HP Hit With Yet Another Lawsuit Over Bricking Printers That Use Third-Party Ink Cartridges
from the this-is-for-your-own-good dept
Hewlett Packard (HP) has been socked with yet another lawsuit for crippling the printers of consumers who use cheaper third-party ink cartridges. The lawsuit, filed by eleven plaintiffs in US District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, states that HP misleadingly used its “Dynamic Security” firmware updates to “create a monopoly” over replacement printer ink cartridges.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages of $5 million, demands that HP immediately cease crippling its printers in such a fashion, and is seeking a trial by jury. From the lawsuit:
“In 2022 and 2023, HP distributed updates to many of its registered customers that
featured the functionality of “Dynamic Security” previously discontinued: it disabled the printer if the customer replaced the existing cartridge with a non-HP cartridge. There was no notification of any kind at the time of this firmware update that might inform customers that the update would reduce the printer’s functionality. Even if a customer were able to discern that the update would impede the printer’s functionality with other cartridges, there was no means of opting out of the update.”
Despite years of criticism, HP has only doubled down. As Ars Technica notes, CFO Marie Myers has even lauded the obnoxious, predatory behavior as “relationship building”:
“We absolutely see when you move a customer from that pure transactional model … whether it’s [to] Instant Ink, plus adding on that paper, we sort of see a 20 percent uplift on the value of that customer because you’re locking that person, committing to a longer-term relationship.”
When it comes to obnoxious DRM and bizarre, greedy restrictions, nobody does it better than printer manufacturers. The industry has long waged a not-so-subtle war on its own customers, routinely rolling out firmware updates or DRM preventing them from using more affordable, competitor printer cartridges. Usually under the flimsy pretense of consumer safety and security.
A few years ago, printer manufacturers took this tactic one step further, and began preventing users from being able to use a multifunction printer’s scanner if they didn’t have company sanctioned ink installed. Canon was hit with a $5 million lawsuit in 2021 for the practice, but was able to quietly settle it privately without facing much accountability, or having to change much of its behavior.
In 2022 HP was also hit with a lawsuit (pdf) for preventing scanners from working without sanctioned ink cartridges installed, and not being transparent about this with customers. HP has spent a few years trying to wiggle out of the suit, but hasn’t had much luck. Last August, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled that that case could also proceed.
It’s not clear how many lawsuits and regulatory actions are required before HP gets the message that this kind of behavior is violently unpopular bullshit that harms the company’s overall brand at the cost of a slight goose in quarterly earnings.
Filed Under: consumer rights, drm, hardware, ink cartridges, ink jet, laserjet, printers, right to repair
Companies: hp
Comments on “HP Hit With Yet Another Lawsuit Over Bricking Printers That Use Third-Party Ink Cartridges”
“you’re locking in that person, committing to a longer-term relationship.”
… said every stalker and abuser ever.
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I can’t wait for BS behavior like this to be outlawed. Must we explicitly define how companies can use DRM in a law with ultra-massive punishments that would sink any business of any size if they got blasted with them for companies NOT to use DRM in some kind of malicious manner just for them to increase revenue?
Re:
Arguably, it’s already been kind of outlawed by Impression v. Lexmark, Sega v. Accolade, etc. The manufacturers are outside the protection of the law when it comes to suing people who refill their cartridges or bypass certain checks. This limited outlawry, though, is not the same as actually making the manufacturers’ behaviour illegal.
Can any company that takes this sort of action be charged with fraud, as what they claim is a sale is actually a rental, as they are preventing the user control over a product that goes along with an actual sale, but rather exercising the sort of control over use that a rental company has over what it rents.
“you’re locking in that person, committing to a longer-term relationship.”
… said every stalker and abuser ever.
Re:
I don’t think stalkers and abusers would ever be that honest about themselves.
Re: Re:
Glad you missed the whole PUA/entitled men thing. They have bloody classes.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s time we rounded up every man and prescribed them estrogen therapy as a preventative measure.
It’s not just printers. I use a CPAP machine and have used a SoClean 2 machine for years to clean it. That failed the other day and I was looking for a replacement. They now sell a SoClean 3 and one of the benefits touted on their website is:
In other words, “use our filters or we’ll brick your medical device.” Needless to say, I will be looking elsewhere.
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IMO DRM on any medical device or technology should be illegal. Absolutely no exceptions. Fines should be 200 percent of corporate revenue. A debt so large they’ll have to go bankrupt 10 times over. Will make the creditors quite happy collecting all that money, I’m sure.
Re: Re:
I’d prefer the government seize the entire company, by force if necessary, but yes, that sort of severe punishment should be implemented.
Re: Re: Re:
That’s because, like many who read and comment on this site, you’re communist scum.
Re: Re: Re:2
And many who troll with angry comments are submissives despite their macho bravado, as in a fascist state everybody submits to the dictator in chief.
Re: Re: Re:3
” in a fascist state everybody submits to the dictator in chief.”
