Comments on: Can cryptography prevent printer-ink piracy?

A San Francisco company is developing chips that use encryption to control which ink cartridges and printers work together.

[oconnmic]

It's the new business model

No one pays for anything. Everything is free and no one has to work. THEY should have to give me everything I want and it should not cost me anything.

[qwerty75]

yeah

That is what people are saying. Are people really this dumb?

The problem is that companies are charging thousands of dollars per gallon of ink.

There is absolutely no defense for that.

[lschweiss]

Piracy? Not according to Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

Talk about blindly regurgitating a bad press release!

Lexmark lost badly the argument that printer ink cartridges manufacturing can be protected with copyright law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int'l_v._Static_Control_Components

[markdoiron]

What Crap!

That's not normally the kind of language I chose to use, but it's the only language appropriate to this miserably researched, misleading article! Manufacturing, without authorization from the printer OEM, of printer cartridges is not piracy. Not any more so than manufacturing third party spark plugs for your car. And for cNet to lend even a smidgen of credence to this argument is just as full of crap as was the RIAA's case a few years back that all .mp3 files were illegal violations of copyright law. Get rid of this article!!!

--mark d.

[chuck_whealton]

You're kidding, right?

If ink piracy is such a minor issue, why are these guys wasting their time on this type of technology?

Let me guess, the big printer companies are trying to lock up more market share on their overpriced cartridges.

Sell the printer for peanuts, and take us to the cleaners when we need ink. That seems to be the way it works.

Did anybody ever consider selling the printer AND the ink cartridges for REASONABLE prices?

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[C_G_K]

Liquid gold

Everyone knows ink is a big time rip off. The printer companies sell the hardware near or below cost, and then gouge you when you go to get ink. Legally, they are not allowed to force you to buy consumables from them, so they have put chips and print heads on the cartridges to get around the law by claiming copyright on the cartridges. It's a scam plain and simple. I have a brother printer that does not put the print heads on the cartridges. This makes the cartridges cheaper, and other 3rd party manufactures can produce them. I use the brother black ink because it is reasonable and better quality but use the 3rd party color ink. Works out great for me.

The printer companies have screwed themselves though. By making ink SO expensive, few will use printers to do photographs, and there is a huge lost potential here because of their greed and sleezy practices.

[mjd420nova]

Ink cartridges

Why bother?? Just like there are ways to defeat the page counting toner cartridges, so will there be ways to get around the ink cartridge technology too. Some are simple, a piece of tape over a small window or a application if 5 volts to certain pins on the cartridge to reset the counter. Others only need to be attached to a nine volt battery until it pops and away you go, unlimited refills and no hassles. If the mfgrs think they can continue to charge outlandish prices for their ink cartridges they really need to rethink this and lower the prices and the problem will solve itself.

[Maelstorm]

It's all about choice.

I have read quite a few comments here, and I have to say this: Spend your money where you want to, and let the buyer beware.

1. If someone is duplicating the patented ink formula of a OEM, well that would be patent infringement, which is illegal.

2. If a 3rd party company is manufacturing cartridges and trying to sell them as OEM manufactured, then that's counterfeiting, which is illegal.

3. If someone is taking used cartridges and refilling them and then selling them at a lower price, that's competition, and that is legal.

I'm from the school of thought that the customer can do whatever they want with the hardware that they buy. If the customer wants to take a sledgehammer to the thing, then so be it. If they choose to use 3rd party ink cartridges, then fine by me. Regardless of what anyone says, it's the customer who votes with their wallet.

And I vote with my wallet. My Samsung laser printer has a capacity of about 4,000 pages (7% toner coverage). When the toner runs out, I send the cartridge to the recycler to be recycled. Then I spend the $70 or so to buy a new Samsung toner cartridge. More bang for your buck. I dropped the inkjet printers along time ago because of the cost of consumables. Once again, my choice. I paid about $200 for the printer, but I know it's a quality product that gets the job done.

