The soft-serve machines at McDonald's restaurants are that their reliable unreliability have long been the butt of jokes, memes 鈥� and now even a rallying cry in this year鈥檚 presidential race.
The widespread issue has even spurred the creation of McBroken, an for broken machines across the U.S.
A new exemption to a copyright law could pave the way for quicker repairs to the machines, sweetening the McFlurry maker's sour reputation.
Before this week, most of the McDonald's ice cream makers could only be fixed through the machine鈥檚 manufacturer. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects the code embedded in the ice cream machines, made it illegal for third parties, like McDonald鈥檚 employees and franchisee owners, to break the digital locks installed by manufacturers.
, which went into effect on Monday, allows outside vendors to fix 鈥渞etail-level commercial food preparation equipment.鈥� That includes McDonald鈥檚 ice cream machines, as 404 media journalist .
It鈥檚 a win for the 鈥渞ight to repair鈥� movement, which pushes back against companies incentivized to control the repairs made to their own products. The for legislation that gets manufacturers to provide consumers and independent repair services access to their parts, tools and service information so consumers can get their own, legally bought devices fixed. The movement prevailed when Apple in 2021 announced it would allow customers to .
While the change applies to other devices and machines, McDonald鈥檚 and its ice cream machines have become particularly galvanizing topics, especially in the run-up to the presidential election.
Two days before the law went into effect, former President Donald Trump posted a of him at a McDonald鈥檚 drive-thru, with a photoshopped President Biden holding an ice cream cone, alongside a promise: "WHEN I鈥橫 PRESIDENT THE MCDONALD鈥橲 ICE CREAM MACHINES WILL WORK GREAT AGAIN!鈥�
It's possible the Biden administration beat him to it. Federal regulators backed right-to-repair advocates who petitioned for the exemption to food prep machines. Back in March, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to the U.S. Copyright Office recommending the change.
Both iFixit, an online repair website, and Public Knowledge, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, petitioned for the exemption.
鈥淭his is a significant step forward,鈥� celebrating the move, but said the rule doesn鈥檛 go far enough. While the ruling makes it legal for people to repair machines, wrote the guide鈥檚 Elizabeth Chamberlain, 鈥渋t doesn鈥檛 allow us to share or distribute the tools necessary to do so.鈥�
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