Might want to read some history.
Re: Re: Re:2
Advocating for corporate asset forteiture (ie, the government seizing an entire corp) as punishment for harming human life due to corporate greed is communism now, eh?
Might want to read the fucking context before trying to defame someone, eh?
Re: Re: Re:2
The light from your projection is blinding.
Re: Re:
I think we should, at least, have strong incentive for any life-critical[0] system should be fully owner serviceable (either direct, or by an agent of theirs). And at no significant effort beyond that of the servicing they wish to effect.
[0] That is, any device, product/component where a failure or break is likely to endanger a life.
Re:
Is “bricking” an accurate term in either case? To my knowledge, the HP printers still “work”, but just reject third-party cartridges. That’s shitty and abusive behavior that should be punished, but “bricking” would mean the printer would stop working entirely pending extraordinary repair (like hooking up JTAG probes, re-flashing firmware, or returning to the manufacturer).
I don’t think HP is “bricking” the printers, and I doubt the SoClean will brick itself on a third-party filter. Put the first-party product into either, and they’ll likely start working again.
By the way, CPAP hacking has been popular for many years. Some people swear by it; apparently the manufacturer firmware sucks about as much as printer firmware (for which third-party versions in the style of OpenWRT would also be great; perhaps the people suing HP can push for that as a settlement).
Re: Re:
This whole thing got this far exactly because of settlements in previous lawsuits. I’d counsel the plaintiffs to accept no settlement options, and instead to stay the course and make it a case law that HP is on official and judicial notice that such behavior in the future will not result in a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Re: Re: Re:
Can you be more specific? I’m not aware of any such history, except the toothless Canon settlement that Karl mentioned. A settlement that got a company to open up their software, though, would not be toothless, and is probably beyond anything a court could force them to do. (The WRT54G settlement is continuing to pay off, 20 years later.)
How many lawsuits
How many lawsuits will it take for HP to stop doing this? Only one, but it has to cost the company 10% or 20% of their revenue, rather than a tiny fine.
At this point, tiny fines are basically a slap on the wrist and a cost of doing business. So a judge need to send a message that repeatedly doing this is not acceptable.
Microsoft do this whereby your legitimately purchased computer becomes unusable if your post-7 OEM-loaded copy of Windows cannot be checked to ensure that it is indeed not an infringing copy. No Internet access = bricked laptop.
Re:
Just keep a live Linux ISO available on a thumb drive, and you will find you can have a working system, largely comparable with office documents, so you can continue working despite not being online.
Re: Re:
No Internet access = no access to Linux distro, dumbass.
Re: Re: Re:
Did you not notice I said keep a live distro available, you set up the thumb drive while you have Internet access, as it can also be useful for data recovery when windows goes blue screen. Like any backup you need to prepare it ahead of needing it.
Re: Re: Re:
“No Internet access = no access to Linux distro, dumbass.”
Back in the day …
one was able to request software resident upon physical media. Said media was then forwarded to the requestor via the postal service. Maybe some folk out there still do this? idk.
Re: Re: Re:
You can access Linux distros from other people if needed.
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This seems to be yet another misuse of the term “brick”. If you’re still able to go into BIOS and boot an alternate operating system, it’s not bricked. (Still a dick move on Microsoft’s part, but people have been bitching about that since Windows XP introduced it—22 years ago—and MS have obviously received the message that people will, by and large, give in.)
PCLDLTR???
WTF does that mean?
Re:
lolwut?
Re: Re:
It feels good to be a gangster
Re:
Means it’s baseball bat time.
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It means PC LOAD LETTER.
Basically, in older American laser printers (particularly HP ones from the 80’s to mid 90’s) this was the error message telling you were out of (letter sized) paper. The PC part of the message is referring to the tray you load the paper into. That tray is called the paper cassette and that term is still in use by some companies.
Older error messages have a tendency to look vague or strange due to either technical issues that no longer occur in more modern hardware, compadibility concerns that were much more relevant than they are now, or a shift in terminology.
For another Printer related example of odd error message with history, there’s a UNIX/Linux error message that is typically written to the effect of “Printer on Fire” due to the potential fire hazard with paper jams in some of the older laser printers.
It’s not just 3rd party cartridges either, if you cancel your ink “subscription” with them, you’re immediately locked out. Fine print, etc.
This has been in court before, EPSON
Why arent the other corps covered by this.
https://www.action-intell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Absolute-Inkjet-and-CIS-Systems-answer-to-Epson-complaint.pdf
Cant find all of this?
But why is this still happening.
CIS(continuous ink system) Company as well as a type of Ink system, that can deliver OUNCES of ink at the same price of a FULL SET of smaller Cartridges.
EPSON has a series of printers NOW, that have Much larger Cartridges and CAN be refilled.
Lets see,
You run out of black ink and hte whole machine stops working.
You run out of Any color and the whole machine stops working.
