US Copyright Office granted an exemption allowing third parties to diagnose and repair commercial equipment — including the ones that make your McFlurries.
The decision is part of the Copyright Office’s final rule granting exemptions to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This exemption-making process happens every three years and is supposed to ensure that the DMCA doesn’t negatively impact people trying to use copyrighted material.
Worth nothing that DMCA exceptions are reviewed on the same 3 year cycle and are frequently revoked. So if you’re a McD ice cream fan, enjoy it while you can.
Maybe, but probably not. These are a niche thing, and so I find it unlikely there will be third party techs who know what they are doing (as opposed to guys with a wrench who can talk good but will leave salmonella behind or something)
Almost certainly. The issue often isn’t difficulty to repair but knowing what the error codes mean since they are pretty nonsensical. The company that builds them sued a company that made an add-on that made troubleshooting them significantly easier (the FTC sided with the company making the add-on). McDonald’s corporate owns a large chunk of the company that makes the machines and also the company that provides the technicians. The technicians are usually done within a couple minutes because it is usually just a machine reset.
These are really not that niche. Every fast food company has similar devices but does not have machines that often breakdown and require waiting several hours for a technician to show up and fix the problem in a few minutes.