I'd love to see the exact legal language that even specifies that condition "required to return".
After all we can assume that most people don't do that or actually that those who don't return the cartridge almost certainly suffer no legal jeopardy for that inaction. If you are required to do something by a contract, then you would expect some degree of enforcement when the contract terms haven't been met. My guess is that Lexmark can't show any action they take for cartridges not returned.
I've often noted how companies that sell laser cartridges will give you a free label to UPS the cartridge back to them. They cloak it as "recycling" but it serves two purposes. It gives them a free cartridge to refill but it also takes away a cartridge that could be used by a third party that would a sale from the company.
I don't understand the comment that you make about not owning the batteries in an electric car. If you own the electric car, then you own the batteries, that's not in question.
However, manufacturers often put measures into place that make ownership less useful:
-- They might load software into the device that makes it respond to their control, and limits your ability to use the object
-- They might restrict availability of manuals, repair parts and other information to incentivize you to use their service facilities
However, I would argue that these are not the same as infringing on your ownership.
Frankly, this seems like an area where the FSF could do a lot of good and garner a lot of goodwill.
I'd say that's a pretty direct infringement on my ownership, but then again I've got a few tin-foil hats lying around.
[1]http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2015/04/john-deere-and...
[2]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150421/23581430744/gm-sa...
[3]http://news.boldride.com/2015/04/gm-wants-to-make-working-on...
Not to mention I think it's currently illegal to Jailbreak an iPhone or root an Android, despite them being yours.
I really do wish the US was as cut/dry as you make it seem, and I wish they cared about consumers more, but in reality, Companies get far more rights then we, as consumers, do.
Edit:Formatting
Has the 2012 DMCA jailbreaking exemption now expired? I know exemptions expire every three years, but I wasn't sure exactly when.
See also this timeline of the EFF's efforts in getting DMCA exemptions: https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking#United_States
It's where you want to modify the software and post a derivative work online that copyright law kicks in. You may as well say that you do not "own" a book, because you don't have the right to share an edited version of it. Sort of true, but not very interesting.
False premise: you often cannot blow away the firmware, because it is either hard-coded, or signed.
And even when said premise is correct for a device, there are cases where the firmware inherently requires copyrighted material (For instance, requiring a (copyrighted) poem in a handshake).
No way! Copyright law does not prevent someone from creating a new work that is designed to be compatible with an old work. Likely outcomes are that the poem would not qualify for copyright protection for that usage (it's not a poem as much as a sequence of arbitrary bytes to be read only by a computer), or that a fair use finding would be made, perhaps on the grounds that the copy does not affect the market for the original work - i.e. nobody was paying for the poem. Most likely a judge would just throw out the entire case at the start as a waste of the court's time.
Do you want the state to use men with guns to force everything with a microcontroller in it to also come with an SDK? I'm basically a socialist, and even I think that's ridiculous overreach.
You could be held for circumvention of copy protection schemes.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/unlocking-new-cel...
What GM, Ford, John Deere, Apple, etc. have said is that you can't tinker with their firmware that is installed on the device. None of them would argue that they can come repossess your tractor/car/mobile phone.
As others have pointed out, it is not currently illegal to jailbreak a phone, though that may change in the near future.
To make an analogy and play devil's advocate a little further, it would be hard to argue that I don't own my home. There is a deed to that effect recorded with the county, more than I can say for anything else I own. Yet:
* The state can take it from me in short order if I don't pay my taxes
* I have to get a permit from the city to make any substantial modifications to the property
* There is a neighborhood association that dictates property uses as well, which I have to comply with
* I couldn't just knock the house down and build a car repair garage -- city zoning ordinances restrict how I use my property.
And yet, I don't hear a big outcry that I don't truly own my house.
... an implied license for the life of the
vehicle to operate the vehicle
You could argue that, but you'd be going against the clear meaning of ownership over the last few hundred years.
When I swing by Office Max to pick up toner, or click the Amazon button to add it to my card, there is literally no verbiage either presented to me or agreed to by me that would indicate anything other than a flat-out sale. One can't argue any such thing because no contract is sought or required for end users to buy toner.