Canon made big news this past week when it started telling customers how to defeat the Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its toner cartridges because

The Beat of a Different DRM

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2022-01-17 20:00:07

Canon made big news this past week when it started telling customers how to defeat the Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its toner cartridges because of supply chain issues with the chips they normally use to enforce it. That Canon explained how to bypass the DRM when it suited them, and that it didn’t negatively affect the operation of the printers or the customer, made it clear that DRM and the chips that enforce it offer little if any benefit to customers. Instead, DRM is only in place so the vendor can exert remote control over their product after the customer buys it. Computer vendors are marching to the beat of this DRM, and their ultimate goal is to exert the same sort of control printer and smartphone vendors enjoy into laptops and desktops.

Printer cartridge DRM provides one of the best examples of how Digital Rights Management is used to benefit the vendor at the expense of the consumer. It’s not driven by consumer wishes–in fact it runs counter to them–and instead is motivated by profit. It turns out that inkjet ink is one of the most expensive liquids on Earth. Consumables (ink and toner) are a primary way printer companies make their money, often offering the printers themselves at a heavily discounted price (with reduced capacity cartridges) with the understanding they will make their money back when the ink or toner runs out. Conventional wisdom used to be that toner was a much better buy, and for enterprise printers it might still be, but as consumer-grade laser printers have gone down in price, the cost-per-page of standard capacity toner cartridges for many brands is no longer that much different from inkjet ink.

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