[savagesteve13]

I always check the ink tank types...

BEFORE I buy a printer. Availability of 3rd party ink should be a huge factor in consumer choices, as well as the cost of the cartridges themselves. Canon for awhile was doing many of us a favor with inexpensive, non-chipped individual color cartridges, but I guess they fell back on tried and true business paranoia and now they're using tiny tri-color ink baubles with built-in timebombs.
Bye Canon, don't expect me to buy another printer from you with that attitude.

[tetsuyo]

The Brainwashed Society

Why is it that people in America love to be ripped off? You people love your capitalist system where 90% of the business transactions are ripoffs. This printer ink issue is probably the tip of the iceberg. It must be commercial brainwashing that allows a company to charge $9000 for a gallon of ink! The brainwashing is when you people glorify capitalism like it is an end all and refuse to look at other more advanced ways of achieving a progressive society where one has access to hi-tech toys and enjoy a level of wealth and status without ripping the skin off each other.

I suggest that when you see ripoffs like printer ink going for $9000 a gallon that you run the other way or trash the company, not sulk in the happiness that you are getting a quality product.
Basically you are getting screwed and you like it.
That is not a healthy attitude to have and leads to a complacent society that does not know right from wrong. Soon you will start oppressing whole nations of people in support of the owners of the $9000 a gallon ink company because you do not know any better. The Iraq war is a result of such brainwashed minds.

When ink starts selling for $9000 a gallon you know that you have a society full of dummies and most likely one of them is living in the White House.

[johnmarkos]

Consumer choice, not piracy

What this story refers to as "printer-ink piracy" is actually the choice of consumers, deciding what ink they want to use in printers they own.

This restriction is just another example of DRM: as the campaign says, it's "Defective by Design."

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

[PaperJammer]

kick some printer a$$

I'm sick of printer manufacturers trying to scam me. I had to replace the black ink cartridge for my printer almost every two weeks. This site provided me with a nice place to take out my rage: destroyaprinter.com

[Fil0403]

Who cares?

Maybe they should be more worried with that study that proved printer manufacturers drivers (especially from Epson) lie about the amount of ink inside the cartridges and tell the user it is empty when it is not and many people accept that and go buy a new one.

[manojiitan12]

you Can cryptography prevent printer-ink piracy.Printer companies have to make money on the ink because they are losing alot of money on every single printer they sell.The "starter" cartridges you think you are saving money on by buying a new printer instead of new cartridges are just that...starters.
it is cheaper to buy the ink cartridges than replace the printer because you are getting alot less ink in a new printer.

mack

cheap printer ink

[fdavidmiller2]

I worked for Hewlett-Packard as an in-store sales rep for two years. It is true that with all the features that you can get in a printer now days, HP and other manufacturers sell thier printers at cost or lower in the hope that they will make more money in ink and paper sales later. Especially with in home photo printing becoming more and more popular. These ************* therefore do not like it when customers buy off-brand ink and paper. To set the record straight, HP does not sell their printers with "starter" ink anymore, they haven't in years. HP sells thier printers with a full set of ink to encourage potential buyers to buy HP. They do however, sell thier ink at too high a cost, I feel. People in recent years have wised up to the longterm costs of ownership. Competition is the only thing that can possibly encourage HP to lower their cost of ink and paper. In Europe, HP has been forced to come up with a larger cartridge for their multi-color Photosmart printer series that sells for less than the standard cartridge does in the States. Do to competition in Europe. You can't blame the big manufacturers for all your ink cost problems though. It is true that ink is inexpensive to manufacture, but these companies have other costs to fund. HP alone, spends around $1 billion a year on research and development. Without that, we wouldn't be enjoying these cool new photo printers in our homes. The companys that sell you the really cheap ink don't pay for anything but the manufacturing process itself. They don't even have advertising costs. Bottom line, I agree that HP and others overprice their ink, but have you ever wondered why the company that make the off-brand ink doesn't sell their own printer? There's no profit in it.