament approved a directive that requires member states to prohibit devices that are specifically designed to prevent re-use or recycling. It is part of a directive about recycling waste from electronic systems, and say absolutely nothing at all about monopolies.

      The European Parliament Daily Notebook : 18-12-2002 [eu.int] has an item on the directive. Note that although "printer cartridges" are mentioned in the daily notebook, and in various reports of the discussions, they are not specifically mentioned in the product design part of the directive.

  • This may actually be great news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KambeiUncia ( 569651 ) <watsont@attbiPERIOD.com minus punct> on Sunday January 12, 2003 @09:43AM (#5066450)
    This could be the case that gets the DMCA (or at least part of it) declared unconstitutional.

    The real problems with the DMCA are the sections which prevent circumvention of devices (or methods, etc.) which control access to a work. This effectively gives copyright holders a new right, the right to restrict access. This is not among the rights granted by the copyright statute (right to copy, distribute, perform, etc.) These sections, in reality, mean that the copyright holder can prohibit you from accessing their works, even after you have purchased a legitimate copy, as exemplified by the DeCSS case. It is quite possible that being able to restrict access to a work contradicts the purpose of copyright as stated in the Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts." If access restrictions are contrary to this constitutional policy, they may very well be unconstitutional. And this is the perfect case to illustrate that.

    Lexmark is claiming that these replacement cartridges allow access to some code which resides on boards within the printer and not on the cartridges themselves. This is the focus of their circumvention argument (they also argue that these cartridges contain actual copies of other code, but that is purely a traditional copyright problem). Thus, Lexmark is claiming that even though you bought their printer, you don't have the right to access their code unless you're using their cartridges. This is not a case where Lexmark is worried about copying or piracy. The 2600 case involved both access and copying (sort of) but the court was too stupid to look past the piracy rants of the MPAA and see the problems with the access restrictions. Here, we have a perfect case to illustrate why the entire access control section of the DMCA should be declared unconstitutional, without worrying about claims that piracy of digital works will cause the downfall of western civilization.

    Of course, even if the access control sections were removed, copyright holders could still create hybrid control systems which prohibit both access and copying. These could then still be enforced under the anti-copying provisions. But, we can save that fight for after a court has noticed the distinction between access controls and copy controls. Then we might have a chance to win.

    Thanks to Lexmark for bringing a perfect case for those of us who want to see the DMCA destroyed! (By the way, IANAL in the technical sense, but I do have a law degree in addition to a computer science degree.)

    -Tim Watson

  • actualy...


    as a manufacturer i would be very pleased if the first thing the consumer did when their initial (starter or full) cartridge runs out of toner is for them torun out and buy a re-manufactured cartridge and put it in the machine. as this voids the warranty on nearly every brand of printer out there. thus meaning i only need the printer to last past the stores return policy.

    • as a manufacturer i would be very pleased if the first thing the consumer did when their initial (starter or full) cartridge runs out of toner is for them torun out and buy a re-manufactured cartridge and put it in the machine. as this voids the warranty on nearly every brand of printer out there

      That's a violation of US anti-trust laws. Get the refusal in writing or get your money back.

  • The DCMA is getting to be a real issue. Did you see anything in the LICENSE that says when you plunked down your hard earned money for this printer you didn't actually buy it but are just being allowed to use it? This looks just like the CueCat crap that went on a while back. Yeah, you own it but here's a book full of rules on what you can't do with it. Some of the cartridges have chips that actually calculate use and prevent refilling - courtesy of a formerly consumer oriented company that made great test equipment. Me, I've dug out the old Star printers I had stored and use them unless I need real good color. I bought a batch of ribbons reasonable-defined as a package of 6 that will last about 3 years for about half the cost of a black cartdidge. They're re-inkable and last forever. I can tolerate a little noise and a little extra time. My cost per sheet is little more than the paper. I've been using some of these printers since I downloaded stuff off Q-Link. When I do need an inkjet printed job and run out of ink I break out another new printer. I buy old models at closeout for about the cost of a set of refills. If I have a printer I like I buy sale printers with the same cartridges. Finally, other than original copies I maintain for legal purposes, almost every other copy is a .pdf. Yeah, I'm rambling but this stuff is really pissing me off and I'm doing everything I can to avoid supporting the people who encourage it. I used to have 100% HP stuff and now have ony printers, used rarely.
    • Actually, I won't use inkjet printers of any kind. The whole thing is a sham. The same amount (financially) of ink lasts nowhere near as long as the same money spent on toner. Nowhere even close. Sure, lots of places offer free printers, but then you're stuck buying ink cartridges daily. Screw that. If I need color, I'll buy a color LED or laser printer. A bit more up front, but *much* cheaper and reliable in the long run. Oh yeah, and I didn't even mention print quality with those goddamned ink jets...
  • 1. Create a hardware part
    2. Add Built-in software+hardware (useless) components
    3. Invoke DMCA
    4. ???
    5. Profit!!!
  • All this will do is temporarily increase toner sales. Over the medium to long term, their business will drop significantly if people know that they can't get cheap toner cartridges. Yet another example of companies being incredibly short-sighted when considering the bottom line.
  • Here's the example of what is going on in the printer industry. You think you are getting ripped off by the recording industry do you? Well with printer cartridges at about $30.00 a pop (with a likely production cost of a buck) we are all getting royally screwed.

