Warning – you may be in a feudal relationship with your printer!

Credit: Ars Technica

If you have a Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro, or Office Jet Pro X printer, chances are, third-party ink cartridges no longer work.

Reason? HP would prefer that you buy their cartridges, rather than reasonably priced third-party alternatives.

“When you buy a device that’s designed to update itself automatically & the company reserves to itself in law the right to take away something [that device] had when you bought it, you’re really buying a device whose long-term feature set is unknowable,” says Corey Doctorow, special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“The people who make your microwave don’t get to tell you what kinds of frozen dinners to use,” says Doctorow. “That’s not a property relationship. That’s a feudal relationship, in which you are a tenant of these things that you’ve nominally purchased.” Credit: Wired

What can you do?

● third-party cartridges with chips designed to circumvent HP’s effort to control their customers’ property, are in the pipe-line

● don't buy HP printers

Wired:
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/hp-printer-drm/?mbid=nl_92316_p3&CNDID=

The Verge:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/19/12979766/hp-firmware-drm-printers-third-party-ink-cartridges

Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/hps-drm-sabotages-off-brand-printer-ink-cartridges-with-self-destruct-date/ / HP Hewlett-Packard DRM Ink cartridges printer and ink business revenue is down obsolescence knock-off cartridges third party third-party cartridges cheap alternative HP solution DRM OfficeJet OfficeJet Pro Office Jet Pro X printer reasonably priced third-party third party ink cartridges no longer work 123inkt Dutch sells HP-compatible cartridges HP protect HP innovations intellectual property WIRED HP customers HP security chip cartridges printers warning HP-approved HP approved last year HP implemented firmware update enterprise printers last week locked out cartridges other cartridges may not function stash third-party cartridges company that sells them tough luck device designed update itself automatically take away something device] had when you bought buying a device Corey Doctorow special advisor Electronic Frontier Foundation consumers other products imposing DRM after the fact you never really own it property relationship feudal relationship tenant nominally purchased HP HP rival Lexmark fought contentious lawsuit Static Control Components microchips circumvent Lexmark’s printer DRM court rejected Lexmark’s claim Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects underlying software security hand-off ACRA v. Lexmark patent law protected consumers sending cartridges third-party companies refill old Lexmark cartridges with cheaper ink HP’s locked-in model Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor blades /