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2026-10-21 14:38:48

kbal@fedia.io

jailbreaking your printer so it accepts generic ink

What did my printer ever do to end up in ink jail, anyway? If you bought, at the store, for money, a printer — and the ink you want to put into it isn't itself made of some kind of contraband devil ink, then you should be allowed to put whatever ink you want into it. If you can figure out how to make it run on ketchup instead of ink, well it's your fucking printer isn't it? Putting normal ink designed to go into printers into it should not be violating any laws. The fantasy that doing so is akin to a prison break — enshrined in law though it may be — is absurd. This was as obvious to to the very few people paying attention to such things when they passed that stupid law thirty years ago as it should be to everyone today. For how long can law so thoroughly opposed to common morality survive?

2026-10-21 14:47:10

Cory Doctorow

pluralistic@mamot.fr

@kbal No, that's the tragedy. The people who enacted this policy were specifically warned about this. Worse, though, are the politicians abroad who were arm-twisted to passing the law more than a decade later, who could *see* how the law was being abused in the US and passed domestic versions in their own country anyway. Inexcusable.