Fixing McDonald's ice cream machines is no longer a felony

It's a truth universally acknowledged that McDonald's McFlurry ice cream machines are broken more often than not. As of this very writing, there's about a 15 percent failure rate across the entire United States, according to McBroken.

In 2023, the folks at iFixit tried to figure out the source of the problem—which turned out to largely be an issue of copyright law:

Did you know that when an ice cream machine is "broken," it's often just software getting in the way? Locked behind passwords and cryptic error messages, even a simple fix can become an expensive technician call-out.

Taylor, the manufacturer of these machines, keeps a tight lock on error codes and manuals. This leads to frequent, pricey service calls, making up a significant chunk of their profits

Thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it would technically be a felony to try and fix one of those McFlurry machines without the manufacturer's involvement, as doing so would require you to tamper with their technology and circumvent their protections beyond the terms of service.

Fortunately, the US Copyright Office does offer some exceptions to the Draconian policies contained within the DMCA. iFixit, along with advocacy group Public Knowledge, not only pursued this avenue—now, it seems, they've won!

From PublicKnowledge:

Today, the U.S. Copyright Office partially granted an exemption requested by Public Knowledge and iFixit to allow people to circumvent digital locks in order to repair commercial and industrial equipment. The Office did not grant the full scope of the requested exemption, but did grant an exemption specifically allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment – including soft serve ice cream machines similar to those available at McDonald's. The Copyright Office reviewed the request as part of its 1201 review process, which encourages advocates and public interest groups to present arguments for exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose added that:

Today's recommendations are a victory for everyone: franchise owners, independent repair shops, and anyone who's had to bribe their kids with a chilly treat on lengthy road trips. It's been a long and rocky road to secure a right to repair, and while there are plenty of dips and twists ahead, today's decision from the Copyright Office will lead to an overdue shake-up of the commercial food prep industry. There's nothing vanilla about this victory; an exemption for retail-level commercial food preparation equipment will spark a flurry of third-party repair activity and enable businesses to better serve their customers.

While we are disappointed that the Register recommended a narrower exemption than we had proposed, this does not soften our enthusiasm. We will continue to chip away at half-baked laws blocking the right to repair, sprinkling consumer victories as we go. Today's win may not be parfait, but it's still pretty sweet.

Get it? It's sweet? Cuz it's ice cream?

Unfortunately, the ruling exempts retail-level food equipment, which means that commercial and industrial-scale equipment is still locked down under the DMCA.

You can read the full ruling here. In the meantime, you can celebrate by finding a local McDonald's with a functioning McFlurry machine (though you may want to wait for that deadly E. coli breakout to die down first).

US Copyright Office "frees the McFlurry," allowing repair of ice cream machines [Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica]

Public Knowledge, iFixit Free the McFlurry, Win Copyright Office DMCA Exemption for Ice Cream Machines [Shiva Stella / Public Knowledge]