THE WASHINGTON POST – Meredith Rose’s children wanted ice cream on the long drive to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving last year, so she stopped at a McDonald’s and ordered an Oreo McFlurry.
A few minutes later, the attorney from Rockville, Maryland, learned that the restaurant’s ice cream machine was broken.
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That disappointing moment for her children — something Americans nationwide have experienced — motivated Rose to fight for a legal exemption that could lead to more functioning ice cream machines at the world’s largest fast-food chain, she said.
At that time, it was illegal for anyone other than the machines’ manufacturer, the Taylor Company, to repair the copyrighted devices, which include access codes that only the manufacturer typically knows.
But Rose and her colleagues had recently begun petitioning the U.S. Copyright Office for an exemption to federal law, arguing that copyright shouldn’t apply to repairs.
The Library of Congress — which houses the Copyright Office — agreed, ruling last week that any technician can repair some commercial food preparation equipment, including the McDonald’s ice cream machines. The decision could decrease the amount of time McDonald’s restaurants have to wait for an expert to fix the devices, Rose said.
“It makes it easier for restaurants to be able to call in a third-party repair tech to fix their stuff,” Rose told The Washington Post, “rather than having to wait on an official dispatch by the manufacturer.”
Jokes and memes about broken McFlurry and soft-serve machines have been staples of pop culture for years, and there’s even a popular website that tracks where the devices are out of order.
The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act prevented third-party technicians from repairing some machines …
