Three things are certain in life, death, taxes, and the McDonald’s McFlurry machine being broken when you want a sweet treat.
However, the third certainty may soon be done with, as a recent court ruling will now let McDonald’s franchises fix their soft serve ice cream machines on their own.
Previously, the Taylor brand ice cream machines were not allowed to be repaired by anyone unauthorized by the company, as it owns the copyright and exclusive rights to fix the machines.
However, a copyright exemption was granted last week by the United States Copyright Office, giving restaurants the “right to repair” the machines by bypassing the digital locks that prevented fixes from occurring before.
Prior to the exemption, the issue with the machines was so common that it created an online meme about the frequency with which they were down and McFlurries were unavailable. A third-party website named McBroken.com was created to track how often they were unavailable.
The exemption goes into effect on Monday. It was requested by the advocacy group Public Knowledge and repairs website iFixIt. Now, third parties will be allowed to fix the machines when they go down.
Meredith Rose, a senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, shared in a statement that the decision was 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,” Rose said.
McDonald’s and Taylor have yet to comment on the exemption.