McDonald’s often maligned, seemingly perennially-broken ice cream machines could soon become a thing of the past.
On Oct. 25, the United States Copyright Office granted a copyright exemption that gives restaurants like McDonald's the “right to repair” broken machines by circumventing digital locks that prevent them from being fixed by anyone other than its manufacturer.
The Golden Arches’ vanilla cones, sundaes and McFlurries are all made in machines from Taylor Company, as they have been for nearly 70 years. Back in 1956, future McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc made a handshake agreement with Taylor to supply milkshake machines as McDonald’s exclusive supplier.
The Taylor company holds a copyright on its machines, and in the past that has meant that if one broke, only its repair people were legally allowed to fix it, according to a 2021 Wired article. This is due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 law that criminalizes making or using technology, devices or services that circumvent the control access of copyrighted works.
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In 2020, amid public outcry about broken machines, a developer created the “McBroken” map, a website that uses data from the McDonald’s app that shows where ice cream products are “currently unavailable” to give real-time updates on which McDonald’s ice cream machines are working. As of Oct. 29, McBroken reports that 14.72% of McDonald’s stores are not currently selling ice cream.
In July, McDonald’s USA told TODAY.com that sales data from the past few years has shown its ice cream machines are up and running around 95% of the time across the country, depending on location.
In 2018, an app called Kytch was created to help restaurant owners fix the glitches in the machines without having to call a technician but in 2021, McDonald’s sent notices to franchisees warning them that the technology could lead to worker injuries, according to The New York Times.
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McDonald’s did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.
The exemption granted by the United States Copyright Office went into effect on Oct. 28 and was jointly petitioned for by repair-focused website iFixIt and advocacy group Public Knowledge. In 2023, iFixit documented its teardown of McDonald’s machines and said it spat out multiple “nonsensical, counterintuitive, and seemingly random” error codes, but it couldn’t do anything to repair it.
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission filed comments in support of the petition.
Although the full request wasn’t granted, retail-level commercial food preparation equipment received an exemption that will allow third parties to bypass digital locks on machines for repairs.
Meredith Rose, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, said that the Copyright Office’s decision will lead to an “overdue shake-up of the commercial food prep industry.”
“There’s nothing vanilla about this victory,” Rose said in a statement. “An exemption for retail-level commercial food preparation equipment will spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and enable businesses to better serve their customers.”
Rose says that despite the exemption, it’s still illegal to sell or traffic in the digital lockpicks that allow people to fix these machines.
“Even though users and independent repair services have the official blessing of the federal government to go forth and pick the locks in order to repair these machines, they still cannot legally acquire the tools to do so,” Rose tells TODAY.com via email, adding that in theory every person picking a digital lock has to make their own from scratch.
“Congress needs to legalize the tools so that people can actually take advantage of these exemptions,” she says.
For its part, Taylor says that it doesn’t expect a change in existing maintenance practices or repair of its equipment for customers, distributors or servicers.
“We are aware of recent reporting relating to a recent U.S. Copyright Office exemption ruling and how it may change the maintenance and repair practices for Taylor equipment,” a Taylor spokesperson tells TODAY.com over email. “Our customers already have many different choices and flexibility on how they may choose to maintain or repair Taylor equipment.”
The representative says that Taylor is reviewing details of the exemption, and expects it’s consistent with its existing practices.
The company says it makes its parts available for purchase by machine owners or service technicians even if they aren’t Taylor-certified. The representative also says much of the maintenance of its equipment is done outside of the machine’s warranty period.
“We all are proud of the long useful life and reliability of our equipment, decades in some cases, and how our customers appreciate the quality of our equipment,” the spokesperson says.
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