McDonald’s ice cream machines have become notorious throughout the years for the frequency at which they break down. There’s even a website — called McBroken — dedicated to tracking McDonald’s restaurants where the ice cream machine isn’t working.
Wendy’s took advantage of its rival’s adversity last month by teaming up with McBroken to add its locations to the map while simultaneously promoting its $1 Frosty special. In 2022, Jack in the Box also poked fun at McDonald’s machines. There have even been a couple of lawsuits related to the malfunctioning equipment.
Such fodder may be coming to an end, however. The U.S. Copyright Office just granted an exemption that allows third parties to diagnose and repair commercial equipment, including McDonald’s ice cream machines.
As The Verge explains, the copyright law prevents any company other than the manufacturer, which in McDonald’s case is Taylor Company, from bypassing its software locks. That has posed a challenge given that McDonald’s workers have described the process for maintaining the machines as “overly complicated” with an overnight cleaning cycle that can easily fail and that takes a Taylor repairperson to fix it, as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2021.
Earlier that year, Taylor was hit with a lawsuit accusing the company of having a monopoly on the chain’s repairs and refusing to allow customers to use outside sources to get the machines fixed. Franchisees have taken it upon themselves to seek out external solutions to their broken ice cream machines, which ultimately led to the Copyright Office’s decision last week.
Last year, iFixit and Public Knowledge filed for an exemption from copyright law after performing a teardown of the machine. That exemption was supported by the United States Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in May before moving to the Copyright Office’s desk.
Notably, the FTC began investigating the broken-down ice cream machines in 2021 after a spate of complaints and petitions signed by both McDonald’s employees and customers demanding the problem be fixed.
In its decision last week, the Copyright Office did not grant the full scope of the requested exemption, however an exemption specifically allowing for the repair of retail-food level food preparation equipment, including McDonald’s soft serve ice cream machines, was granted.
“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,” Public Knowledge senior policy counsel Meredith Rose said in a statement.
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
