Right-to-Repair Activists Take on McDonald’s, Petition for Legal Access to Infamously Unreliable Ice Cream MachinesA coalition of right-to-repair activists is petitioning the U.S. government for the legal right to hack and repair McDonald’s notoriously unreliable ice cream machines.that a group spearheaded by iFixit and the nonprofit organization Public Knowledge has taken the fight for repair rights in a delicious new direction — fast-food ice cream machines.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act currently restricts unauthorized access to software, including the software that runs these ice cream machines. Taylor, the manufacturer, holds exclusive service contracts with McDonald’s franchises, effectively monopolizing the repair market for these machines. The petition aims to secure a DMCA exemption that would allow McDonald’s franchises and third-party repair professionals to legally work on these machines. “Commercial ice cream machines, such as the Taylor manufactured ice cream machines used by McDonald’s, frequently fall into disrepair when its daily pasteurization cycle fails.
The petition comes at a time when Taylor is embroiled in a lawsuit with a company that created a device capable of reading and interpreting the machine’s error codes. Breitbart Newson the company’s lawsuit against McDonald’s, which attempts to prevent franchisees from using the device. The startup firm Kytch, which invented a device to fix McDonald’s infamously broken and glitchy ice cream machines, has sued the fast-food giant for $900 million. Fighting back against the chain’s attacks on their product, a Kytch cofounder said: They’ve tarnished our name. They scared off our customers and ruined our business. They were anti-competitive. They lied about a product that they said would be released.
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