Add to above with Scanner/Copier ALSO.
Programmed Cartridges? That only deliver ?? pages then Printer STOPS working.(very expensive tech)
TIMED cartridges. ITS INK, as long as its moist it should WORK. (NOPE)
Printer heads get Filled with ink and it Dries and no longer works? There is a Scraper/wiper inside, that SHOULD SOLVE this, but that aint how its working.
1 Company Solves this problem, but changing the cartridges you change the print head at the same time(Brother)(anyone seen them recently?)
Simple warning to all. Print 1 page per week, Simple Color art or test page. It help keep the Print heads from drying out.
It would be GREAT if they did this abit different, and Leave the Cartridges in 1 place, and the head goes back and forth, and at the END, Blasts a bit of AIR thew the nozzles. SOLVE all the problems. NOPE. They wont do that.
Re: For anyone looking for them
https://absoluteinkjet.com/
https://www.amazon.com/continuous-ink-system/s?k=continuous+ink+system
Some of these are to the point, depending on your printing) you may NEVER run out of ink in your life.
you will pay MORE for hte paper to print on, or the printer will DIE First.
AND thats another point. Most HOME printers DO NOT LAST more then a few years.
Re:
I have a 15 year old deskjet f2180, which sat on a shelf unloved and unused gathering dust for about 12 years, yet printed perfectly with the ink cartridges that has been in it since new. So, there is no need for short life ink cartridges, so long as they park and seal properly.
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Brother’s still around, I’ve got one of their inkjets cause i make books and cards as a hobby. (I realize Laser printing is more efficient, but a few of my initial projects required higher detail and color, and replacing color toner is a pain.)
Fun fact: Books are held together mostly by glue (and thread/cords depending on method created).
That could be circumvented for personal use.
The anti circumventuon statutes only apply to those doing it for some kind of financial gain, specifically making money
This is why as the feds mandate stuff on cars people don’t want, shops in Mexico can disable those and American laws do.nit apply
And it would not be illegal for the end user sin e it is not being done for the purpose of making money
The government controlled kill switch coming to 2026 and later cars can be circumvented for personal without committing a felony because you are not doing it to.make money
Just like 20 years ago when I would plug a take recorder into the back of my computer to record drm protected tracks into cassette tapes so I could play have them in the car did not break the dnca because I was only doing it for personal use and not doing to make money.
Fur it to be a felony under the dmca you have to be doing it to make money.
Re: let me suggest
“The government controlled kill switch coming to 2026 and later cars can be circumvented for personal without committing a felony because you are not doing it to.make money”
That the Chip will be needed for the car to work. Unless you are willing to pay a couple $1000 to have an XRAY of the chip and/or read the programming inside. you will need another chip to replace it at the very least.
Re: Re:
My ppint is that the criminal anti circumvention statutes of the dmca do not apply to the end user, which is why the “commercial or private financial gain” requirement is in there.
Also, the dmca does not apply in mecico. I could see mexican hackers “chipping” vehicles with replacement chips to neuter the kill switch.
The end user woukd not be committing a crime as the dmca does not apply to the end user.
That is why for example why 20 years ago I could plug a tape recorder into my computer and record drm protected tracks onto cassette tapes for the car and not be committing any felony as I was not doing it for the purpose of making money
You must tweet 5 nice things about Space Karen before your car will start.
We’re building a relationship!!
Re:
Does the sentence, “Elon Musk has done an excellent job of demolishing the stock value of his social media site” count?
Why Not Just Make It Clear?
2010 HP lost 3 lawsuits related to their practice of screwing customers on ink & printer = $5 MILLION
Then they were sued again over Planned obsolescence in 2017. In 2018 they settled a $1.5 million deal over printer firmware updates that caused fake error messages upon using third party ink cartridges.
Why all the idiocy? I work for the money I spend as does most every other consumer in this country, so it seriously pisses me off that companies get away with stealing it. And that’s EXACTLY what they are doing when they try to FORCE me to spend MY money with them on overpriced anything when I can get the same whatever somewhere else. If I purchase a thing and it is in my house, it belongs to me. If a person comes in to my house and throws that item in the floor, they are going to go to jail with a busted nose. But HP can repeatedly try to screw customers and no judge has the presence of mind to tell them “If you DO NOT STOP with the anti-trust like behavior, you will be sorry (followed by whatever it is legally able to do to HP)? If an individual citizen were to pull the BS (in a citizen like manner) that HP and other companies have been caught REPEATEDLY doing, they would go to prison or something, but huge companies are able to skate because they pay people off?
This same sort of issue is popping up in more and more purchase decisions. It is NOT okay for companies to try to screw consumers, but don’t depend on consumer protection laws because, ESPECIALLY when anything electronic/digital is involved, they do nothing for you. I just went through it with a site where I had purchased several hundred digital files and suddenly had my account locked and was effectively prevented from accessing hundreds of dollars’ worth of purchases.