Federal regulators are asking to change the right-to-repair laws to address McDonald’s broken ice cream machines.
The restaurants’ broken ice cream machines are so commonplace now that they’re practically a meme.
In a letter to the US Copyright Office, regulators have asked for commercial soft-serve machines to be exempt from current laws which make them hard to repair, and subject to copyright law.
Only technicians licensed by the company that makes the device are allowed to repair them when the ice cream machines break down in McDonald’s.
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However, the licensed technicians charge $300 for a 15-minute servicing, according to a letter filed by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. And when they do break down, restaurants can lose $625 a day.
They said: “In the Agencies’ view, renewing and expanding repair-related exemptions would promote competition in markets for replacement parts, repair, and maintenance services.”
The two agencies identified commercial soft-serve machines as one of four device categories that would be affected by copyright laws.
McDonald’s buys machines from Taylor and they’re the only ones allowed to fix them because of the law, and third parties are not privy to understand error messages and codes, only known to the company, writes Gizmodo.
Reports say Kytch, a repair company, worked out how to decode messages but McDonald’s told franchise owners not to use them.
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