    The printer companies have reduced and in fact taken a little loss on the one time printer cost, so that they can stick us with these high cost cartridges. I am furious. I don't own a printer just for that reason. By paying for those cartridges, we end up supporting that cost structure which I very much disagree with. Now, on top of that, the printer companies won't allow Open Sourced cartridges, which is really all the 3rd party cartridges are. The cartridges are also a big waste since they can't be reused or recycled. Since the cartridges are material (not bits), no P2P file sharing is going to solve this one.

    Boycott anyone? Don't buy any printers that use high cost cartridges!

  • Lexmark, HP, and the other printer mfgs: YOU SUCK! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Sunday January 12, 2003 @03:58PM (#5068282) Homepage
    Warning: Rant Follows, Sorry in advance:

    I am absolutely SICK AND TIRED of buying a printer for, say $99.00 and having to pay $33.95 for a tank of color and $29.95 for a tank of black. (Stuff the comments about "that's just the business model" -- company store scams aren't a business model, they are a racket) Just make the damn cartridges refillable already.

    As far as toners and laser printer parts that have predefined failure points, it's a total rip off. Why can't the printer business just make the best damn printer they can, and sell me on quality and the economy of operating their stuff. I don't care about how hi-tech your cartridges are. I don't even care that by replacing my printhead with the cartridge, I get optimum print quality. I want to replace the print head WHEN IT WEARS OUT. I don't want to buy a $250 developer unit when the one I had worked fine on page 10,499 and the engine clicks over to 10,500 pages. I want to replace "consumable" and worn out parts when they are expended!

    Finally, $30 for 2.8ML of black ink is a rip off. I can get a gallon of ink for $5.00. Toner - my god that stuff is cheap when bulk packaged outside the combo drum/developer cartridge.

    Lexmark: drop the lawsuit. I know you all just want to rip your captive customers off, but can't you figure out how to make money by say MAKING A BETTER PRINTER!????

    BTW: I have a Lexmark inkjet. Great print quality BUT it costs $.33/page because the cartridges cost $60 and last 200 pages. My favorite feature is the "clean the printhead" option... It never fails to take 10-20 pages of life out of a cartridge and it NEVER works the first time I use it, forcing me to run the self-clean again and waste another 20 pages of ink!

    I want a decent color printer that I can print for $.10 per page. And no chips, counters or hermetically sealed, kevlar-armored, heat treated steel covered unrefillable cartridges!
    • We have Calcomp thermal wax printers that were old when I started working here. They cost a fortune when we bought them (in the days before inkjet) and (unlike Calcomp) they are still going.

      I suppose selling us 3 printers over 15 years just didn't pay their wages.

      ObTopic, if we explicitly allow anyone to make consumables for printers, I think we'll very quickly start to see the actual cost of printers reflected in their price. I'd rather pay that cost than subscribe/legitamise the razorblade model.

      Xix.
      • if we explicitly allow anyone to make consumables for printers, I think we'll very quickly start to see the actual cost of printers reflected in their price.
        One thing we'd see is innovation directed towards lowering the cost of the printer like we saw in the mid and late 80s back in the age of dot matrix. At one point you could get a decent 24 pint (top of the line quality) printer with sheet feeder, tractor feed (which still rocks for code), envelope handling for $129 and ribbons were $10.00 if you bought genuine Epson or whatever... Plus addig the legal fees from Lexmark's chip shenanagan and the outrageous pace of new and unimproved models (My new HP takes the same ink cartridge/print head as my four year old one and has a curvy case instead of a rectangular one) pad the cost of printer supplies anyway...
  • I see a lot of complaints directed towards CmdrTaco concerning duplicate posts. But do readers read the site? Shouldn't we be complaining about readers submitting duplicate posts as well?

    Just a thought.
  • And what do they expect the people who make art prints with these to do? You have to buy 3rd party archival ink!

  • better solution: don't do it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @11:22AM (#5073068) Journal
    This is semi-offtopic, it has nothing to do with Lexmark. Lexmark is flat out crap, I wouldn't give a Lexmark printer to my worst enemy.

    It sucks to see that printer manufacturers are stooping to this level. I have to maintain something on the order of 50 HP laserjet printers (I won't count the deskjets, maybe 100?). People don't like paying $80 for an HP toner cartridge when they can get a recycled HP for $40 or an off brand for $30. HP has nothing to worry about.. EVERYTHING ELSE SUCKS.

    Most people opt for the $40 recycled cartridge. It's an HP cartridge that's been cleaned and refilled. Most of the time these things leak toner, occasionally requiring printer cleaning. When the users get the bill for printer cleaning, they see why I tell them to only buy the real thing.

    Generic cartridges are even worse. At least with the recycled there's a warranty on them, if you get them in a shoddy condition you can usually send them back. I've used 4 different flavors of generic cartridge. Most of them either leak toner (accompanied by a cleaning bill sometimes) or in some cases just break apart. I had a user who went through 3 cartridges in one day, she'd print about 200 sheets and then the printer would start making a crunching sound and little plastic pieces would start flying out. Yup, toner cartridge broke apart. No warranty. You're out $30x3 because you went with a non-HP toner. Do the math, it's a bad deal all the way around.

    I say go ahead and use your el-cheapo cartridges, you'll get what you paid for :-).

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