[Infowarrior] - Your Toner Is No Good Here: Region-Coding Ink Cartridges... For The Customers

[Richard Forno]

Your Toner Is No Good Here: Region-Coding Ink Cartridges... For The Customers

Everyone likes buying stuff with a bunch of built-in restrictions, right? The things we "own" often remain the property of the manufacturers, at least in part. That's the trade-off we never asked for -- one pushed on us by everyone from movie studios to makers of high-end cat litter boxes and coffee brewers. DRM prevents backup copies. Proprietary packets brick functions until manufacturer-approved refills are in place. 

Here's another bit of ridiculousness, via Techdirt reader techflaws. German news outlet c't Magazin is reporting that Xerox printers are going further than the normal restrictions we've become accustomed to. For years, printer companies have made sure users' printers won't run without every single slot being filled with approved cartridges. This includes such stupidity as disabling every function (including non-ink-related functions like scanning) in all-in-one printers until the printer is fed.

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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150815/02480731963/your-toner-is-no-good-here-region-coding-ink-cartridges-customers.shtml


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