There are days when it seems like nothing is going to change and the best thing you can do is learn to tolerate mediocrity. Today is not one of those days. announced that the U.S. Copyright Office granted a waiver request from nonprofit public interest group and DIY repair site iFixit to allow McDonald's franchise owners to hire a third party to repair its McFlurry and soft serve ice cream machines.
Franchise owners could not legally hire any outside company to work on the machine due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). McDonald's soft serve machines have a digital lock and makes it illegal for anyone to bypass the blocking of a copyrighted work, even if no copyright infringement occurs. Only the original machine manufacturer can repair a copyrighted device with a digital lock. The recent exemption nullifies the digital lock law.
If you've ever stopped at a McDonald's drive-thru and couldn't get an ice cream treat like a McFlurry, it probably wasn't an anomaly. Franchisees had to wait for the McDonald's corporation to send an approved technician to repair the machines. The issue gained attention in 2021 when new regulations were drafted to allow consumers to legally repair their own devices and hire third parties to repair them. The FTC contacted McDonald's franchise owners to learn more about the ice cream machines and the difficulties in repairing them.
Last year he tore down a McDonald's ice cream dispenser and discovered it had “many easily replaceable parts” but could not be repaired without earning the wrath of federal copyright laws. The dismantling prompted the company to work with Public knowledge obtain a copyright waiver to repair them. The repair website also compiled a video that explains the inner workings of the machine in more detail.
