Dymo sells gadgets that print labels, but what it really wants is for you to cough up for the consumables every time you need to use one. The company has added DRM to its latest printer and the paper that goes in it, reports the EFF, which outright describes the move as a "scam."
This printer forces you to buy Dymo's own labels, which are substantially more expensive than many of its competitors' labels (Dymo's labels retail for about $10-$15 per roll; alternatives, about $2-$5 per roll). The reason they don't say this is obvious: no one wants this.
If a Dymo owner wants to buy Dymo labels, they will buy them. The only reason to add this anti-feature is to force Dymo owners who don't want to buy Dymo labels to buy them anyway. All the advanced features that Dymo touts for its RFID-locked labels could be attained without the lock-in.
Remember: "$500,000 in fines and a 5-year prison sentence for bypassing an access control".
DRM in paper is such an abysmal, abusive idea that we should all recoil from it. Dymo's betting that people who get suckered into buying its latest models will shrug and take it. But we don't have to do that.
